Women in Caribbean News Media: Challenges and Opportunities for Inclusion

Abstract

Purpose

This paper examines the treatment of women in Caribbean news media, their visibility in relation to men, the news topics covered and the issues that influence the inclusion or exclusion of women in the news.

Methodology/approach

The work is based on a quantitative content analysis. Data and analyses focus on the 2015 findings of a regional and global longitudinal study entitled ‘Who Makes the News’, conducted every 5 years since 1995 by the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), with active Caribbean participation. It is mainly the results of the 2015 Caribbean content analysis that is presented and considered here against the background of the prior data gathering cycles. On a single day, March 25, 2015, 120 newspapers, radio and television stations, internet and twitter news sites across the Caribbean region and globally were monitored for content and treatment by gender, across seven news topic categories.

Findings

The study found a continuing under-representation of women in news coverage, but on a differentiated basis by topic category, among others. Overall, there was a regional average of 28% of women in the news compared with 72% of men. However, while this confirmed a consistent gender disparity throughout the 20-year lifespan of the study, the 2015 results for the Caribbean reflected a three percentage points narrowing of the gap in favour of women when compared to 2010.

Research limitations

The empirical study on which the paper is based is only a snapshot in time and may not reflect the nuances that a broader data gathering timeframe and additional data gathering could provide. It also does not offer qualitative data on the definitive reasons for the results, leaving a basis for informed but nevertheless only conjectural author analyses as to reasons. At the same time, the longitudinal nature of the study allows for well-founded inferences associated with past findings and now predictable trends.

Practical implications

The findings and analyses in this paper disclose a continuing disparity that invites practical measures at the level of news organizations and journalists to redress the imbalance.

Social implications

The results and analysis lend support to advocacy for greater gender balance in news coverage, more respect for female newsmakers and better newsroom coverage planning and inclusive policy-making.

Originality/value

The study shines a light on an important area of disparity in public life, but does so with the support of multi-country statistical and multi-year longitudinal data. It provides a yardstick by which changes in media overage can be measured and monitored over time.

Citation

Dunn, H.S. and Thomas, M.D. (2016), "Women in Caribbean News Media: Challenges and Opportunities for Inclusion", Communication and Information Technologies Annual (Studies in Media and Communications, Vol. 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 157-178. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2050-206020160000012010