Constructing Stereotypes in Media: A Critical Analysis on the Representation of Women in Tanzanian Newspapers (original) (raw)
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Enhancing Visibility and Portrayal of Women in Tanzanian Media
This study aims at improving the position of women in Tanzanian news media by producing new knowledge and basing on it recommendations which contribute to 1) increasing visibility of women, and 2) having more balanced, diverse and multidimensional representations of women in the media. The main research questions are: 1) How often do women appear in news and feature items as sources compared to men? 2) In which social or professional roles do women appear in articles and which topics do they get to comment? Are these different from the roles and topics assigned to men? 3) How are women portrayed in texts and images? Are these representations stereotypical and/or degrading in nature? 4) What kind of cultural and practical challenges are there on the way of gender sensitive journalism? 5) What kind of practical solutions could help to improve visibility and positive portrayal of women? The research is a case study focusing primarily on two daily newspapers, Mwananchi and The Citizen, which are published by the same media house, Mwananchi Communications Limited (MCL). However, coverage of Mwananchi and The Citizen is compared to that of three tabloids, Uwazi, Ijumaa and Risasi. The research project combines quantitative and qualitative methods. The data of the quantitative content analyses consists of 1066 newspaper articles (texts and images), collected from 7 issues of each paper included in the study. The qualitative analyses of newspapers focuses on the photos with women in them in all the five papers, and on the news and feature items covering women or gender issues in The Citizen. In addition, qualitative research interviews with 30 journalists working in MCL provide insights into the cultural and practical challenges on the way of gender sensitive journalism. Findings based on the quantitative content analyses show that still in 2013, women are very invisible in the media compared to men, both as sources of the news and feature items and as subjects of photos. Women were used as sources in 24 % of articles (men in 70 %) and they appeared in photos in 28 % of all articles (men in 42 %). In the daily newspapers, women are clearly under-represented as sources and in photos compared to men. However, the representations of women are diverse and mostly positive. In the tabloids, women receive more visibility, but the portrayals of women are mostly negative, stereotypical and degrading. Interviews with reporters and editors reveal that there is still a lot to do in gender awareness of journalists, both women and men. Very few interviewees had received any training on gender issues, and most of them found it difficult to explain what gender balance or gender sensitivity might mean in the context of journalism. However, when moving on to more practical issues and examples, most of them still demonstrated understanding of problems related to the visibility and portrayal of women in media coverage, and/or to the role of women in media organizations. Most interviewed journalists understood gender sensitivity in rather mechanical and quantitative terms as simply balancing the number of female and male sources in a story. Only some of them said they would think of gender when thinking of topics and angles of stories or of the consequences and impacts of a story. Interviewed journalists explained under-representation of women in media coverage by structural, cultural, historical and practical factors. Women are under-represented as spokes-persons of organizations and in various power positions, which is reflected in the sources of media coverage. The traditional subordinate role of women makes them reluctant to be interviewed, and the prior bad treatment of women by the media causes distrust towards journalists. At the same time, the time pressure experienced by journalists makes them turn to more easily available sources. Based on the findings of the research, the following ten recommendations can be made: • Journalists should shift from the current event orientation more towards issue orientation. • Journalists should shift from elite-orientation to a more citizen- and community-based approach. • Journalists should expand their expert source network. • Journalists should pay extra attention to the practices and ethics of interviewing. • Journalists should adopt a more holistic understanding of gender sensitivity. • Media companies should formulate gender policies and make sure they are permeated through the newsroom. • Media companies should recruit more women in newsrooms. • Media companies should support female reporters for example through scholarship and mentoring programmes and a career track system. • Media companies should adopt regular self-assessment of gender sensitivity. • Media companies should provide in-house gender training for journalists.
ATHENS JOURNAL OF MASS MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS, 2019
Reviewers' Board Click Here vi President's Message All ATINER's publications including the e-journals are open access without any costs (submission, processing, publishing, open access paid by authors, open access paid by readers etc) and are independent of the presentations made at any of the many small events (conferences, symposiums, forums, colloquiums, courses, roundtable discussions) organized by ATINER throughout the year. The intellectual property rights of the submitted papers remain with the author. Before you submit, please make sure your paper meets some basic academic standards, which include proper English. Some articles will be selected from the numerous papers that have been presented at the various annual international academic conferences organized by the different divisions and units of the Athens Institute for Education and Research. The plethora of papers presented every year will enable the editorial board of each journal to select the best ones, and in so doing, to produce a quality academic journal. In addition to papers presented, ATINER encourages the independent submission of papers to be evaluated for publication. The current issue of the The Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications (AJMMC) is the second issue of the fifth volume (2019). The reader will notice some changes compared with the previous issues, which I hope is an improvement.
2008
Problem Portrayal of women in Kenya‟s print media is replete with stereotype images that portray women only in their domestic roles at the expense of their roles in national development. This study is aimed at determining the extent o f this negative portrayal and the likely explanatory reasons. Method Content analysis of newspaper articles of a sample of three major dailies—Daily Nation, The Standard, and Kenya Times—was carried out for issues between June 2002 and June 2003. A total of 144 issues were identified, coded, and analyzed. Results Women and women‟s issues are allocated less space and portrayed more negatively compared to their male counterparts in all the three dailies. However, women journalists tend to portray women more positively. Conclusions Factors contributing towards marginalization of women and women‟s issues include the patriarchal values in Kenyan society, a small number of women professionals in the media industry, and the fact that media industry is largely...
This paper surveys how the mass media in Nigeria portray women and treat issues affecting them. It begins by looking at the number and status of women in Nigerian media institutions which, it argues, reflects 'the structural oppression of women' and their 'subordination in society'. It proceeds to argue that the mass media portray women and issues affecting them in a manner that is predominately negative and 'special' as though women were not part of 'normal' society. This has constituted overt or covert mental oppression of women. It calls on women in the media to spearhead the struggle for change away from the stereotype treatment of women by the mass media, and on the media themselves to consciously eliminate such stereotype images of women in the light of the new political and social culture in Nigeria. Keywords: Media, Gender, Stereotype, Women, Nigeria.
The appearance of women in print media is symbiotic to creating attention, interest and desire to purchasing product, services or ideas that they sell on the advertising copy. In this media semiotic study, we seek to explore the overall connotative messages and examine what these advertisements represent women as in advertisements by establishing how various codes haven been combined to create a certain meanings associated with women. These associations can therefore the basis of gender stereotyping even in countries that are considered progressive in nature.
Media representation of gender stereotypes in kwara state Folorunsho Femi
MEDIA MISREPRESENTATON OF GENDER STEREOTYPES IN KWARA STATE., 2011
The media is part of most people’s daily activities, which influences how they see themselves and the world to some extent. Media refers to the various means of communication, which include electronics and printed media. In these means of communication, there is a representation of men and women, which are presented in different ways and languages to portray women in Kwara State. While the media refers to the above mentioned, it also presents a stereotypical phenomenon of an individual or people. This is based mostly on incorrect information, which basically contains ideas that are negative or prejudicial. This study adopts the survey method to tackle the problem at hand; a questionnaire will be administered to a target audience of media practitioners, i.e., program presenters, producers, bloggers, page writers, newscasters, and professionals. Also, relevant books, journals, newspapers, magazines, search engines, movies, cinemas, etc. will also be used. In this study, the question of what the media showcases about gender in the different channels and how they reinforce gender stereotypes will be considerably answered. However, this study goes ahead to explain the negative effects of stereotypes created by the media and language use in society.
2010
Thi s rescarch examined the portrayal and rcprcsentations of Ethiopian womcn In print Media , which were published from Meskerem 1, 200 I to Meskerem I, 2002 E.C To carry o ut thi s in vesti ga tion thc ma jor methodological ap proach was qua li tative rcsearch. Accord ingly, content analys is, in-depth interview and questionnaires have been used to collect data. Purposive, conveni ent and simple random samplings were employed to se lect newspapers, magazines and respondents of the study . Accordingly, li fty-two sample edi tions wcre taken from 1\\0 newspapers and one magazine (Addis Admas, Add is Zemen and Kalkidan).The stud y involved, 8 1 participants but the data were gathered ii·om 71 ind ividuals finall y. (i.e. 65 were readers and six journalists) The findi ng of the resea rch revea led that women and thcir issucs were scarcely presented in n~lVspapcrs and magazi nes. The only top ic where women had better representation was topic rdated to gcnder-bascd viol ence. In issues ...
Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 2013
Media are powerful agents of socialisation. Through representation, media helps in constructing and reproducing gender identities. The representation of how women are constructed by the media has travelled due to globalization. The 2006 Global Media Monitoring Project reveals that women are under-represented in news. The media are therefore construed as constructing gender subjectivity. For example, women are literally absent in news, politics and economics and hardly ever appear as spokespersons or as field experts. These subjective representations are often framed though the lenses of the media producers and are influenced by the political economy of the media. Media are therefore seen as representing a distorted version of women. Gallagher (2004), however states that in South Africa, the process of changing gender in the newsroom has started and media audiences, texts and institutions have changed, largely due to the persistent gender advocacy. Based on this, this paper sets out to investigate how Indian women are represented in a South African newspaper targeted at a cross-national ethnic readership. A qualitative methodology was used to analyse content and photographs appearing in ten consecutive publications of the newspaper. Themes emanating from the literature review were used to analyse newspaper content. The major findings of the investigation indicate that representations of the South African Indian woman has undoubtedly expanded, taking into account new roles and offering new identities, however certain stereotypical identities continue to prevail.
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 2014
South Africa is now in its third decade of democracy and is characterised by a social and political dispensation based on the principles of freedom of expression, non-racialism and non-sexism. These values ought to be entrenched in all aspects of our society and likewise, in the media we consume. Media is a powerful tool and through its representation contributes significantly to the definition of the world around us, and thereby also to the definition of ourselves. One such area that the media influence is the way women are represented. The media takes on an interpretative role and teaches us how to 'make sense' of the world and therefore consistently privilege some issues and identities while devaluing others. The media landscape in South Africa is large, complex, robust and mature and arguably, ranks among the largest in Africa. Magazines in particular, are modern and are popular cultural forms of representation. They are one of the most influential forces in South African culture today. The aim of this paper is to explore the representation of women in magazines and the extent of how this representation influences gender identity in either empowering or limiting the development of women in society. It employs a qualitative research methodology to examine content of selected articles in South Africa's two leading weekly magazines namely DRUM and YOU. Content analysis was used to analyse specific categories of text collected from these magazines. Overall findings reveal that stereotypical, dismissive and confining representations of women prevail in magazine media content. Creating and sustaining change must involve challenging this media content to not only increase the type of coverage of women but to extend the range of diversity to include coverage a range of stories about women including achievements and success stories of women.
REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN’S IMAGES IN NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS
The representation of women in the media has been a subject of concern. This paper examines the photographic image of women portrayed in the print media today. It explores the agenda-setting theory explaining the importance readers attach to gender representation in the print media. The research presents the findings from a content analysis of two Nigerian national newspapers using articles published from January to December 2012. The findings show that the photographic images of women in the print media are portrayed negatively which undermine the status of the African woman today depicting the Nigerian women negatively, confining them to areas traditionally meant for them, and reinforcing gender discrimination and stereotype. The findings can inform media stakeholders to come up with policy on the portrayal of photographic images of women in the print media.