A good 15 years later, it still remains bad news for women.
Women constituted less than a quarter (22 per cent) of the people heard or read about in the news (i.e., as news subjects) across all topic categories in India. Only 12 per cent of news stories have women as the central focus (i.e. focussed specifically on one or more women). If that's not enough, only 5 per cent of the news stories highlight gender equality or inequality. Worse still, nearly two thirds (63 per cent) of the news stories reinforce gender stereotypes while only 9 per cent challenge them.
The numbers come from the India section of the 2010 report of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP). The GMMP is the largest and longest running research and advocacy initiative on fair and balanced gender representation in the news media. It is coordinated by WACC, a global network of communicators promoting communication for social change.
This year, for the first time since India began participating in the five-yearly GMMP process (1995, 2000, 2005), a national report has been produced to specifically present the results of GMMP monitoring in India. Conducted by volunteers across the country, the research was coordinated by the Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI). The media monitored here included 20 dailies, 11 TV news bulletins, and five radio bulletins, together representing nine languages. The report Who Makes the News? The Global Media Monitoring Project 2010 was released on September 29, along with regional and national reports.
The report has come up with a number of other facts:
- An overwhelming proportion of experts/ commentators (82 per cent) and spokespersons (87 per cent) featured in the news were male.
- Women featured in the news primarily as ‘persons on the street’ or as representatives of "popular opinion" (54 per cent).
- Among news subjects, men outnumbered women in almost all occupational categories represented in the news. The only categories with a larger proportion of women than men were: homemaker-parent, celebrity-artist-actor-writer-singer, and activist-civil society worker.
- Nearly a third (30 per cent) of the female news subjects in the Indian news media was identified by their family status while only 5 per cent of male news subjects were similarly identified.
- Only 12 percent of the news stories had women as the central focus (i.e., focussed specifically on one or more women).
- Men vastly outnumbered women among reporters across all media and all news topics. Only in a couple of topic categories (such as crime and violence, and celebrity, arts, media and sports) was the difference less stark.
- Less than half the presenters and announcers on Indian radio and television were women.
- About a third (34 per cent) of the news stories in the print media and less than half (43 per cent) of the stories on TV were reported by women. None of the journalists reporting news on radio on monitoring day were women.
The India report of the GMMP 2010 was written by Ammu Joseph (who coordinated the GMMP process in India on behalf of the NWMI) and Sameera Khan, with inputs and assistance from Sharmila Joshi, Laxmi Murthy, Kalpana Sharma, Shangon Dasgupta and Shashi Iyer.
The India country report should be read along with the global report, which goes into more detail about the methodology and significance of the various datasets.
