Thesis (M.J.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

It has been established that regardless of the fact that journalism in not a one-gender- profession anymore, news is still defined from a male perspective. A number of studies through the years examined the news content and determined that it continued male.Though news veterans acknowledge significant changes in m coming of women to the newsrooms, those changes sometimes are hard to detect on the personal level. Male and female reporters claim that even though gender can affect their approach to reporting, the final product they produce does not have gender marked on it. The present Q study is examined whether gender has an influence on reporter’s preferences in choosing a topic while covering gender-neutral issues. The participants of the study were 17 employees of the major Ukrainian TV channel "Novy Kanal.” In February of 2003 they were e-mailed 50 story ideas (constructed to include either two of five news values, such as magnitude, conflict, oddity, prominence and impact) and asked them to sort them according to their desire to cover these topics. Fourteen journalists and three editors responded. In May 2003 the sorts were analyzed with the PQMethod program, and three factors emerged representing three groups of people (Maximalists, Conservatives and Commoners) with different attitudes toward gender-neutral issues. The Maximalists, the largest group consisted only of reporters, were a sensation-oriented group of people. Magnitude and conflict were the most important news values for this factor. The Conservatives were characterized by the strong inclination towards official news, where conflict and impact played an important role. The Commoners preferred the human interest stories with oddity and impact.Each group consisted of an even number of men and women, and thus the study failed to support the notion that males and females share different attitudes toward neutral issues. No discrimination was evident toward women stories on the “Navy Kanal” TV channel. Surprisingly, men were more likely than women to choose active participants or acted as newsmakers.The findings suggested that it is women who are creating problems for the feminist movement, not men. Women correspondents at "Novy Kanal" are more immersed in patriarchal values than their male colleagues. / Department of Journalism

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for PhD: Management Sciences , Durban University of Technology. Durban. South Africa, 2015. / The history of South Africa has many scars of oppression and women have long experienced a disempowered position in society. It is also a history of intrepid efforts to emancipate South Africans from past afflictions. Media in South Africa played a key role in amplifying the apartheid regime and also overthrowing it. Media has significant power, is regarded as a bastion of freedom and nation building, and by means of its representation, contributes to our individual and social identities. Magazine media, in particular, are modern and popular cultural forms of representation. It is a significant force in South African culture and plays a central role in shaping public opinion on women. South Africa has a deep-rooted patriarchal value system and while advances can be commended, significant challenges persist. Despite women actively engaging in various aspects of society, from business to sport, they continue to receive marginal support and media attention. Stereotypical representations abound in magazine content and women are often sexualised and objectified in traditionally feminine, decorative roles and framed by their social positions as homemakers and non-professionals. This study explores magazines’ representation of women and the influence on identity construction. The connected landscapes of media’s production and consumption practices is also addressed, as there is a powerful interplay of how the economics of publishing significantly shape media content. This study proposes a model that contributes to promoting diversity in media content, ownership and control, critical citizenry and media accountability in terms of social change and gender equality. The qualitative methodological approach addresses the issue of objectification of women in editorial content and advertisements of two of South Africa’s leading consumer magazines, YOU and DRUM. The findings reveal that gender stereotypes thrive in magazine texts that repeatedly represent women as objects for male consumption, thereby not reflecting the diverse and progressive roles of modern day women. Magazine media can play a powerful role in helping to dislodge the patriarchal, public attitudes towards women. Diversified, equitable representation of gender in media is important so that it may demonstrate, and influence, society’s shift towards egalitarian principles. This study serves as a catalyst for change by building a knowledge base and raising awareness regarding magazines’ role in identity construction, by advocating gender issues and by contributing to gender parity in and through the media. / D

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Akron, School of Communication, 2006. / "December, 2006." Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed 10/15/2007) Advisor, Dudley B. Turner; Faculty readers, N. J. Brown, Kathleen D. Clark; Director, School of Communication, Carolyn Anderson ; Dean of the College, James Lynn; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this study is to examine gender bias in sports media from the perspective of the sports columnist. The research analyzed 1,082 sports columns written by ten columnists (five male, five female) at newspapers across the United States. The columns were scrutinized to determine if the column subject was male or female. Results found that 84.4% of the sports columns were written about male athletes or men's sports compared to only 9% devoted to female athletes and women's sports. The research also found that female sports columnists write about female sports 12.7% of the time, while male sports columns only dedicate 6% of their columns to female athletes or women's sports. Newspapers with a larger circulation were more likely to have sports columns about female sports than were newspapers with smaller readerships. Six of the columnists were then interviewed to get their opinions on gender issues in sports journalism.

Sexy Sports: A reception study of the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) Olympics website coverage of women’s beach volleyball at the 2008 Beijing Olympics involves an examination of the sporting media and its reportage of the female athlete. The thesis will focus on the reception of the NBC Olympics website coverage of women’s beach volleyball at the 2008 Beijing Olympics by viewing groups constituted by the researcher. The reason for this is that it would be difficult to find naturally constituted audiences for this website, but its reception is never-the-less of research interest. My hypothesis is that the nature of the images and text on the website is overdetermined by the construction of women on other popular texts such as men’s magazines etc. In focusing on the meanings obtained from the content of the website (texts and images), the study will investigate how these meanings are naturalised in specific moments of production as well as through their intertextual relationships with similar texts involved in the glamorisation of female athletes. Specifically the study explores the meanings obtained from the content of the website (texts and images) and how in turn these meanings are naturalised by the consumers of the website. The study will utilise a qualitative research design to unpack the content of the website through the use of qualitative content analysis, focus group interviews and individual in-depth interviews. The research will be informed via a theoretical framework that draws from feminist theory, sport feminism, the concept of intertextuality between media texts, ideology and Stuart Hall’s model of preferred reading. Increasingly mainstream media uses the image of a woman’s body to sell almost anything from men’s razors to margarine and in so far as the reporting of women’s sports is concerned this holds true. Through the research I intend to account for the connotative power of other texts i.e. the men’s magazines and pornography, and how this is likely to be carried through into shaping the meanings that are read off the website. Arguably the production of the NBC texts and images are overdetermined by the existence of similar texts already in transmission in the circuit of culture.

This thesis analyzes rape coverage in a Grahamstown newspaper, Grocott’s Mail. Critical discourse analysis is used to discuss and analyze articles about rape that appear in Grocott’s Mail between October 14th 2008 and October 29th 2009. Drawing on existing literature on ‘rape myths’ in media coverage of rape, this thesis argues that Grocott’s Mail perpetuates racial and gender stereotypes through the way in which it reports on rape. While not all of the articles included in the analysis use rape myths, most use one or more when discussing rape incidents. Specifically, Grocott’s Mail tends to use rape myths that blame the victim for the rape and de-emphasize the role of the perpetrator in the rape. This is problematic as it sustains existing racial and gender inequalities.

This study investigates Grocott’s Mail’s rape reporting through a participatory action research process. It draws on feminist cultural studies, sociology of news, and normative theories of the media to inform the research project. The participatory action research process explored three areas with the journalists at Grocott’s Mail: their understanding of the community they serve and their own professional identity as a community of practice, roles of the media in society which inform reporting, and rape as a social issue and problem. Through this process the study found that the pervasiveness of rape in the Grahamstown community, the complexities around rape reporting which include the significant legal challenges, the personal impact rape cases have on journalists, and the journalistic roles and approaches employed in rape reporting all influence how the paper covers rape. In analysing these matters the study found that the primary factor inhibiting a successful strategy for managing rape reporting was that Grocott’s Mail does not place gender-based violence on their news agenda as an issue requiring attention in order to develop the community they serve.