Is news is a male-dominated discourse, in which social phenomena, issues and concerns most closely linked to the experiences of women receive less news attention than they seem to deserve?
This study examines the representation of gender in the television news medium. It tests the hypothesis that the CBC's The National will reflect a masculine bias in its news content, with men as the primary sources, subjects of news items, and producers of news; consequently women and men who are not white or part of the culture of power will find little in The National's news content to validate their own everyday experience.
A content analysis of 15 editions of The National's weeknight program was conducted, for the period April to May, 1996. Program transcripts were analyzed and coded according to the following categories: gender and race (coded as 'white' or 'visible minority') of each guest on the program, and each reporter, program topic (coded as: international politics, domestic politics, economics, social, culture, and other); occupation of source (coded as: current or former government representative, professional, corporate representative, labour leader, public interest advocate, racial/ethnic leader, and other); length of speaking time allocated to female and male sources (measured in transcript lines).
Of the 15 programs analyzed, a total of 309 sources were identified and coded. The presence of white, male sources was overwhelming: 84% of all sources were identified as male; of these male sources, 8% were visible minorities. Female sources were also predominantly white: of the 49 appearing over the 15 programs, 10% were visible minorities. As a group, visible minorities represented 8% of the total sources.
People in 'elite' occupations accounted for 70% of all 219 occupations represented in the 15 programs. Of these, males accounted for 89% (196). Excluding the 56 sources that lived outside Canada, women constituted only 13% of people in the elite occupations. 25% of male sources comprised 'non-elite' occupational categories. Notably, women's largest representation in any category fell into 'other,' with 31% of all women sources appearing to have undefinable occupations. Only 14% of male sources had undefinable occupations.
In terms of total representation, men accounted for 86% of sources for hard news¹ stories, and 75% of 'soft news' stories. Of the total 49 female sources, 41% appeared as sources for domestic politics issues; males appeared at roughly the same rate. The second largest representation of women was in the area of 'social issues,' at 27% of the total 49; men's appearance as sources for 'social issues' accounted for 16% of their total representation.
Conclusions
The study concludes that CBC's The National is not only dominated by men, but by white men from elite backgrounds. A particularly interesting finding was the prominence of female sources and reporters for domestic stories (often considered to be 'soft news'), while males dominated 'hard news.'
Researcher: Angela Austman