Gender Equality in Journalism: Analytical Essay

The UN Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a guideline challenging the key problems of the 21st century: poverty, inequality and climate change. One of the pre-conditions to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals is the empowerment of women, which is reflected in the goal on gender equality and women’s rights (Goal 5). A central topic which is inevitable target is gender equality in journalism and media. Mass and news media are influential actors to advance the gender equality agenda (UN Women, n.d.). They play an important role when it comes to the development of social constructions of gender roles. They are reflecting but also shaping reality in society, for example how men and women are seen in society (Fröhlich & Holtz, 1995, p. 11). Consequential it is fundamental to enhance and implement gender mainstreaming in news media. Before media organisations can start improving their gender equality situation, an accurate analyzation of the status quo is required. Researchers in media and communication science, gender studies as well as in well-respected organisations like the UNESCO, UN and EIGE have been dedicated to the issue of gender inequality in media. On the one hand, there are several investigations on how women and men are represented in media content, on the other hand investigations were conducted to unfold inequity in newsrooms and media organisations. What is missing is a holistic picture of individual media organisations and a detailed analysis of their media content as well as their structural organisation regarding gender equality. This study tries to fill this research gap by applying feminist theory. The case study will be executed on the German regional newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung.

In the following the aim and the research question will be defined. Then, a detailed research review will be presented, and the main theoretical concept will be explained. Based on that, the method and the proceeding of the research will be deducted.

Aim and research question

The aim of this research is as critical and holistic analysis of one news media organisation, specifically the Stuttgarter Zeitung. In the centre of the research is its current situation in the matter of gender equality and gender mainstreaming. The media content but also the organisation per se will be analysed. Following research question shall be answered:

RQ: What is the status quo of gender equality at the Stuttgarter Zeitung regarding their news content and their organisational structure?

Research review

What is gender equality?

The European Institution for Gender Equality defines gender equality as “equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men and girls and boys” (EIGE, n.d.). The strive for equality doesn’t mean that women and men become the same rather then that everybody’s rights, responsibilities and opportunities won’t depend if they are born male or female. The needs and priorities of all gender are taken into considerations. Further, gender equality is seen as a human right issue as well as a “precondition for, and indicator of, sustainable people-centred development” (ibid.).

Gender equality in journalism

Historically journalism started as an occupation which was intended to be performed by men. Today the number of women working in the field of communication, media and journalism has never been higher. The percentage of women in journalism in the European Union is far below 50%, even though two thirds of journalists in training are women (EIGE, 2013). Numerous researches show likewise that journalism is still a gendered practice all over the globe (Djerf-Pierre, 2011).

The research in this field started in in the 70s by the merging of communication science and gender studies. Since then, generations of scientists dedicated themselves to investigate women’s position in media and the representation of women in news content – with the aim to uncover grievance and initiate change. In general, feminist research concerning media can be separated in two key aspects: gender equality in news media content and gender equality in news media organisations.

Gender equality in news content

One of the few large-scale comparative studies regarding gender representation in news content is the Global Media Monitoring Project. It is a collaboration of international researches and activist; the first report was published in 1995. Every five years the volunteering participants monitor one full day of news stories in radio, internet, newspapers and television and code them into variables like gender of the news subject, news presenters and reporters, topics, and the presence of stereotypes in the news (Djerf-Pierre, 2011). The researches uncovered large differences in over 115 participating countries, also developing over time. In