Do women feature in the news?
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Women constitute 52% of the world’s population yet make up only 21% of people featured in the news. Women are most underrepresented in radio where they are only 17% of news subjects compared with 22% on television and 21% in newspapers.
This is the major finding of a global study on gender issues in news media conducted by the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) in 2005. The data suggest that very little has changed since WACC’s 1995 and 2000 studies. The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 2005 shows that the marginalisation of women in news media is still very much a reality. The release of the report in London on 15 February 2006 will be followed by three weeks of Global Action on Gender and Media (through blog discussions, workshops, polls, surveys, debates, comments, etc). GMMP 2005 is a one-day snapshot (16 February 2005). According to WACC, these data are supported by the results of its GMMP 1995 and 2000, and numerous other regional and national studies conducted over the last 30 years. GMMP 2005 collected data from 76 countries, keeping in mind the diverse socio-cultural identities and the availability of volunteers to collect data. The data were collected through the voluntary effort of hundreds of individuals and organisations involved in communication and advocacy. About 13,000 news items on television, radio and in newspapers were examined. Margaret Gallagher was the consultant for the project. The study looks at television, radio and newspapers but leaves out the internet. In this write-up, I shall give some of the findings of the study and discuss some implications in the Indian context. Click here for more |
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