Gender and the Media: Assessing the Visibility of Women in the Nigerian Press from Five Widely Circulated National Dailies
- January 13, 2021
- Posted by: RSIS Team
- Categories: IJRISS, Mass Communication
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue XII, December 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186
Izunwanne, Gloria Nnedimma1, Akor, George Bassey2 & Elesia, Christian Chukwudubem3
1Department of Mass Communication, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria
2Department of Mass Communication, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria
3Department of Political Science, Tansian University, Umunya, Nigeria
Abstract – The mass media have been accused of inequality in gender representations from the continuous decline of female reporters to the stereotyping of women in news reportage and the exclusion of women in news source selection. The visibility of women in the Nigerian press was assessed by analysing the manifest content of an edition each of five widely circulated national dailies namely: Vanguard, The Guardian, Daily Sun, New Telegraph and The Nation, published in August, 2020. The purpose was to find out if the various accusations are justified. The study was hinged on the muted group theory which stated that women belong to the minority group in environments where men control power. The visibility of women in the Nigerian press was examined by checking the representations of women against their male counterparts through the by-lines, newsmakers, contributors, photographs, portrayal, beats, prominence and senior staff positions which made up the content categories where the units of analysis were drawn. Data collected were statistically presented in tables and graphs. The findings show that the male gender dominated with over 80% in every content category examined in each of the newspapers. The study concluded that there still remains an overwhelming gender gap in favour of the men in the Nigerian press. The women are the muted group and are almost invisible the print media. Therefore, the study recommended that the media should consider gender reforms and avoid the exclusion of women.
Keywords – Gender, inequality, stereotyping, gender gap, gender representation.
I. INTRODUCTION
Gender inequality is a global issue of concern and the strife for equality is very common in patriarchal societies such as Africa where there is a clear defined inequality between the male and the female gender in several, if not almost all spheres of human socialization. Societal
