As Seen in the News: Women & Pop Culture
(Source: The Global Media Monitoring Project)
A look at how much the news covers popular culture, and what place is given to women in these spaces.
Impressions are not always accurate. It might feel at times that there is an excessive coverage of the arts, entertainment, celebrities and sports in mainstream news, but the Global Media Monitoring Project – which has been keeping track of gender representation globally in news media since 1995 – shows in its latest report that these topics are not that predominant: they were covered by around 10% of news stories in print, television, radio, news sites and tweets across 116 countries all over the globe.
Here’s how that compares with the rest:
As for girls’ and women’s representation, news stories related to arts and media, celebrities and sports are among those where we saw women the most in 2020, as sources and subjects: 25% in print, radio and television news, and 33% in publications on news websites and in news media tweets.
The report also details how inclusive each of these topics is in mainstream print, radio and television.
But as we know, the number of women and girls we see in the news isn’t enough to look at how they are portrayed. On that, the GMMP does offer some insights. For instance, they analyze news content looking for stories that actually raise issues of gender equality or challenge gender stereotypes. Unsurprisingly, news about arts and media, celebrity and sports is where those types of stories are the least present.