Women Working in Mass Media - Essay Example

Women Working in Mass Media It is a surprising (for most) reality that the typical positions of women in the media industry comprise those that make up the “pink-collar ghettos”. In 2002, the Canadian Newspaper Association reported that 43 percent of Canadian newspaper employees are women. However, they account for only eight per cent of editors-in-chief and twelve per cent of publishers. Where women are mostly employed within the media industry are the areas of advertising and accounting. Women make up 70 per cent of the advertising departments and 80 per cent of the accounting and finance staffs in the Canadian newspaper industry (Media Awareness Network, 2005). In a 2002 study, The Annenberg Public Policy Center examined 57 of the largest companies and conglomerates in the entertainment, telecommunications and cable, publishing, and e-companies, as well as individual operating units within those companies. Among 10 entertainment conglomerates, women were found to comprise 13 percent of directors and 14 percent of executives. Fox Entertainment Group, Inc., and USA Networks, Inc., for example, listed no women among their top executives in their 2001 annual reports. The study found that among the 23 largest telecommunications and cable providers, women account for 12 percent of directors and 16 percent of executives. And among the 13 most successful e-companies, women make up only eight percent of directors and 18 percent of executives. Women seem to fare better in the area of publishing, where they make up 17 percent of directors and 22 percent of executives in the 11 largest companies. It has been recommended that corporations provide more training and mentoring to women to help guide their careers, do internal reviews for the hiring and retention of women at all levels, and put succession planning into place for top positions to include outreach to women (Koss-Feder, 2002). All around the globe, these numbers are typical and consistent. Those women who have achieved top status in the communications field need to push for more to women sit on the boards of these large companies, notes John Challenger, president of Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc., a Chicago-based international outplacement firm. “Mentoring younger women in the workplace is extremely important, both from men and women who have moved up to the top,” Challenger says. “This is a great way help women gain access to top positions, where they will have some real decision-making authority.” He also notes that the lack of women at the top is a major inequity for an industry that markets half of its products and services to women. "It seems unseemly to me that a business that delivers its products to an equal number of women and men does not have more women in their leadership," Challenger says. "That will need to change" (Koss-Feder, 2002). It is indeed ironic that media companies are often trying to figure out how to market more effectively and aggressively to female consumers while staffing at the highest creative levels remains disproportionately male (Girls, Women + Media, 2002). This is paralleled by the way that women are typically represented as dependent and emotional in television while also being underrepresented, according to Media and Communications Studies. The study further demonstrated showed that there are three times as many men on television as women. In a voiceover study, men’s voices were used 80 percent of the time compared to women at 20 percent during one hour of television in the show “E.R.” “Women [actresses] often complain that there are no good roles for women,” says Ph.D. in Communications at Wayne State Hayg Oshagan. Actresses also say that “there is age discrimination. Every [female] scientist is like a runway model” (Wood, 2004). When it comes to movies, studios use economic arguments to explain the abundance of female stereotypes that are found on the big screen. Movies featuring sex and violence are big international sellers. Why would this be? Sex and action films do not rely on intellectually demanding, intricate, culture-based scripts or convincing acting. Sex and action films therefore “translate” easily across cultures. Since at least 60 per cent of the movie industrys profits come from the international market, studios continue to churn out the same old stereotypes. Screenwriter Robin Swicord says, “It is very hard to get movies made that…even portray women in a fair way. I genuinely believe there is a big domestic audience for this kind of movie, but if there is only a domestic audience, it wont get made.” Director Jan Wahl agrees. “Overseas audiences still want sex and violence. Thats what sells outside the U.S. The whole world may have to change before the picture for women in Hollywood gets brighter” (Economics of Gender Stereotyping, 2005). Decision making power at the top makes a world of difference in mass media. Studies have shown that the presence of at least one female executive producer on a program doubled the number of female writers. On programs with no female executive producers, females accounted for only 13 percent of all writers. But, a 2001 study conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that only 13 per cent of the top executives of American media, telecommunications, and e-companies are female. Furthermore, that 13 percent is not concentrated at the top. Women constitute only nine percent of the boards of directors for the studied companies, and they hold only three per cent of the most powerful positions (Media Awareness Network, 2005). There are definite differences that are made when women hold positions of power in the media industry. In 2000, women editors and journalists took over the newsroom for one day at a newspaper in Wichita Falls, Texas. For the days top story a choice had to be made between a crime-stoppers story about a peeping tom and an item about local women fighting for equal rights. When the women opted for the latter story, a heated argument erupted. Journalist Laurence Pantin says that “the women finally won, but only because they held the key positions on that day. All other times, the peeping tom and stories like it would have prevailed” (Media Awareness, 2005). Indeed, an unexpected finding to come out of one study was the discovery of the paucity of female sources in stories written by women writers. Female reporters dont appear to seek out female sources any more often than do male writers. Even stories on topics of specific and great concern to women, such as abortion, often contained more quotes from men, and few or no quotes from women (Bridge, 2003). MediaWatch points out that while more than half the journalism graduates in Canada are female, studies have shown that only 30 per cent of Canadian newspaper articles are written by women. A study carried out in France in 2000 by the Association of Women Journalists (Association des femmes journalistes—AFJ) pointed out that French television devotes five to nine per cent more news coverage to women than do the other media—in all probability the result of their having more women journalists working in television than in the radio and newspaper industries. The same study showed that female journalists select six per cent more stories on women than do male journalists (Media Awareness, 2005). Furthermore, it seems that women are also under-utilized in covering the subjects considered most important—politics, the economy, and social trends. And the posting of Sophie Thibault in 2002 as the ten oclock news anchor for the national French-language channel TVA was a “first” for Canada. Most often, in that country women are consigned to noon-hour shows, local newscasts, and weekend spots (Media Awareness, 2005). Other studies show that when films and television programs employ at least one woman in a powerful, behind-the-scenes position, the number of women employed in on-screen roles increases (Koss-Feder, 2002). Behind the scenes, women in positions of power can have a definite impact on the ways women are portrayed on the screen and in print. The author of one study concludes, “When women have more powerful roles in the making of a movie or television show, we know that we also get more powerful female characters on-screen, women who are more real and more multi-dimensional” (Media Awareness, 2005). Yet, annual studies of the film industry reveal that women account for only 17 per cent of the creative talent behind the highest grossing Hollywood pictures—16 percent of executive producers, 11 percent of producers, and two percent of cinematographers (Media Awareness, 2005). From a marketing vantage point, advertisers make claims such as that they can be far less aggressive about chasing female television viewers because women are less picky about what they watch. Writer Paul Krumins interviewed industry professionals and reports that they say “women will pretty much do anything to get to snuggle with their boyfriend or husband.” Advertisers, he says, want the networks to cater to men because they feel they get the women for free. Writer Nancy Hass concurs: “Women ... tend to let men control the remote. NFL viewership, for example, is 40 per cent female, though women rarely watch football alone.” Advertisers lack of interest in women is complicated by the fact that shows with women in leading roles dont perform as well in syndication as shows starring male actors. Since networks make most of their money on reruns, prime time programming tends to be “male-skewed.” In addition, as Nancy Hass argues, “shows that dont focus on men have to feature the sort of women that guys might watch” (Economics of Gender Stereotyping, 2005). But, women working in the media have made some inroads. In 2001, the International Federation of Journalists reported that around the world, 38 per cent of all working journalists are women. Studies conducted by Canadian researchers Gertrude Robinson and Armande Saint-Jean have found that 28 per cent of newspaper editors are female. And according to San Diego State University communications professor Marta Lauzen, 24 per cent of American television producers, writers, and directors are women (Media Awareness, 2005). Nevertheless, although women are involved in careers in the communications sector more than ever before, few have attained positions at the decision-making level or serve on governing boards and bodies that influence media policy. The lack of gender sensitivity in the media is evidenced by the failure to eliminate the gender-based stereotyping that can be found in public and private local, national, and international media organizations. Men continue to occupy approximately 75 percent of the positions of power in the mass media. And the prospects become much bleaker for women as they climb the corporate ladder (Media Awareness, 2005). Works Cited Bridge, Junior. “No News is Women’s News”. Center for Media Literacy. Retrieved. Nov. 18, 2005. . Girls, Women, + Media Project. “…What Are You Looking At?” Retrieved Nov. 19, 2005. . Koss-Feder, Laura. “Study: Few Women at the Top of Media Companies”. Business & Economy. Retrieved Nov. 18, 2005. . Media Awareness Network. “Women Working in the Media”. Retrieved Nov. 18, 2005. . Media Issues. “The Economics of Gender Stereotyping”. Retrieved Nov. 19, 2005. . Wood, Martha. “Studies Show Women’s Role in the Media Still Stereotypical”. The South End. Retrieved Nov. 19, 2005. . Read More