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One of the key elements of newsmedia in a democratic society is providing
a balanced view of society within its programs. This means, among other
things, fair portrayal of different groups in society: women, minority
groups (ethnic minorities, disabled and elderly people). One of the remits
of (news)media lies in its capacity to develop attitudes and to encourage
emancipation by offering more diverse images of those groups.
In this paper, we will present results from a longitudinal study about portrayal
of men and women in (Belgian-Flemish) radio and television news and newspapers.
Through a quantitative content analysis we explore how many and in which
circumstances men and women appear, both as newsmakers and news objects.
This project started in 1995, was part of a worldwide media monitoring project
(Global Media Monitoring Project, 1995 and 2000), and is still going on.
It generated a store of data about gender representation, focussing on the
visibility , occupation, marital status, age, roles and victimisation of
men and women. The paper will show that Flemish news is still highly dominated
by men, that women are more often portrayed as victims and that men and
women are usually associated with different topics. Furthermore, the paper
shows little evolution in men/women portrayal and confirms results from
international studies. |
