{"id":4177,"date":"2014-10-01T11:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T05:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?page_id=4177"},"modified":"2014-10-01T11:04:37","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T05:34:37","slug":"faqs-october-2014","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/faqs-october-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"FAQs – October 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The extract below is taken from an article first published on Media<\/a>, a bilingual monthly journal of the Kerala Press Academy)<\/p>\n

It is, of course, important\u00a0to recognise at the outset that gender, whether in the media or otherwise, is not exclusively a women\u2019s issue.\u00a0 The construction of femininity and masculinity \u2013 in society and in the media \u2013 are closely linked.\u00a0 Some ways in which men are portrayed in the media place expectations and limitations on them that adversely affect their lives and those of the women and children in their lives, as well as other people and society in general.\u00a0 Stereotypical portrayals of men are as incompatible with gender equality as stereotypical representations of women.<\/p>\n

However, the focus here will be on the first aspect mentioned above, relating to media content in general and content of news media in particular, and on women.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), the world\u2019s longest-running and most extensive research on gender in news media, has been yielding an increasing amount of data at the international level since 1995.\u00a0Although India has participated in all four GMMPs (conducted every five years from 1995 onwards) no national report was produced here until 2010.\u00a0 Then, for the first time, the Indian data generated by the study was separately analysed and presented in a report highlighting findings within the country.<\/p>\n

Among the key findings of the GMMP 2010 are the following:
\n\u2022 Globally less than a quarter (24%) of the people heard or read about in the news is female; three quarters (76%) is male.\u00a0 In India women constitute only 22% of the news subjects across all topic categories.\u00a0 Across Asia (represented by 13 countries, including four South Asian nations) the corresponding figure is 20%.
\n\u2022 Globally only 13% of news stories focus centrally on women (i.e., focus specifically on one or more women). In India only 12% of the news stories have women as the central focus.
\n\u2022 In India women account for only 18% of the subjects in political stories and an abysmally low 10% in stories relating to the economy.\u00a0 Across Asia, the corresponding figures for women in stories on politics\/government is 16% and on the economy 15%.\u00a0 Interestingly, men dominated even in many stories where women were supposed to be the focus.\u00a0 So, for example, 60% of news subjects in stories on women in political power and women electoral candidates were men!
\n\u2022 Women seem better represented as news subjects in stories on the environment, nature and pollution (33%);\u00a0 poverty, housing and social welfare (34%);\u00a0 education (38%), violent crime (43%); and medicine, health and hygiene (51%).\u00a0 Stories on gender-based violence, including domestic violence and rape, as well as on trafficking have an equal number of male and female subjects.
\n\u2022 News in all Indian media is dominated by male subjects. But radio emerged particularly weak, with women constituting only 13% of subjects on radio news.\u00a0 On television women constituted 20% (1\/5th) of news subjects. In newspapers women comprised 24% (nearly 1\/4th) of news subjects.
\n\u2022 Many news reports continue to use language and images that reinforce gender stereotypes. Globally only 6% of all news stories challenged gender stereotypes.\u00a0 India was apparently better off, with 9% of stories challenging gender stereotypes.\u00a0 But nearly two thirds (63%) of the news stories from the Indian media that were analysed reinforced gender stereotypes.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

You can read the entire article<\/a> on Media, a bilingual monthly journal of the Kerala Press Academy. This article was written by Ammu Joseph. You can read more of her writing in \u201cMissing Half the Story:\u00a0 Journalism as if Gender Matters,\u201d <\/em>edited by Kalpana Sharma and first published on Media. <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(The extract below is taken from an article first published on Media, a bilingual monthly journal of the Kerala Press…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4177","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4178,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4177\/revisions\/4178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}