Media studies, Vol. 2 No. 3-4, 2011.
Original scientific paper
Women in Television News: Analysis of Primetime News on HTV, RTL and Nova TV
Svjetlana Knežević
; graduated in Journalism at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Science, Zagreb, Croatia
Viktorija Car
orcid.org/0000-0003-2799-8926
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
This article assesses the particularly low level of women represented on national primetime television newscasts in Croatia. In doing so, it presents the results of a content analysis covering a random,
stratified sample of HTV, Nova TV, and RTL primetime news broadcasts over the years 2009 and 2010.
According to these results, women are significantly underrepresented as main characters, experts, or even persons relevant to news stories concerning issues or problems. In particular, the results are most apparent on the primetime newscast Dnevnik, broadcasted daily on Croatia’s main public television station. Ideally, this news broadcast should rank among the best in terms of gender equality, given the principles of equality stipulated throughout Croatian law (and especially where it concerns programming legislation). Concerning the analyzed content, when women serve as the main characters in a news story, their emotional response to an issue appears to be almost obligatory. Further, women are often portrayed as victims, or as a figure to galvanize a rather black and white response, i.e. they are to be praised or blamed. Adding to this gender discrepancy, statistics show that more women than men have earned BA and MA degrees, which not only highlights the unbalanced representation of women on television news, but also distorts the actual level of female participation in society, particularly where it regards sociopolitical fields.
Keywords
WOMEN; GENDER EQUALITY; GENDER ROLES; TELEVISION; TELEVISION NEWS
Hrčak ID:
87878
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2011.
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