Media Reseach Paper 2013 - Media Council of Tanzania Website

Transcription

Media Research Paper
Enhancing Visibility and Portrayal of
Women in Tanzanian Media
Contrasting Case Study of Mwananchi Communications Limited
against the Yellow Press
A Research Report by Pirita Juppi (Principal Researcher)
with Simon Berege and Rachel Yusuph
©
Media Council of Tanzania (MCT)
2014
ISBN 978-9987-710-47-8
ii
Media council of Tanzania (McT)
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction and background to the problem .....................
1.1 Power of the Media in Defining Gender Roles ................
1.2 Objectives of the Study and Research Questions .............
1.3 Research Design ....................................................................
1.4 Significance of the Study ......................................................
1
1
2
3
3
2. Literature review ........................................................................
2.1 Studying Media and Gender ................................................
2.2 Definitions of Key Concepts .................................................
2.3 Visibility of Women in the Media ......................................
2.4 Representations of Women in the Media ..........................
2.5 Coverage of Specific Gender Issues ....................................
2.6 Women in Media Organisations ...........................................
2.7 Indicators of Gender Sensitivity .........................................
5
5
6
8
9
10
11
13
3. Data Collection and Analyses Methods ..................................
3.1 Case Study Approach as a Starting Point .........................
3.2 Mwananchi Communications as a Case Study .................
3.3 Yellow Press as a Contrasting Material .............................
3.4 Sample of Newspapers and Items Included ......................
3.5 Quantitative Content Analyses ...........................................
3.6 Qualitative Analyses of the Core Material ........................
3.7 Visual Analysis ......................................................................
3.8 Interviews with Reporters and Editors ..............................
15
15
15
18
18
20
22
24
25
4. Quantitative content analyses: Visibility of women in the
papers ..........................................................................................
4.1 Women as Sources of News and Feature Articles ............
4.2 Visibility of Women in Photos ............................................
4.3 Differences between Female and Male Reporters ............
4.4 Reference Groups of Women and Men .............................
4.5 Topics Men and Women Talk About .................................
28
28
30
32
35
39
5. Qualitative analyses: Portrayal of women in texts
and photos ..................................................................................
5.1 Articles about Women and for Women .............................
5.2 Discourses Constructing Representations in The Citizen ..
44
44
45
Media ReseaRch PaPeR
iii
Abbreviations ............................................................................... vi
Acknowledgements ....................................................................... vii
Research Team ................................................................................. viii
Abstract ............................................................................................ ix
Contents
5.3 Representations of Women in Photos in the Daily
Newspapers ..........................................................................
5.4 Representations of Women in Photos in the Tabloids ......
6. Cultural and Practical Challenges Related to
Gender Sensitivity ......................................................................
6.1 Background of the Interviewed Journalists .......................
6.2 Gender Awareness among Journalists ...............................
6.3 Views on Gender Sensitivity in Tanzanian Media ...........
6.4 Views and Experiences of Gender Sensitivity in MCL ....
6.5 Taking Gender into Account in Practical Work ..................
6.6 Challenges in Getting Interviews from Women ...............
6.7 Explanations and Solutions to Problems with
Interviewing Women .............................................................
6.8 Awareness of the Company’s Gender Policy ....................
57
70
73
73
74
76
79
81
83
85
87
7. Conclusions and Recommendations ....................................... 89
7.1 Summary of Key Findings on Coverage of Women .......... 89
7.2 Summary of Fey Findings on Interviews with
Journalists .............................................................................. 90
7.3 Conclusions and Discussion on Findings ........................... 92
7.4 Practical Recommendations for Reporters and Editors .... 95
7.5 Limitations of the Study and Areas for Further
Research .................................................................................. 102
References ........................................................................................ 104
Appendices
Appendix 1: Coding Matrix ..................................................................
Appendix 2: Variables of QCA (Quantitative Content Analyses).....
Appendix 3: Interview Questions for Reporters and Editors ...........
Appendix 4: Size of Articles and Number of Sources in Articles .....
Appendix 5: Distribution of the QCA Data in Different Sections.....
Appendix 6: Articles with Photos in Newspapers and Tabloids .....
Appendix 7: Gender of People in Photos ..........................................
Appendix 8: Reference Groups of Female and Male Sources .........
Appendix 9: Topics Female and Male Sources Talk About ..............
iv
111
112
118
120
122
123
124
125
126
Contents
Tables
TABLE 2
TABLE 3
TABLE 4
TABLE 5
TABLE 6
TABLE 7
TABLE 8
TABLE 9
Female and Male employees in Mwananchi
Communications Limited in September 2013 .....
Data of the Quantitative Content Analyses .........
Number of Female and Male Interviewees
from the Different Offices of MCL .......................
Number of Female and Male Sources ..................
Gender of People in Photos ..................................
Gender of Reporter(s) of Articles ..........................
Gender of People Sources in Articles
written by Female and Male Reporters ...............
Gender of People in Photos in Articles
written by Female and Male Reporters ................
Discourses Employed in the Coverage
of gender Issues and Women in The Citizen ......
17
20
26
28
31
33
34
35
46
Figures
FIGURE 1
Gender of People Sources, Comparison
of Different Sections ...............................................
FIGURE 2
Gender of People Sources, Comparison
between Papers .....................................................
FIGURE 3
Gender of People in Photos, Comparison
between Papers ...................................................
FIGURE 4
Gender of Reporters of the Articles,
Comparison between Papers ...............................
FIGURE 5
Reference Groups of Female and Male
Sources of Articles .................................................
FIGURES 6a–j Most Common Reference Groups of Female
and Male Sources in Different Papers ..................
FIGURE 7
Topics Female and Male Sources Talk
About in the Articles................................................
FIGURES 8a–j Most Common Topics Female and Male
Sources Talk About in Different Papers ...............
29
30
32
33
36
38
41
42
v
TABLE 1
Contents
Abbreviations
CSO
EAJA
EJAT
FAO
FGM
GEMSAT
GMMP
GMPS
IFJ
IPS
IWMF
LHRC
MCL
MCT
MISA
MMP
NGO
NSGD
OSCE
SADC
Tawla
TGNP
TMF
UN
UNDP
UNESCO
WACC
vi
Civil society organisation
Eastern Africa Journalists Association
Excellence in Journalism Awards Tanzania
Food and Agriculture Organization of theUnited
Nations
Female Genital Mutilation
Gender and Media Southern African Tanzania
Global Media Monitoring Project
Gender and Media Baseline Study
International Federation of Journalists
Inter Press Service
International Women’s Media Foundation
Legal and Human Rights Centre
Mwananchi Communications Limited
Media Council of Tanzania
Media Institute of Southern Africa
Media Monitoring Project
Non-governmental organisation
National Strategy for Gender Development
Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe.
South African Development Community
Tanzania Women Lawyers Association’s
Tanzania Gender Networking Programme
Tanzania Media Fund
United Nations
United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
World Association for Christian Communication
By Eno Akpabio, Abdallah Katunzi and Njonjo Mfaume
Acknowledgements
This study would not have been possible without cooperation of
the management and editorial staff of Mwananchi Communications
Limited (MCL), more specifically of the The Citizen and Mwananchi.
Special thanks to the MCL Executive Editor, Bakari Machumu,
Editorial Administration Manager Daniel Mwaijega and the
Mwananchi Managing Editor, Dennis Msacky, for their logistical and
practical support extended to the research team prior and during the
research period.
We are also grateful to the staff of the Global Publishers and
General Enterprises Limited, particularly the company’s General
Manager Abdallah Mrisho, for providing the team access to their
publications Ijumaa, Risasi and Uwazi to collect research material for
this study.
We would like to thank the supervisor of this project, Prof Penina
O. Mlama for her insightful comments which helped us to improve
this report.
We are indebted to our employer, the management of the
University of Iringa (formerly Tumaini University, Iringa University
College) for allowing us the time to conduct this study.
Notwithstanding all support availed to us by different
stakeholders, we remain solely responsible for any shortcomings of
this report.
vii
The research team is grateful to the Media Council of Tanzania
(MCT) for the funding which made it possible to carry out this
pertinent study on gender and the media.
Enhancing Visibility and Portrayal of Women in Tanzanian Media
Research Team
The research team in charge of conducting this study consists of
the principal researcher, Dr Pirita Juppi, a holder of PhD in
Journalism and the associate researchers Simon Berege (MA in
International Public Relations and BA in Journalism) and Rachel
Yusuph (MA in Information Technology Management and BA in
Journalism). The research team works fulltime at the Department of
Journalism, University of Iringa (UoI)1.
The data collection and analyses methodology of this study was
designed by Dr. Pirita Juppi. The whole research team participated
in conducting interviews with MCL editors and reporters. The
interviews were transcribed and those conducted in Kiswahili
translated in English by research assistant Sandra-Eva Lamba, with
the exception of the interviews conducted by Ms Yusuph which she
transcribed herself. Dr Juppi was in charge of analysing the
interviews.
Ms Yusuph and Mr Berege were in charge of conducting the
coding for the quantitative content analyses on the Kiswahili papers
and Dr Juppi on The Citizen. Dr Juppi performed the statistical
analyses of the quantitative data, and analysed representations of
women in the photos of the Kiswahili and English papers and in the
texts of The Citizen. Dr Juppi wrote the research report, and Mr Berege
read and edited it.
The principal researcher takes full responsibility for the analyses
and interpretations and for the conclusions and recommendations
based on the findings.
1
At the time of signing this research contract the University of Iringa was still a constituent college
of Tumaini University (IUCo).
viii
A Research Report by Pirita Juppi (Principal Researcher) with Simon Berege and Rachel Yusuph
This study aims at improving the position of women in Tanzanian
news media by producing new knowledge and basing on it, offer
recommendations which contribute to 1) increase visibility of women,
and 2) have more balanced, diverse and multidimensional representations
of women in the media. The main research questions are:
1. How often do women appear in news and feature items as
sources compared to men?
2. In which social or professional roles do women appear in
articles and which topics do they get to comment on? Are
these different from the roles and topics assigned to men?
3. How are women portrayed in texts and images? Are these
representations stereotypical and/or degrading in nature?
4. What kind of cultural and practical challenges are there on
the way of gender sensitive journalism?
5. What kind of practical solutions can help to improve
visibility and positive portrayal of women?
The research is a case study focusing primarily on two daily
newspapers, Mwananchi and The Citizen, which are published by the
same media house, MCL. Therein, coverage of Mwananchi and The
Citizen is compared to that of three tabloids, Uwazi, Ijumaa and Risasi.
The research project combines quantitative and qualitative
methods. The data of the quantitative content analyses consists of
1066 newspaper articles (texts and images), collected from 7 issues
of each paper included in the study. The qualitative analyses of
newspapers focuses on the photos with women in them in all the five
papers, and on the news and feature items covering women or
gender issues in The Citizen. In addition, qualitative research
interviews with 30 journalists working with MCL provide insights
into the cultural and practical challenges in the way of gender
sensitive journalism.
Findings based on the quantitative content analyses show that as
of 2013, women were very invisible in the media compared to men,
both as sources of the news and feature items and as subjects of
photos. Women were used as sources in 24% of the articles (men in
70 %) and they appeared in photos in 28 % of all articles (men in 42
%).
In the daily newspapers, women are clearly under-represented as
sources and in photos compared to men. However, the
representations of women are diverse and mostly positive. In the
tabloids, women receive more visibility, but their portrayal mostly
ix
Abstract
negative, stereotypical and degrading.
Interviews with reporters and editors reveal that there is still a lot
to do to inculcate gender awareness amongst journalists, both female
and male. Very few interviewees had received any training on
gender, and most of them found it difficult to explain what gender
balance or gender sensitivity mean in the context of journalism.
However, on moving to more practical issues and examples, most of
them still demonstrated understanding of problems related to the
visibility and portrayal of women in the media, and their role in
media organisations.
Most interviewed journalists showed understanding of the
essence of gender sensitivity in rather mechanical and quantitative
term. To most, it meant simply balancing the number of female and
male sources in a story.
It is most important that media companies provide in-house
gender training for journalists.
x
1. Introduction and Background to the
Problem
Since 1990s, it has been widely recognised that the media exercise
a significant symbolic power in defining gender roles and in
reinforcing – or challenging – gender stereotypes. When journalists
report on gender issues, or portray individual women or men, they
engage in constructing gender representations. Media portrayals
contribute to the understanding of what it means to be female or
male, and they create role expectations for women and men.
Stereotypical and demeaning representations of women in the media
can have a negative impact on how they are treated in their families,
communities, workplaces, and in the society at large.
In contemporary mediatised societies, access to the media is vital
for citizens – both as a source of information and as a forum for
participation in discussions on public issues. It is a prerequisite for
acting as an active citizen exercising her/his rights. In developing
countries, women have less access to the media than men, and even
more so in rural areas (Gallagher 2002, 2–3). And women have even
less access to media publicity as active participants of public debate
who get to voice their concerns and express their opinions.
In 1995 the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing
identified women and media as one of the twelve critical areas of
concern. The Platform for Acton produced by the conference noted
that even though an increasing number of women work in the
communication sector, only a few have attained positions at the
decision-making level. The Platform for Acton voiced concern also
over gender-based stereotypes in the media, projection of negative
and degrading images of women, and reinforcing of women's
traditional roles in a way that limits their participation in society. (UN
1995, Chapter IV, Section J.) Almost 20 years have passed, but little
has changed – the same concerns are very topical today especially in
African context.
In Tanzanian news media, women tend to get much less coverage
compared to men, and their portrayal is often one-dimensional and
stereotypical (e.g. GMBS 2003). Gender bias in the media is due to
both socio-structural and cultural reasons. On the one hand, media
contents reflect the position of women in Tanzanian society at large,
since women are still under-represented in decision-making
1
1.1 Power of Media in Defining Gender Roles
positions, e.g. in politics, business and in public institutions and
organisations.
On the other hand, the invisibility of women in the media, and
the stereotypical representations of them, are due to culturally
determined gender perceptions which also affect judgment of
journalists. As the Tanzanian National Strategy for Gender Development
(NSGD 2005, 7) notes, at the household level men are still
automatically considered as the head of the family, and the existing
patriarchal structures and traditional understanding of gender roles
limit the possibilities of women to have their voices heard even at
the family-level. Therefore, it is not surprising that their voices are
also not adequately heard in the media.
Oppression of women is not confined to Tanzania, rather, it is
viewed as a regional phenomenon. As EAJA Report (2008, 9) puts it,
in Eastern Africa men are mostly the ones who control the means of
production and resources, and have the decision-making power both
at the household level and in various social institutions. Women, on
the other hand, have generally a low status, and no full access to
education, training, health care, credit, formal economy or political
decision-making. However, there are also considerable differences in
status between individual women.
1.2 Objectives of the Study and Research Questions
The key problems this research projects focuses on are (1) the
under-presentation of women in Tanzanian media, and (2) the onedimensional and stereotypical roles and representations of women in the
media. This project aims at improving the position of women in the
Tanzanian media by producing new knowledge and basing on it,
offer recommendations which will contribute to 1) increasing visibility
of women, and 2) having more balanced, diverse and multidimensional
representations of women in the media.
The main research questions which this study aims to answer are:
2. In which social or professional roles do women appear in
articles? Which topics do they get to comment? Are these
different from the roles and topics assigned to men?
3. How are women portrayed in texts and images? Are these
representations stereotypical and/or degrading in nature?
4. What kind of cultural and practical challenges are there on
the way of gender sensitive journalism?
2
5. What kind of practical solutions can help to improve
visibility and positive portrayal of women?
This research project is a case study focusing primarily on two
daily newspapers, Mwananchi and The Citizen, which are published
by the same media house, MCL. The company is considered a serious
and credible print media house, and journalists of Mwananchi and
The Citizen have received several Excellence in Journalism (EJAT)
awards (See MCT 2013a). The interviews were conducted exclusively
with MCL female and male journalists. In the analyses of media
contents, however, the coverage of Mwananchi and The Citizen is
viewed against that of the yellow press. Three popular tabloids,
Uwazi, Ijumaa and Risasi, function as contrastive cases to the primary
cases of Mwananchi and The Citizen. The three yellow tabloids are also
published by same company, Global Publishers and General
Enterprise Limited.
The research project combines quantitative and qualitative
methods. The empirical data consists of newspaper articles (texts and
images) and interviews with journalists. We have also utilised
discussions with managing editors and policy documents of MCL as
materials of the study. The data, the method of its collection and
analyses are described in details in Chapter 3.
1.4 Significance of the Study
There is a wide international consensus that empowering women
results in extended socio-economic benefits to the society (see e.g.
Ministerial Declaration 2010; UN 1995). Yet, in many countries,
women are not treated as equal, competent and legitimate citizens
with political and economic rights.
Tanzanian National Strategy of Gender and Development (NSGD)
recognises that gender inequality is a major obstacle to socioeconomic and political development in the country (NSGD 2005, iv).
Even though the Tanzanian Government has taken several steps2 to
enhance gender equality and increase women’s participation in the
Parliament and other categories of public office at all levels, gender
imbalances and gender inequities still exist in many areas of the
Tanzanian society. NSGD (2005, 2) recognises several challenges in
the way of gender equality, among them the patriarchal system,
2
E.g. amendments to the Constitution in 2000 and 2004, committing to various international
conventions and declarations for gender equality, Women and Gender development policy in 2000,
and as the latest step the National Strategy for Gender Development (NSGD) in 2005 (NSGD 2005,
1–2).
3
1.3 Research Design
customs and traditions, which discriminate women. NSGD (2005, 16,
56) regards strengthening the media with gender perspectives and
strengthening gender capacities of media actors as important
strategies in enhancing gender equality in Tanzanian.
By conducting this study, it is our aim to produce such knowledge
of the prevailing practices in the Tanzanian newspapers, which will
contribute in the efforts to changing problematic practices. Changes
in journalistic practices are expected to yield changes in journalistic
contents (visibility and portrayal of women), which should in the
long run have an impact on the position of women in the society.
Empirical research on gender and media in Tanzania has so far
consisted mainly of international and comparative monitoring
projects (GMMP, GMBS), and research papers and thesis projects of
journalism and mass communication students (e.g. Solomon 2006;
Tenganamba 1999; Mfinanga 2005). There are also some more
comprehensive research publications by established scholars
(Mwendamseke 2003; Mbilinyi & Omari 1996). These studies mainly
focus on either analysing media contents form the gender
perspective, or on studying the position of women in media
organizations (see Chapter 2). They provided useful information for
the purpose of designing this study, since they give a general idea of
some of the key problems practitioners face in covering of women
and gender issues, and of some practical challenges faced by
journalists, which may affect the coverage of women.
This study aims at adopting a holistic approach, focusing on
several dimensions of media and gender simultaneously: we study
the visibility and portrayal (representations) of women in the media, the
awareness and perceptions of gender issues by both female and male
journalists, the practical challenges that encumber gender-balanced
and gender-sensitive journalism, and – most importantly – potential
solutions to the existing problems. The latter has been the biggest gap
in the research on media and gender so far.
Even though this research project is a case study, its results are
relevant and applicable to Tanzanian media on a more general level.
We hope that the recommendations provided at the end of this
research report will help to enhance visibility of women in the
Tanzanian media and in producing more balanced and diverse
portrayal of women.
4
2 Literature Review
The media and gender issues has aroused a lot of interest for more
than two decades now, both in the academia and among various
CSOs dealing with gender and/or media ethics. For a long time,
Western scholars and West-centric perspectives have dominated
academic research and theory formulation in the field. However, as
Margaret Gallagher put it in 2002:
One of the most important lessons from feminist media
theory over the past twenty years has been that women’s
experience of discrimination, and indeed of identity itself, is
heavily determined by differences in terms of class, economic
status, age, sexuality, religion, race and nation. The inadequacies
of ‘women and media’ studies that conflate the condition of
white, heterosexual, middle-class women with the condition of
all women are now acknowledged, and contemporary media
research has tried to grapple with more complex
understandings of gender identity and experience. (Gallagher
2002, 3.)
Gallagher’s viewpoint applies to studying media contents and
practices as well as to studying identities and experiences of women.
It is not enough to study gender and media in the context of the West
only, or “generally” on a global level. Even though some problems
with the access and portrayal of women in the media seem to be
rather universal, one should not make direct conclusions on the
situation in African countries based on empirical studies done, or
theories developed in the Western cultural context. It is vitally
important to produce local knowledge, taking specific social, cultural
and political context into consideration.
In Tanzania and other African countries, the subject area of media
and gender has so far been mostly covered in various global, regional
and national media monitoring projects, and in addition in some
academic research papers. Studies can be roughly categorised under
four broad themes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Visibility of women in the media,
Representations of women in the media,
Coverage of specific gender issues,
Women in media organizations.
5
2.1 Studying Media and Gender
These themes are interlinked and affect one another. As Colleen
Morna (2002, 3) puts it, there is “a vicious negative cycle at work. The
gender imbalances in society reflect in the institution of media. These
in turn reflect on the editorial content of the media that is guilty both
of the sins of omission, that is, stories not covered, and the sins of
commission, that is the way stories are covered.”
This chapter discusses in short previous studies on the abovementioned four themes, conducted in Tanzania and other African
countries. First, however, it is necessary to define the key concepts of
this study.
2.2 Definitions of Key Concepts
Gender: Whereas the concept of “sex” refers to biologically
determined characteristics of men and women, “gender” refers to the
socially constructed roles of women and men and the related
conceptions of femininity and masculinity. Since gender roles are
social constructs, they vary from one culture to another and change
over time. (E.g. IPS 2010; UNESCO 2003, 17.)
Gender Issue: Gender issue is a term which is widely used but
hardly ever explicitly defined. At a general level, “gender issue” can
be defined as any matter related to gender, i.e. to the socially
constructed roles of women and men and to the socially determined
relations between women and men. For example, according to FAO
(2004), gender issues “focus on women and on the relationship
between men and women, their roles, access to and control over
resources, division of labour, interests and needs.” In practice,
however, the specific issues discussed under the umbrella term of
gender issue can vary, and different people may have different ideas
on what constitutes a gender issue. In this study, we have regarded
the following types of newspaper articles as articles covering gender
issues: (1) Articles which discuss gender relations (gender
balance/equity/equality, rights of women and men etc.) in society at
large or in a specific sector such as in education, (2) Articles which
deal with specific problems and issues concerning women because
of their gender, such as gender-based violence, teenage pregnancies,
reproductive rights and health, and female genital mutilation-FGM,
(3) Articles which discuss appropriate behaviour of women and
therefore are based on gender expectations, (4) Articles which cover
women’s economic or social empowerment.
Gender Balance: Gender balance refers to equal representation and
participation of women and men (e.g. OSCE 2006). Gender balance
6
Gender Sensitivity: Gender sensitivity is a concept that is broader
and more multi-dimentional than gender balance. It refers to a
person’s or organisation’s ability to “perceive, acknowledge and
highlight existing gender differences, issues and inequalities and to
incorporate a gender perspective into strategies and actions” (OSCS
2006, 3). And UNESCO (2012) has defined it a set of indicators that
can be used to assess gender sensitivity of a media outlet (see 2.6).
Yellow Press: Yellow press refers to sensationalist and
entertainment-oriented print journalism (in Kiswahili known as
magazeti pendwa). The term is often used in a pejorative way to refer
to journalism of low professional quality and ethical standards. (See
also Tabloid.)
Tabloid: Tabloid originally referred to the papers size which is
remarkably smaller than the broadsheet. Since serious quality
newspapers used to favour broadsheet size in many Western
countries, while “yellow press” came out in tabloid size, tabloid
journalism (or just tabloids) has become synonymous to yellow press
– in spite the fact that some serious newspapers have always been
printed in tabloid size, and in recent years more and more respectable
newspapers have switched from broadsheet to tabloid size.
Discourse: Discourse has become a central concept in media
studies, cultural studies and social sciences. It refers to (1) the practice
of constructing meanings through the use language and (2) to the
resulting outcome, which can be defined as a fairly unified system of
meanings. Discourses are socially and culturally formed and shared
meaning systems – as opposed to individual views, ideas or ways of
using language. Discourses provide socially constructed ideas,
interpretations and beliefs of the reality; through them people see the
“reality” (e.g. gender issues) in a specific way. One and the same issue
may appear very different through the meaning systems of
competing and contradictory discourses. Discourses produce
representations of the objects of reality, and at the same time they
produce identities to and relationships between people engaged in
using the discourse or being represented by the discourse. Whenever
people are engaged in using language, they are also engaged in
discoursive practices and in constructing representations. (E.g.
Fairclough 1995a, 1995b; Wodak 1996; Hall 1997c.)
7
in the media covers both equal representation of women and men in
media organisations and equal representation of women and men in
media coverage as participants of public discussion (i.e. as sources
of news and other journalistic items).
Representation: Representation refers to portraying a person, issue
or phenomenon in a specific way through the use of language
(discourse) or through visual images such as photographs. The
concept refers to the constructed nature of these portrayals or images;
object of reality are not presented to us as such, but they are rather
re-presented by someone (for example a journalist in a newspaper).
As Stuart Hall (1982, 64) puts it, representation involves “the active
work of selecting and presenting, of structuring and shaping; not
merely the transmitting of an already existing meaning, but the more
active labour of making things mean”. However, as in the case of
discourses, representations are not individual interpretations of
things, but rather more generally recognised and shared cultural
formations. Constructing representations is an act involving symbolic
power: power to represent and define something or someone in a
specific way. (E.g. Hall 1997a, 1997c; Woodward 1997a, 1997b.)
Stereotype: Representations produced through discourses or visual
images can be stereotypical in nature. Act of stereotyping reduces
complex, diverse and multi-dimentional objects (such as women and
men, or a specific ethnic group) into over-simplified, one-dimentional
representations – stereotypes. When operating with stereotypes, the
world tends to appears divided and polarised: there is good and bad,
normal and abnormal, “us” and “them”; there are opposite categories
which are represented as fundamentally different from each other.
Shades of grey disappear, there is only black and white. Stereotypes
are not necessarily always negative, but – because of
oversimplification and exaggeration of differences – they are harmful.
(E.g. Hall 1997b, 229, 249, 257–259.)
2.3 Visibility of Women in the Media
Visibility of women in the media is an area of study that has to do
with questions such as how often are women or gender issues
covered in the media, and how often do journalists use women as
sources in journalistic articles. In other words, it has to do with access
of women to media publicity and their participation in public
discussion in the media.
International comparative media monitoring reports show that
women are generally under-represented in the media, especially in
the coverage of “hard news”, such as politics and economics.
According to the latest Global Media Monitoring Project from year 2010,
women were visible in 24% of items either as interviewees or as
subjects of the story. There is some increase compared to earlier
GMMP rounds. In the first monitoring in 1995 women appeared in
8
GMMP 2010 shows similarities within regions and differences
between different regions in visibility of women. In sub-Saharan
Africa, women were present in 19% of all news items. They were
remarkably less visible in items on politics and government (15%)
and economy (17%) than in science & health coverage (31%). Women
appeared in journalistic items most often talking about their personal
experience (34% of sources sharing personal experiences), in the role
of an eye-witness (33% of eye-witnesses) or in the role of “ordinary
people” providing a popular opinion (34% of ordinary people). Only
17% of experts and 15% of spokespersons were women.
Tanzanian country report of the Gender and Media Baseline Study
showed similar results. GMBS focused on analysing only news from
print and electronic media, from twelve African countries. At the
time, women appeared as sources in 17% of news items in Tanzanian
news media. When women were interviewed, they mostly got to talk
about “soft topics” related to gender and family. Women were also
identified in family roles – as someone’s wife, mother or daughter –
much more often than men. The only “occupational groups” among
which women formed the majority of interviewed sources where
beauty contestants, homemakers and sex workers. (GMBS Tanzania
2003; Made et al. 2003.)
2.4 Representations of Women in Media
Feminist media theorists have focused on stereotypical
representations of women, especially the tendency of representing
them as sexual objects (see e.g. Ross & Byerly 2004, 10). According to
Morna (2002, 5), the media tend to portray women in an unfair and
inaccurate way. Women are often sexualised, and they are defined in
terms of their physical appearance rather than abilities. When women
are not portrayed as sex objects and fashion models, they are mostly
represented either as victims or as caregivers and homemakers
(Morna 2002; see also GMMP 2010).
Tanzanian scholars have expressed the same concern. According
to Mwendamseke (2003), in Tanzanian media, women are most of the
time represented as inferior to men. The way sensationalist tabloids
treat women has aroused concern and criticism. According to
Mtambalike (1996) women have been victims or unethical,
9
17% of items only, and in 2005, in 21% of articles. However, the rise
of women’s visibility has been mainly due to their presence in “soft”
specialized topics such as science & health. The increase was less
prominent in “hard” topics. (GMMP 2010; GMMP 2005.)
sensationalist and sexist reportage in tabloids, and therefore the print
media has reinforced the subordinate position of women insisted of
empowering them.
Besides the tabloids, stereotypical representations of women are
particularly blatant in advertisement – in Tanzania as well as in other
countries (see Shartiely 2005; Rutashobya 1996). Shartiely (2005)
examined the linguistic and visual strategies used to construct
stereotypical representations of Tanzanian women (and men) in TV
commercials. Shartiely discovered that representations of both,
women and men, were stereotypical, and the roles assigned to
women were closely related to home. Women also had the role of
decoration in commercials: they were presented as beautiful and
sensual but rather simple and ignorant creatures, and they were
shown more prominently in commercials than the products that were
supposed to be sold.
According to the findings of the Global Media Monitoring Project
(GMMP 2010), in African media only 5% of all items challenged
existing gender stereotypes, whereas 77% reinforced stereotypes – a
remarkably bigger portion than the global average of 46%. Some 18%
of items did neither challenge nor reinforce stereotypes.
2.5 Coverage of Specific Gender Issues
Gender issues commonly covered by the media include serious
social problems such as sexual assaults and rape, domestic violence,
and female genital mutilation (FGM). Since cases of gender-based
violence commonly go public when they become the subject of a
court process, or sometimes already during the investigation, they
are often covered in the frame of crime and court news. Gender
issues, of course also include positive topics such as women’s
empowerment.
MCT’s monitoring project from year 2011 discovered that even
though Code of Ethics for Media Professionals in Tanzania clearly states
that journalists must not identify victims of sexual assaults in their
reporting, in practice journalist often violate this ethical guideline in
coverage of rape and sexual assault cases in courts. Court reporting
in newspapers repeatedly identifies the victim either directly or
indirectly by giving specific information such as names of relatives,
age and school. (MCT 2012, 12–14.)
In general, the MCT’s monitoring project discovered signs of both,
gender blindness and gender-transformative reporting in Tanzanian
10
Even though gender issues may be covered as “hard news” when
dealing with crime cases with women in the role of a victim, several
researchers have noted that in general gender issues and “women’s
issues” don’t make it to hard news. According to Lynne Muthoni
Wanyeki (2002, 2), women’s concerns are marginalised in African
media by granting them only “soft” coverage.
All too often “women’s issues” don’t receive even that. As Morna
(2002, 4) notes, when the mainstream media focuses on reporting
either violence against women or domestic issues, a huge range of
different stories relevant to women remains uncovered. Because men
dominate the media, they also define what is newsworthy, and what
is “hard news” or “soft news”, gender is easily perceived as only a
specific “niche” issue to which some journalists specialize in soft
stories (Ammu 2012, 9).
2.6 Women in Media Organisations
The media industry in Africa is in general male dominated.
According to a Gender Link’s study (Made & Morna 2009) on 126
media houses in SADC countries, media practitioners in southern
Africa are primarily male: 59% of media employees in the included
countries were male and 41% female. If South African figures are
removed, the portion of women drops to 32%. Senior positions and
top management employ only few females. There are in general very
few female media owners in the world, but the situation is worse in
Africa than in other parts of the world (Gadzekpo 2009, 74).
The media in Eastern Africa is even more male dominated. In
2008, women accounted for only 20% of professional journalists. Men
hold the positions of responsibility, decision-making and leadership
in media houses.
Report by EAJA explains this with differences between women
and men in levels of education, and with male dominance in media
business and newsrooms. Some media owners also favuor men and
are reluctant to appoint women in high positions because they see,
11
newspapers. Empowerment was the most covered gender issue
during the monitoring period in 2011. MCT report criticizes the fact
that most of the coverage on women’s empowerment, as well as on
other gender issues, suffers from the Single Source Syndrome, which
might create a perception that women’s empowerment and gender
issues are a cause of the interviewed activists only. (MCT 2012, 50–
64.)
for example, maternity leave and family responsibilities as factors
disrupting the work of women. (EAJA 2008, 11, 14.)
According to the Gender and Media Baseline Study (GMBS
Tanzania 2003; Made et. al 2003) women are most visible as media
professionals in television, where they constituted a bit more than
half of TV presenters and reporters in 2003. Women are most
marginalised among print reporters: in 2003 only 21 % of print
reporters were women.
Eva Solomon’s Master’s thesis Women’s Roles in the Media in
Tanzania (2006) focused on attitudes of Tanzanian newspaper
reporters towards gender issues. Findings from interviews in six
Tanzanian newspapers showed that generally, the position of women
journalists in newspapers was poor: they presented only one fifth of
editorial staff in newspapers, they had little or no journalism
education – especially in tabloids – and they worked in lower levels
of editorial hierarchy, mostly as reporters. Interviewed female
reporters were aware of women being covered less than men in
newspapers and portrayed in stereotypical roles. (Solomon 2006, 94–
98.) Other studies conducted in Tanzania have also noted the poor
position of women in the media industry and have in addition
pointed out specific problems faced by female journalists, such as
sexual harassment (see e.g. Tenganamba 1999; Mfinanga 2005).
Studies have also shown that female reporters are assigned types
of news and current affairs stories that are different from those
assigned to their male colleagues. Managers tend to assign to female
journalists “soft” news stories that are stereotypically perceived as
belonging to the domain of women, such as gender violence or
beauty tips. Men are assigned “hard” news stories, investigative
reporting and political news. (Gender Link 2009.)
Early feminist media theorists used to think optimistically that
having more women working in the media, especially in decisionmaking positions, would result in more visibility for women in media
contents. Later feminist scholars have been more cautious,
recognising that the deeply rooted problem cannot be solved simply
by increasing the number of women in media industry. (Gallagher
2002, 4; see also Morna 2002; Ross & Byerly (eds.) 2004; Van Zoonen
1994, 1998.)
The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP 2010), entitled
Gender and Media Baseline Study (Made et. al 2003) and Solomon’s
study (2006), however, all indicate that women are more likely to use
12
women as sources and to report on women or gender issues than
men. Yet, even though female journalists have a crucial role in
improving gender-balance and gender-sensitivity in the media, they
struggle with many challenges when trying to improve the coverage
of women. Among these challenges are the male-domination of
ownership and control of the media, absence of women in managing
positions, poor education, poor salaries and facilities, and
professional practices, such as conventional news values, media
policies and the pressure of deadlines causing journalists to choose
easily accessible sources. (Solomon 2006, 94–100, 103–105.)
Many of the challenges that female journalists in Tanzania face are
rather universal. A recent international study, Global Report on the
Status of Women in the News Media (IWMF 2011), surveyed 500 media
companies in 59 countries. Findings indicated that women face a
glass ceiling in one third of the studied countries, as men occupy a
vast majority of the middle and senior management positions in
media companies. International survey carried out at the turn of the
millennium by IFJ (2000) showed that women don’t get appointed to
the top jobs, they have less access to training, earn less than their male
co-workers, face job segregation, limited promotion perspectives and
sexual harassment and have difficulties with fitting career and family
life together.
2.7 Indicators of Gender Sensitivity
UNESCO (2012) has defined a framework of gender sensitive
indicators for the media, which covers both actions fostering gender
equality in media organisations and gender portrayal in the contents
of media. At the level of media organisations (Category A) the
framework sets five objectives, each which several indicators:
(A1) Gender balance at decision-making level;
(A2) Gender-sensitivity in work and working conditions;
(A3) Gender equality in unions, associations, clubs and
organisations of journalists, other media professionals and
media-regulatory bodies;
(A4) Media organisations promote ethical codes and policies in
favour of gender equality in media content;
(A5) Gender balance in education and training.
At the level of media content (Category B), the UNESCO
framework focuses on:
13
(B1) Gender portrayal in news and current affairs;
(B1) Gender portrayal in advertising.
UNESCO Report (2012, 40–46) focuses on five strategic objectives
related to gender portrayal in news and current affairs:
1. Balanced presence of women and men – reflecting the
composition of society, human experiences, actions, views
and concerns in media coverage of news and current issues;
2. Fair portrayal of women and men through elimination of
stereotypes and promotion of multidimensional
representation/portrayal;
3. Coverage of gender equality and equity issues as an
important and integral part of the media’s acknowledged
role as a watchdog of the society;
4. Evidence of gender consciousness in different types of
editorial content and across the spectrum of subject-areas
and content categories/sections;
5. Evidence of accurate and holistic understanding of genderbased violence in all its forms as an internationally
recognised violation of human rights.
The main focus of this study is on journalistic media contents
(visibility and portrayal of women). Therefore, the above-mentioned
five objectives especially and indicators related to them are relevant
to the study. We have not applied the indicators exactly as formulated
in the report by UNESCO (2012), but most of the indicators are in
some form included in our quantitative content analyses or in the
qualitative analyses of newspaper contents (see Chapter 3).
For the purpose of this study, the objectives, especially 1, 2 and 4,
are relevant, since we are analysing the full range of newspaper
contents (different genres, subject areas and sections) from the gender
perspective, and not just the coverage of gender issues.
Since gender equality in media organisations, as well as ethical
codes and policies of media organisations are also likely to affect
media contents, we discuss these dimensions of gender sensitivity in
our case study on Mwananchi Communications Ltd.
14
3 Data Collection and Analyses Methods
3.1 Case Study Approach
Of these two newspapers, the English-language The Citizen is
clearly targeted at the urbane more educated and well-off population.
In their Facebook page3, The Citizen describes its target audience as
“exposed Tanzanians in the corporate world, expatriates and young
college leavers”. Kiswahili newspaper, the Mwananchi, has a broader
Tanzanian target audience and a more colourful outlook compared
to The Citizen. With celebrity news in special sections (Burudani,
Starehe), Mwananchi seems to be a kind of hybrid, combining
characteristics of a serious newspaper with that of an entertainment
tabloid.
For the purpose of contrast and comparison, contents of three
entertainment-focused tabloids (“yellow press”), Uwazi, Ijumaa and
Risasi, were also analysed in this study.
Case studies typically focus only on one or few cases and aim at
studying the cases in-depth and in details, from different
perspectives, and utilising various data and methods. This research
is also based on the so called ”triangulation”, meaning that we have
utilised multiple research data and analyses methods to study the
cases, with the purpose of getting a comprehensive understanding
of the key issues related to the topic and research problems of this
study.
The data includes texts and images from The Citizen and
Mwananchi, policy documents from MCL, discussions with managing
editors of the two newspapers, and interviews with reporters and
editors in the two newspapers. In addition, the data includes texts
and images from Uwazi, Ijumaa and Risasi.
3.2 Mwananchi Communications Ltd as a Case Study
In this case study, we wanted to focus on the media house which
is serious about journalistic professionalism and quality, and has
3
The Citizen in Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCitizenTanzania/info
15
The research at hand is a case study which focuses primarily on
two newspapers Mwananchi and The Citizen, both of which belong to
the same media house, the MCL. Both are “serious” newspapers
published seven days a week although, because of different target
audiences, they bear some differences in style and content.
ambitions to improve their performance in the area of gender
balanced reporting. The MCL. was a natural choice, as it publishes
the biggest Kiswahili daily newspaper, Mwananchi, and one of the
biggest English-language newspapers in the country, The Citizen4.
Moreover, MCL had aspired to improve gender-balance in their
newspapers and has been awarded as a centre of excellence in gender
balance by the Tanzanian gender equality network GEMSAT
(Mwaijega 2013).
The MCL is a private media company, which was originally
established in 1999 as Media Communications Ltd. In 2001 the
company expanded their business and changed the name to
Mwananchi Communications Ltd. In 2002 the Nation Media Group
(NMG)5 bought controlling interest in MCL, which made MCL a
subsidiary of NMG (MCL Facebook page). The MCL has its
headquarters in Dar es Salaam and boasts several regional offices in
different parts of Tanzania.
The Mwananchi newspaper has been there since 2000 while The
Citizen since 2004. In addition to them, MCL publishes a bi-weekly
Kiswahili sports paper, MwanaSpoti which was established in 2001.
And then their weekend editions of Mwananchi and The Citizen,
Mwananchi Jumamosi and Mwananchi Jumapili as well as The Citizen
on Saturday that can be regarded as independent papers in the sense
that they have separate editorial staff. The weekend editions focus
more on investigative stories and analytical articles (MCL Facebook
page.)
Mwananchi has an average daily circulation of ca. 40 000 copies
sold across the country6. The circulation of The Citizen sells between
4000–5000 copies daily). (Mwaijega, personal communication
5.9.2013.) According to a baseline survey by Tanzania Media Fund
(TMF 2012), Mwananchi is the most read newspaper among
Tanzanians who read newspapers, with 58.2% of newspaper readers
reading it at least once a week. Only 3.2% of the respondents who
read newspapers read The Citizen regularly.
4
The other major English-language newspapers in Tanzania are The Daily News (owned by the
government), The Guardian, The Business Times, The African, The Express and This Day.
5
The Nation Media Group was founded in 1959 by His Highness the Aga Khan. It has become the
largest independent media house in East and Central Africa (Nation Media Group website).
6
In international comparison, circulations figures of Tanzanian newspapers seem very low. This is
due to the fact that majority of Tanzanians do not read newspapers, and the radio is a much more
accessible media especially in rural areas. According to the TMF survey (2012), newspapers were
read by 36% of men and 28% of women, and there was a lot of regional variation. As can be expected,
reading newspapers was more common among more educated citizens. The proportion of
newspapers of overall media consumption among citizens was marginal (8.6%) compared to the
radio (69.8%) and the TV (21.6%).
16
One of the SADC Gender Protocol targets is having women
representing at least 30% of staff in every media house. In September
2013, MCL had reached that target if all the forms of employment are
considered. However, in permanent positions the proportion of
women was remarkably smaller. Only 16% of permanently employed
journalists were women, whereas 58% of its correspondents and
retainers7 were women (see Table 1).
Only seven women worked in editorial management, middlemanagement and senior positions in MLC: one managing editor, one
consulting editor, one features editor, three sub-editors and one chief
reporter. Six women work as feature writers. The rest of the women
worked as reporters in various sections.
TABLE 1. Female and Male Employees in Mwananchi
Communications Ltd as of September 2013
Position
Women f (%) Men f (%)
Permanent journalists
17 (15.9%)
90 (84.1%)
Correspondents/
Retainers
23 (57.5%)
17 (42.5%)
Graphic designers
5 (35.7%)
9 (64.3%)
(permanent)
Graphic designers (casual)
2 (66.7%)
1 (33.3%)
Proof readers (permanent)
0 (0%)
3 (100%)
Proof readers (casual)
1 (33.3%)
2 (66.7%)
Editorial assistant/ librarian 2 (100%)
0 (0%)
Cartoonists (casual)
0 (0%)
4 (100%)
TOTAL
55 (31,4 %) 120 (68.8%)
(Source: Mwaijega, personal communication 5.9.2013.)
7
Total f (%)
107 (100%)
40 (100%)
14 (100%)
3 (100%)
3 (100%)
3 (100%)
2 (100%)
4 (100%)
175 (100%)
Correspondents get paid based on stories, but have also access to newsroom facilities and are entitled
to travel allowances for their work-related travel. Retainers are like correspondents, but they are
paid allowances.
17
MCL joined GEMSAT in 2008. In 2011, the media house signed
Memorandum of Understanding, adopting the SADC Gender
Protocol. Managing editors of MCL have participated in trainings
organised by GEMSAT and as a result of the training workshops, the
company has recently drafted their gender policy document. In
addition to the managing editors, some reporters have attended in
gender training of GEMSAT or other CSOs. There has not been any
in-house training for journalists on gender issues. (Mwaijega 2013;
personal communication 5.9.2013.)
The MCL editorial policy guides reporters and editors to provide
balanced reporting on gender related issues. Reporters are expected
to include female sources in stories whenever possible. According to
the management, desk editors have the responsibility of making sure
that reporters are aware of this and the gender balance principle in
sources is put into practice. (Msacky, personal communication
5.9.2013; Mwaijega, personal communication 5.9.2013.)
3.3 Yellow Press As a Contrasting Material
The tabloids included in this study are Uwazi, Ijumaa and Risasi.
These are sister papers published by the same private Tanzanian
media company, Global Publishers & General Enterprises Ltd. The
company was established in 1998 and has its head office in Dar es
Salaam. It is the leading media house in the publication of leisure and
entertainment-oriented tabloids.
In total, Global Publishers publishes six Kiswahili papers. In
addition to the ones included in this study, there are the weekly
tabloids, Amani and Ijumaa Wikienda as well as a sports and
entertainment triweekly, Championi. Different tabloids are published
on different weekdays: on Monday there are Ijumaa Wikienda and
Championi Jumatatu, on Tuesday there is Uwazi, on Wednesday Risasi
Mchanganyiko and Championi Jumatano, which on Thursday there is
Amani, on Friday Ijumaa and Championi, On Saturday there is Risasi
Jumamosi. The company distributes its papers through over 20
regional agents in Tanzania. (Global Publishers website.)
Uwazi is the oldest of the tabloids published by the company. It is
a 16-page tabloid, described by the publisher as a “serious
newspaper”, with stories focusing on social and political issues. Risasi
comes out twice a week with as a 16-page tabloid. The publisher
describes Risasi as a “social, political and entertainment newspaper”.
Also Ijumaa is a “social, political and entertainment newspaper” with
16 pages per issue. According to the publisher, the circulation of the
three tabloids (after the returned copies) is currently 30,000, over
36 000 and over 40,000 copies respectively. (Global Publishers
website.)
3.4 Sample of Newspapers and Items Included
As noted earlier, this study aims at producing detailed and indepth information, and therefore utilizes qualitative approach to
supplement and deepen the quantitative content analyses. Because
our aim was to analyse systematically all the articles of the selected
18
Since both Mwananchi and The Citizen both publish different pullouts (supplements or “magazines” focusing on a specific subject area
within the main paper) at different week days, it was important to
include in the sample one issue from each weekday to make the
sample representative. From both newspapers, a sample of two
weeks was collected from the period 1.5.–14.5.2013 (14 issues from
each newspaper). For the quantitative content analyses we included
seven issues (one week 1.–7.5.8), and for the qualitative analyses we
collected all the relevant materials from the two-week sample period.
There were no specific reasons for the selection of this specific two week period – in that sense, the sample was random – but it was
selected and collected for convenience reasons at the time when the
research proposal was finalised.
The three tabloids are published only once or twice a week. The
sample was collected from each tabloid at regular intervals, picking
the first issue of each month from January 2013 to July 2013. The
sampling method resembles systematic sampling, except that it was
limited to within the period of seven months preceding the actual
data collection. The data includes seven issues of each tabloid.
In total, in the quantitative content analyses we analysed 35 issues
(14 daily newspapers + 21 tabloids) and for the qualitative analyses
we collected relevant articles and photos from 49 issues (28 daily
newspapers + 21 tabloids).
From the selected newspapers and tabloids, only the editorial
(journalistic) contents were included in the analyses. In other words,
non-journalistic contents such as advertisements and cartoons where
excluded from the content analyses. Only the articles written by staff
writers (reporters, correspondents, and in case of pullouts, regular
contributors of the newspaper) were included. Articles from news
8
From The Citizen, the Friday issue published 3.5.2013 was not available in MCL’s offices or in
libraries in Iringa, and therefore the Friday issue published 10.5.2013 was included in the
quantitative content analyses instead.
19
newspapers from the gender perspective, and not just articles
specifically dealing with gender issues, the sample sizes of
newspapers needed to be kept relatively small. The samples of
newspapers and tabloids are both non-probability samples. We used
sampling only to select the issues to be included in the analyses.
Within the selected issues, all the journalistic articles (with the
exceptions explained later) were included. Therefore the total number
of research units (articles) is extensive, (over 1000 articles), and it
enabled us to do quantitative analyses utilizing statistical methods.
agencies or newspapers were excluded from the analyses.9 Also,
reader’s opinions and analyses articles by external experts were
excluded.
3.5 Quantitative Content Analyses
Quantitative content analyses (QCA) is a method which is suitable
for the purpose of systematic and detailed description and
comparison of an extensive data. It enables quantitative analyses of
qualitative features of text and images. Qualitative features are
“quantified” by coding them using predefined categories, which
become possible values of variables.
In the quantitative content analysis we focused on the news and
feature items of the newspapers. The data included altogether 1066
articles, most of which were news items (see Table 1). For the purpose
of this study, we used features in the broadest possible sense, referring
to any items which are not news and not opinions/editorials.
Therefore, the feature category in this study includes long feature
articles and short “how-to” articles in various sections (e.g. in specific
feature pages or weekly pullouts), interviews or personality profiles,
vox pops and stand-alone photos with only a headline and caption.
News category includes hard news and news background articles in
actual news sections (national news, international news, business,
etc.), and also the lighter and more entertainment oriented news in
tabloids and in the special sections of dailies, such as sports news,
and news on celebrities and show business.
TABLE 2. Data of the Quantitative Content Analyses (n=1066)
9
Newspaper
News f (%)
Feature f (%)
Total f (%)
Mwananchi
413 (82 %)
88 (18 %)
501 (100 %)
The Citizen
269 (77%)
82 (23 %)
351 (100 %)
Uwazi
52 (95 %)
3 (5 %)
55 (100 %)
Ijumaa
80 (100 %)
0 (0 %)
80 (100 %)
Risasi
78 (99 %)
1 (1 %)
79 (100 %)
Total
892 (84 %)
174 (16 %)
1066 (100 %)
In Mwananchi and The Citizen, materials from new agencies are utilized mostly in international
news, sports and business sections. The Citizen uses lots of materials from AFP (Agence FrancePresse), especially in international news and sports section. Also some materials from NMG
(National Media Group) are published.
20
Mwananchi and The Citizen have remarkably more pages per issue
than the tabloids, which explains why their number of articles is
much bigger compared to that of the tabloids which have much fewer
pages, even though the data of the content analyses included seven
issues of each paper. Articles in Mwananchi are on average shorter
than those featured in The Citizen, hence the bigger number of articles
in the former in spite of the fact that The Citizen has more pages per
issue (The Citizen 40 pages, Mwananchi 20–30 pages). Uwazi has, on
average, longer articles than Ijumaa and Risasi, which explains the
smaller number of items in spite of the same number of pages (16
pages).
As can be expected, in tabloids proportion of entertainment
focused pages or other special theme sections was bigger than in the
daily newspapers, where emphasis was more on news, including
national, international, political and business news (see Appendix 5).
Each individual article in the papers included in the sample was
analysed as a coding unit (research unit) of its own. If an article
started from the front page of the paper or a pull-out and continued
inside, it was coded as one unit. Also sidebars inside an article were
coded as part of that same coding unit. Editorials and opinion
columns were excluded from QCA, since the focus of analyses was
on visibility of women as sources and in photos.
In the QCA of the newspaper contents we focused especially on
the following questions:
2. How often do women appear in photographs compared to
men?
3. How are women identified in articles in terms of their social
or professional roles (“reference group”)? Are these different
from the reference groups that men are identified with?
4. Which topics do women get to talk about? Are there
differences compared to men?
Based on these research questions, the following research
variables were formulated for the purpose of quantitative content
analyses (for the explanations and values of each variable, see
Appendix 2):
– Number of people sources (in the article)
– Gender of sources (in the article)
21
– Number of photos (in the article)
– Gender of people in the photo(s) (of the article)
– Reference group of women (in the article)
– Reference group of men (in the article)
– Topics women talk about (in the article)
– Topics men talk about (in the article)
In addition to the actual research variables, the following
background information was coded for each article:
– The paper (name of the publication)
– Date of publication
– Section the article was published in
– Genre of the article (news/feature)
– Size of the article (measured in paragraphs)
– Gender of the reporter(s)
All the news and feature articles of each issue were coded first
manually in a coding matrix (see the Appendix 1) and then the data
was entered in the SPSS computer software for the statistical
analyses. In the statistical analyses the paper, the section, genre and
the gender of the reporter functioned as independent variables
(variables which explain changes in dependent variables) and the
research variables as dependent variables (variables the changes of
which may be explained by independent variables). In other words,
we expected that there would be differences in visibility and roles of
women between different papers (especially between quality
newspapers and tabloids), between different sections, between news
and feature articles and possibly also depending on the gender of the
reporter. Therefore in the analyses we compared different papers,
sections, genres and articles written by female and male reporters.
3.6 Qualitative Analyses of the Core Material
The data on the qualitative text analyses is remarkably smaller
than in the quantitative content analyses, since at this stage we
focused only on those texts that explicitly covered gender issues,
“women’s issues” or individual women. We utilised discourse
analyses to analyse representations of women constructed in
newspaper texts. Since the language of this report is English, in the
22
detailed discourse analyses we focused on the English language
paper, The Citizen.
The core material for the discourse analyses included the
following materials from The Citizen:
pull-out “Woman” (2 issues from the 2 sample
pullout “Sound living” (2 issues from the 2 sample
• Weekly
weeks)
of or interviews with individual women in any
• Profiles
section (e.g. articles published under labels “Success”,
“Profile” and “Career profile”)
• Articles dealing with gender issues in any section
Discourse analyses is a method suitable for recognising shared,
culturally-determined meanings in various texts and for analysing
the process of constructing these meanings through the use of
language. DA has become a very popular method of media analyses
during the past few decades. Discourse analyses focuses generally
on three dimensions of discourses: representations, identities/roles and
relationships between different actors positioned in different roles.
Especially the so-called Critical Discourse Analyses (CDA) pay
attention to power relationships within a certain discourse and
between different competing discourses. CDA is also interested in
the consequences of discourses in the actual material reality. (See e.g.
Fairclough 1995a, 1995b.) CDA is therefore a very relevant method
when analysing gender issues.
In the qualitative analyses we focused especially on the following
features of the texts:
– Topics and issues: What kind of gender issues or “women
issues” were covered during the two sample weeks? What
kind of topics were covered in the pullouts targeted
specifically at women?
– Naming and identification: How are women called and
identified in the articles? Are they anonymous or are they
presented with their name? Are they identified by their
professional role/status, by their degree, by their
family/relationship status or something else?
– Descriptions: How are women described in articles? Does the
writer describe their physical appearance? Their behaviour?
23
• Weekly
weeks)
Their professional qualifications or merits? Their intellectual
capacities? Which adjectives are used? Which verbs are used
to describe their activities? What kind connotations do these
adjectives and verbs produced?
– Role of women in the article: What kind of positions are women
placed in in the articles? Do they provide information, expert
comments and analyses, or personal opinions and views on
the issue at hand? Do they act as eyewitnesses to something?
Do they talk about their personal life experiences? Are they
just random examples of the issue at hand?
– Role of women in the described events: How is the role of women
in the events covered represented in the article. Are they
represented for example as victims (of crime, poverty,
inequality or such) or as villains (aggressors,
troublemakers…); as active and initiative actors, or as
passive spectators.
– Interpretations on gender issues: How do articles explain
gender inequality/imbalance, gender-based violence or
other gender issues? What is portrayed as a cause of the
problem? Do they name someone responsible for the
problem/for solving it? Do the articles analyse consequences
and what kind? Do they suggest solutions and what kind?
3.7 Visual Analyses
All images portraying women in the sample of newspapers and
tabloids were included in the analyses. Women appeared in photos
in 295 articles altogether. Some articles had more than one photo with
women in it. Advertisements and cartoons were excluded from the
visual analyses.
Since the number of photos with women in them is extensive, we
could not analyse all of them in detail. Therefore, the strategy was to
first to go through all the photos to recognise what type of photos are
published in the papers and what kind of representations of women
are constructed in them. Then we picked some representatives of
each type of photo for closer, more detailed analyses.
Some of the concepts and perspectives of discourse analyses are
also applicable in analysing images, since in the visual analyses we
were also interested in representations of women and the roles
women were portrayed in. In addition, perspectives and concepts of
semiotic analyses were utilised in analysing photos. Semiotic analysis
24
is concerned about how meanings are constructed by different signs
(images, language, etc) which are part of a larger sign system (see e.g.
Bignell 1997). It is suitable for systematic analyses of meanings in
photos and other images. In analysing photos, we paid attention, for
example, to the following features in the content and composition of
photos, so we wanted answer for the following questions:
women
• Are
anonymous?
in the photo named in the caption or
• What is their role in the article?
• What are women doing in the photo?
they just pose to the camera or are they actively doing
• Do
something?
• How are they dressed and how are they posing?
• Do they look at the camera?
• Are they alone in the photo or with other subjects?
for the composition of the photo; How are
• As
positioned in the photo?
women
are they positioned in relations to other people or other
• How
elements?
• What is the view of the photo?
is the explicit, denotative meaning of the photo (what
• What
is in the photo), and what kind of connotations (implicit and
•
culturally determined meanings) the photo may have?
How does the photo interact with the text to produce
meanings, especially with the headline and the caption?
3.8 Interviews With Reporters and Editors
For this study, we interview altogether 30 journalists working for
Mwananchi Communications Limited (see Table 2) in the main office
in Dar or in the regional offices in Arusha and Mbeya. Mwananchi,
The Citizen and Mwanaspoti share the same office in Dar and in
regional offices. Individual journalists work mostly for only one of
the papers, although sometimes they may write articles for a sister
newspaper. Most interviewed journalists work for Mwananchi or for
The Citizen; two of them work for Mwanaspoti.
The sample of interviewees was selected primarily following the
logic of maximum variation sampling. To bring out different
25
a photo portray a specific individual or just women in
• Does
general?
experiences and views, we wanted the sample of interviewees to
include
• Women and men,
• Reporters and editors,
• “Generalists” and specialised reporters,
• Journalists working at the news desk and features desk,
• Journalists from the main office and from regional offices.
TABLE 3. Number of female and male interviewees from the
different offices of MCL.
Interviews were done in September 2013 in the editorial offices of
Mwananchi Communications Limited in Dar, Arusha and Mbeya.
Since there are remarkably less women working as permanently
employed journalists in the two newspapers, finding female
interviewees proved to be a challenge. In the main office in Dar, nine
women volunteered to be interviewed. Several others were requested
to be interviewed declined, on the reasoning that their timetable was
too tight. In Arusha, the only female journalists working in the
regional office was out of town at the time of the interviews. In the
Mbeya regional office the gender division was much more equal,
with five women and five men working in different positions, and
that also shows in the gender division of interviewees. (See Table 3.)
Interviews were qualitative semi-structural interviews, in which
the same themes were covered with all the interviewees, but the exact
order and form of questions varied. (See the list of themes and
questions in Appendix 3). A researcher sometimes skipped some of
the questions, if the interviewee had already volunteered the
information, or asked follow-up questions if a specific issue deserved
26
Interviews lasted mostly from half an hour to one hour, and they
were recorded. Interviews were then transcribed. Interviews that had
been conducted in Kiswahili were translated into English. Before the
interviews, all the interviewees were informed of the purpose of the
study and of the fact that the interviews would be anonymous. For
this reason, when analysing the interviews, we don’t reveal too many
details of individual respondents; we refer to them simply by their
gender and position in the newsroom (reporter or editor). “Reporter”
includes generalists from the news desk as well as specialised
reporters and photojournalists. “Editor” here includes sub-editors
and editors of various desks, chief reporters – whose work basically
consists of assisting news editors – and bureau chiefs.
The interviews focused on the awareness of journalists of gender
issues, their views on the current situation in Tanzanian media
generally and in their own newspaper specifically, and of the
practical problems journalists face when attempting to do gender
balanced journalism. Data from interviews was analysed
thematically. We proceeded from a detailed thematic analyses to a
synthesis, looking for common themes which appeared in several
interviews.
27
more attention. For example the difficulties in having interviews with
women was an issue which required more investigation.
4 Quantitative Content Analyses:
Visibility of Women in the Papers
4.1 Women as Sources of News and Feature Articles
In the total data of 1066 articles, women were used as sources
remarkably less than men. Women were used as sources in 24% of
articles, whereas men were used as sources in 70% of articles. Some
58% of articles where based on male sources only. In 13% of the
articles, all sources were women, and only 11% of articles used both
women and men as sources.
The proportion of women sources is even smaller if we look at
their share on the level of sources and not articles. In Mwananchi, The
Citizen and Uwazi, women represent around 20 % of all sources. In
Ijumaa and Risasi, their percentage in terms of sources is over 30%
(Table 4).
TABLE 4. Number of Female and Male Sources
28
In the studied newspapers and tabloids, the so-called single
source syndrome was common. In all the papers under scrutiny, a
remarkable percentage of articles were based on only one person
source, from a bit over 40% in The Citizen and Uwazi to almost 80%
in Ijumaa. The data also included articles which either relied on
document sources or did not identify their sources at all – in other
words, articles without any people sources. The other extreme were
articles which had more than 10 people sources. (See Appendix 4.)
On average, Uwazi used more people sources than other papers,
while the other tabloids used less people sources than the daily
newspapers (see Table 4).
There are some differences in visibility of women in different
sections of newspapers. Women were used as sources mostly in
national news (in 27% of articles), entertainment (26%) and special
theme sections (26%), such as different pullouts of Mwananchi and
The Citizen. Contrary to what one might expect, the sections that
specifically targeted women in Mwananchi and The Citizen did not
use females as sources more than it used males. Articles in these
pullouts and pages targeted women were often based on other than
people sources. Moreover, even in these sections men appeared as
sources more often than women (male sources 31%, female sources
19%). However, in all the other sections, men were much more
dominant as sources. (See Figure 1.)
FIGURE 1. Gender of People Sources, Comparison of Different
Sections (N=1066)
29
The section in which women were especially marginalised as
sources was sports (10%). Other sections where women appeared as
sources less than on average (less than in the total data) were business
(20 %) and international news (21%). In politics sections women were
used as sources in 24% of the articles, the same as the average in the
total data.
Women appeared as sources slightly more often in news items
(24%) than in feature items (21 %). Feature articles in the papers
included in the study relied a lot on other than people sources. Some
58% of articles categorised as features had no people sources. This is
mainly due to the big number of short articles in pullouts focusing
on special themes, which often did not identify sources at all, but
were probably mostly based on other media or other document
sources.
There were differences also between different papers. The tabloids
used women as sources more often than the two daily newspapers
(see Figure 2).
FIGURE 2. Gender of People Sources, Comparison Between
Papers
4.2 Visibility of Women in Photos
Of the total data of 1066 articles, 56% (592 articles) included
photos. In most cases these articles carried only one photo, but in
30
In 19 articles, photos represented something other than people,
such as buildings or cars. There were people photos in 573 articles,
and in 562 articles their gender could be identified. Photos portrayed
women only in 117 articles, and men only in 267 articles. A total of
178 articles had both women and men in pictures. Therefore, women
were represented in photos in 295 articles altogether, which
constitutes 50% of the articles with photos and 28% of all the articles
in the data. Altogether 445 articles had men in photos, which
constitutes 75% of the articles with photos and 42% of the total data.
(See Table 5.)
TABLE 5. Gender of People in Photos (N=1066)
Frequency
%
Valid %
Cumulative %
19
1,8
3,2
3,2
Women
117
11,0
19,8
23,0
Men
267
25,0
45,1
68,1
Women and
men
178
16,7
30,1
98,1
11
1,0
1,9
100,0
592
55,5
100,0
474
44,5
1066
100,0
Valid: No people
Not identifiable
Total (articles
with photos)
Missing: Articles
with no photos
Total number of All
articles
There are some differences between different papers and
especially between the dailies and the tabloids in their use of photos.
First of all, tabloids had very few articles without photos, whereas in
Mwananchi and The Citizen, there were a considerable number of
news items that were not accompanied by photos. All the photos in
the tabloids were of people, whereas daily newspapers published
numerous non-people photos. (See Figure 3.)
31
some cases articles included as many as 10–12 photos. On average,
tabloids had more photos per article, but the total number of photos
was bigger in Mwananchi and The Citizen, since in the sample of seven
issues they had considerably more pages, more articles and more
articles with photos than the tabloids. (For details, see Appendix 6.)
When it comes to the gender of people in photos, entertainmentoriented tabloids Ijumaa and Risasi have more photos of women than
the daily newspapers and Uwazi which focuses more on political and
social issues than the other two tabloids. Visibility of women in
photos was poorest in The Citizen, where women were portrayed in
photos in 40% of the articles with photos (22% of all the articles). In
Ijumaa women were portrayed in 65% of the articles with photos,
which equals to 64% of all articles. In Ijumaa, women appeared in
photos in one article more than men, whereas in all the other
newspapers, men were portrayed in photos more often than women.
(See Appendix 6 for more details.)
FIGURE 3. Gender of People in Photos, Comparison Between
Papers
4.3 Differences Between Female and Male Reporters
In the sample of daily newspapers and tabloids, almost half of the
articles were written by male reporters. In 26% of cases, the gender
of the reporter was not identifiable. Mostly these were articles, in
which there was no reporter’s byline, but only an anonymous byline
(e.g. “The Citizen reporter”). In some cases the gender could not be
identified due to absence of a name. Some 24% of the articles were
32
written by female reporters, and 3% of the articles had names several
reporters on the byline both female and male.
Reporter(s)
Frequency
Percent
Female
252
23,6
Male
503
47,2
Both
33
3,1
Not identifiable
278
26,1
Total
1066
100,0
Uwazi had only a few articles written by women with their name
in the byline. The proportion of female reporters was biggest in
Ijumaa and Risasi (Figure 4).
FIGURE 4. Gender of Reporters of the Articles, Comparison
Between Papers
33
TABLE 6. Gender of Reporter(s) of Articles (N=1066)
Our research supports the findings of some earlier studies that
show female reporters as being more inclined to use female sources
than their male colleagues (see Chapter 2). When we compare articles
written by female and male reporters (those articles where the gender
of the reporter can be identified with certainty), there is a clear
difference in the gender of sources. Female reporters used women as
their only sources in 24% of articles, whereas male reporters relied
exclusively on female sources only in 8% of the articles.
Correspondingly, male reporters based their articles on male sources
more often (60%) than female reporters (50%). Men also based their
articles more often on sources of both genders or non-people sources.
(Table 6.)
Pearson chi-squared test ( test) shows that the difference between
the two groups, the female and male reporters, is statistically very
significant, with a p-value <0,0005 telling that the probability of the
distribution shown in the cross-table being just by chance is very low.
In other words, it is highly unlikely that the difference between men
and women reporters in their use of sources would be just accidental,
and we have a good reason to assume that there is a real difference
between female and male reporters of these papers also beyond our
sample.
TABLE 7. Gender of People Sources in Articles Written by
Female and Male Reporters (N=755)*
Gender of
sources
No people
sources
Women
Men
Women and men
Not identified
Total
X2(4)=36,3
p<0,0005
Count
%
Count
%
Count
%
Count
%
Count
%
Count
%
Gender of reporter
Female
Male
32
79
12,7%
60
23,8%
131
52,0%
24
9,5%
5
2,0%
252
15,7%
41
8,2%
304
60,4%
69
13,7%
10
2,0%
503
100,0% 100,0%
*Includes only articles in which the gender of the reporter could be identified.
34
Difference between male and female reporters is clear also when
comparing the gender of people in photos of articles (Table 7). When
a woman reporter writes a story, it is more likely that there are
women in photos, than if the article is written by a male reporter.
TABLE 8. Gender of People in Photos in Articles Written by
Female and Male Reporters (N=382)*
Female
Male
44
45
37,9%
16,9%
35
131
30,2%
49,2%
37
90
31,9%
33,8%
116
266
100,0%
100,0%
Gender of people
in photos
Women
Count
%
Men
Count
%
Women and men
Count
%
TotalCount
X2(2)=22,2,
%
p<0,0005
* Includes only articles in which both the gender of the reporter and the
gender of people in photos could be identified.
Of course, this comparison does not take into account the impact
of the photographer actually shooting the picture, or of the
photojournalist or editor choosing the pictures to be published.
However, when out in the field covering a story, the reporter has
her/his say in what kind of photos to take, and already, the choice of
topic, angle and interviewees affect the possible choice of photos.
Again, the chi-squared test shows the difference to be statistically
very significant and therefore very likely to apply also more generally
in the newspapers and tabloids in question.
4.4 Reference Groups of Women and Men
By reference group, in this study, we mean the professional or social
role according to which a source is identified in an article by the
reporter. Most of the time people sources do not represent just
35
Gender of reporter
themselves in an article, but they rather represent a broader reference
group or sector of society, such as politics, business and economics
or sports.
In real life, outside the realm of media publicity, each individual
has several different roles and identities. A woman can be at the same
time a mother, wife and daughter; a professional doctor; an activist
in a civil society organisation and in relation to some fields and
topics, she can also be an ordinary citizen with opinions and interests
but no specific expertise. However, in a specific article, a journalist
typically chooses to relate an individual to only one reference group
– with an exception of personality profile stories where different roles
of a person may be explored.
The reference group is also related to the position or role given to
a source in the article. For example, people representing their
professional reference groups get to provide information and expert
opinions, where as ordinary citizens, they may have the role of
eyewitness or they may provide their “lay opinion” on the issue.
FIGURE 5. Reference Groups of Female and Male Sources of
Articles (N=1066)
36
In the over data, the other common reference groups for women
are music/show/fashion business (in 4.3% of all articles), public
officials (3.4%) , ordinary citizens (3.3%) and professionals (2.5%).
Unlike what some previous studies suggest (see Chapter 2), women
were not represented in family roles very often (only in 0.6% of the
articles).
For men, the most common reference groups after politicians –
with a big difference to them – are public officials (7.9 %), sports
(including athletes, coaches and sports organisations) (7.1%),
music/show/fashion business (6.1%) and business and finance
(5.9%).
There is a big difference between the mainstream newspapers and
the tabloids in the reference groups of people sources (Figures 6a-j;
see also Appendix 7 for more details). In Mwananchi and The Citizen,
the over-representation of politicians as sources is very clear. In
Mwananchi, almost one third of all its articles has a male politician
speaking. Politicians are by far the most frequent reference group
among both women and men, and public officials are the next. At the
time of collecting the sample of daily newspaper (in May 2013), the
Parliament (Bunge) was in session, and this explains the prominence
of politicians as a reference group and politics as a topic the sources
comment in the daily newspapers. During some other period of time,
the politicians most probably would not be quite as prominent a
reference group.
The differences between women and men in the top five reference
groups are not very dramatic in the two daily newspapers. When it
comes to men (not women), sports is a common reference group in
Mwananchi. In The Citizen, ordinary citizens don’t make it to the top
five reference groups among men, and instead sources representing
business and finance have a prominent role in the paper.
37
In our data, most of the time sources represent various
professional and public reference groups. Politicians are the group
which gets to speak in the articles far more often than any other
group. In our data of 1066 articles, male politicians quoted are over
four time more than females (in 25.30% of all articles) than women
(in 5.7 % of articles). Yet, even among women, a politician is the most
frequent reference group. (See the Figure 5.)
FIGURES 6a–j. Most common reference groups of female and
male sources in different papers (as percentage of the total number
of articles in the paper).
38
Rather than qualitative, differences between men and women are
quantitative: due to their general underrepresentation as sources, the
percentages for women are much lower than that of men in almost
all reference groups. The only exception is when it comes to ordinary
citizens: in The Citizen, ordinary women speak in 3.7% of the articles,
and ordinary men speak in 3.4%. The likely explanation for this is
that it is easier for the reporters who are aware of the importance of
gender balance to find female interviewees among ordinary citizens
than among various societal elites or specific professional groups in
which women can be very much underrepresented.
The entertainment orientation of the tabloids shows very clearly
in their use of sources: In Ijumaa and Risasi music/show/fashion
business is the most frequent reference group for men and women
alike, and in Uwazi for male sources. In Ijumaa and Risasi it is the only
significant reference group for women, with a share of 25.0% and
24.1% of articles respectively. In Uwazi, different reference groups of
women have a more equal distribution, with women mostly
representing their family roles, music/show/fashion business,
politicians and ordinary citizens.
Politicians are less visible in the tabloids. then they are in the two
mainstream news papers. In Uwazi they speak more often than in
Ijumaa and Risasi. Uwazi is the only paper where family is a common
reference group for sources, and not just for women (in 9.1% of
articles) but also for men (12.7%).
4.5 Topics Men and Women Talk About
In the total data of 1066 articles, male sources most often talk
about politics (14.1% of articles), different forms of crime or general
issues of public safety (11.2%), sports (9.2%), or business and
economics (8.7%). The terrorist attack in Arusha during the sample
39
week, when the issues of Mwananchi and The Citizen were collected,
made the topic of crime and security very topical and prominent. It
is likely that during some other random sample week, the topic
would not have been this prominent. Prominence of politics as a topic
about which sources talk about is not surprising, considering how
often politicians speak in the media. A lot of coverage is dedicated
especially to reporting what is said in parliamentary sessions. Also,
sports and business and economics get a lot of coverage, since they
have specific sections and pullouts dedicated to them. Labour Day
during the sample period affected the coverage of economic issues
to some extent, bringing into the agenda issues such as taxation of
employers. (Figure 7)
Also for female sources, politics was the most common topic (in
3.8% of articles) on which they commented, although again they
commented far less often than men, because of their
underrepresentation as sources. Other frequent topics with female
sources included business and economics (2.9%), crime and security
(2.6%), health care and social welfare (2.3%) and popular culture
(2.2%). In the sample issues of daily newspapers and tabloids, gender
issues and other human rights issues got very little coverage
compared to other topics, and therefore, were not often commented
by either women or men.
There were two topics that women comment on more often than
men: family and relationships, fashion, trends and beauty. Both are
“soft topics” and as such, the kind of topics that according to some
studies, are more appealing to women than the “hard topics” such
as politics, business and economics. However, it was mostly in the
tabloids and Mwananchi that women commented on these topics
(with regard to fashion, trends and beauty.
40
In the mainstream newspapers, both men and women commented
frequently on the same hard news topics: politics, business,
economics, crime and security. The order varied somewhat, for
example in Mwananchi, politics was more commonly talked about
than business and economics while in The Citizen it was vice versa10.
Sports was a common topic for men, but not for women. Education,
infrastructure, health services and social welfare and agriculture were
the top five in the list of topics women and men alike commented on
in the mainstream newspapers.
10
This is likely to tell about a slightly different emphasis in contents of the Swahili-language
Mwananchi and the English-language The Citizen, although we did not directly study topics of
articles – only the topics sources commented. In one and the same article, in some cases, different
sources may comment different topics.
41
FIGURE 7. Topics that Female and Male Sources Talk About in
the Articles (N=1066)
FIGURES 8a–j. Most common topics female and male sources
talk about in different papers (as percentage of the total number of
articles in the paper).
42
As can be expected, in the entertainment oriented tabloids, the
lists of most frequently commented topics look quite different from
the two daily newspapers. The exact order varies from one tabloid
to another, but the most frequent topics include in all of them popular
culture (artists, celebrities etc.), family, relationships, crime, security
and sports. Sports was again a common topic mostly for male
sources; it made it to the top five list of female sources in Ijumaa, but
with only two articles (2.5%). Family and relationships was on the
top five list of both, women and men, with the exception of Risasi.
In the tabloids, politics was among the most commented topics
only in Uwazi and only for women. Other topics that made it to the
top five lists of different tabloids were environment (in Uwazi, for
men), health and wellbeing (in Uwazi, for women; in Risasi, for men),
calamities and conflicts (in Ijumaa, for both women and men), fashion
and beauty (in Ijumaa and Risasi, for women), and religion (in Risasi,
for both women and men).
43
5 Qualitative Analyses: Portrayal of
Women in Texts and Photos
5.1 Articles About Women and for Women
Even though in the daily newspapers women appear only rarely
as sources of articles and in photos compared to men, they do appear
in diversity of contexts: in national and international news, in
parliamentary news and in business news as well as in mostly
entertainment oriented pullouts. In some cases, these articles are
specifically about women and gender issues, in other cases women
get to comment general on “gender neutral” topics as sources,
especially in news on parliamentary sessions where female MPs,
ministers and deputy ministers speak.
Women are most visible as subjects of stories in various special
sections and pullouts such as Johari, Starehe and Burudani in
Mwananchi, and Sound Living and Woman in The Citizen. Mwananchi
focuses more on show business and female celebrities in its special
sections, whereas The Citizen has a lifestyle magazine-like approach
with a range of regular themes and columns and longer feature
articles. The regular elements include, for example, fashion and
beauty tips, columns on parenting and relationships, health news in
brief, home decoration tips, cooking tips and receipts – in other
words, contents very typical in women’s lifestyle magazines all over
the world. Different pullouts also include personality/career profiles
that feature successful women. Interviewed journalists at Mwananchi
Communications Ltd referred to this type of articles as “success
stories”. In the tabloids – as the quantitative content analyses showed
– most of the women we see and read about are celebrities who
appear in contexts typical of the entertainment-oriented yellow press,
namely celebrity gossips and show business news. Women also
appear in the regular articles dealing with relationships (e.g. “Love
& life”, “All about love”, “Let’s talk about love”).
The third type of articles in which women are visible in the
tabloids are what can be called “scandal news”. These are news items
that cover women in very negative contexts, such as crime or
adultery, and that is normally written in a very sensational way 11.
This is a very negative and degrading type of “genre”, and it seems
that anyone can become a target and victim of it, from celebrities to
ordinary women, from a police woman to a politician. What is even
11
Sensational scandal new typically have a very emotional and colourful style of writing, and the
coverage often exaggerates or even misrepresent certain aspects of the subject to make the story
more appealing to the audience.
44
more disturbing about these articles from the perspective of
journalism ethics is that, the tabloids are in some cases very actively
involved in discrediting women by setting traps for their target and
then being on the scene to witness (and to take photos) when women
fall into the trap. Therefore, even though women are more visible in
the tabloids than in the two mainstream newspapers, the contexts in
which women are portrayed are much less diverse and much more
negative, stereotypical and degrading. In the following chapters, we
examine the discourses employed in articles covering gender issues
and women’s issues in The Citizen, and the various representations
of women in the photos of the two mainstream newspapers and the
tabloids.
5.2 Discourses Constructing Representations of Women in
The Citizen
One can distinguish several discourses used in The Citizen when
writing about women and/or gender issues. Each of these discourses
follows their own specific internal logic, provides a different
perspective to gender issues, and construct different kinds of
representations of women. (See Table 9 for a summary of discourses.)
During the two-week sample period, The Citizen published several
news and feature articles on various gender issues, such as on family
planning and health issues specifically related to women (maternal
health and maternal care, prevention of mother-child transmission
of HIV/Aids, prevention of cervical cancer with a vaccine against
Human Papilloma virus), gender-based violence, teenage
pregnancies and behaviour of teenage girls, motherhood, sex trade,
Women’s Constitutional Manifesto and women’s economic
empowerment. Only two editorials dealt with gender issues, one on
commercial sex (14.5.2013), the other on maternal care (9.5.2013).12
Even though one and the same topic can be discussed in the
framework of different discourses, looking at it from different
perspectives, the specific topics covered affect to some extent the
discourses employed when talking about women and gender issues.
For example, the discourse named here as Women’s economic
empowerment was common in the material, since the economic
activities of women and various initiatives and projects to enhance
12
Commercial sex can be regarded as a gender issue, since it has to do with socio-economic inequality
between women and men in society. It is typically the women in the most vulnerable positions in
the society, with little or no options for earning their livelihood, who end up resorting to sex trade
as a source of income. Sex trade can be regarded as a serious violation against women, since in
commercial sex women are abused in various ways. Commercial sex has negative impacts also on
women in general, since in sex trade women are seen as mere commodities to be traded, which is
an extremely objectifying view of women.
45
their economic empowerment were covered frequently. On the other
hand, gender-based violence is an example of topics which
represented in very different ways, employing either human rights
discourse or cultural relativity discourse. Commercial sex and teen
pregnancies are examples of topics which could very well be
discussed in the framework of human rights discourse, but were
instead covered using primarily moralizing discourse, which means
that women were represented as morally corrupt and not as victims
of sex trade and sexual abuse.
TABLE 9. Discourses Employed in the Coverage of Gender
Issues and Women in The Citizen
46
(I) Human Rights Discourse
Human rights discourse appears mostly in news articles based on
reports produced by and/or press conferences organised by CSOs
such as Tanzania Women Lawyers’ Association (Tawla) and Tanzania
Gender Networking Programme (TGNP). The more specific topics of
the articles deal, for example, with sexual and reproductive rights of
women, with the new Constitution and with human rights violations.
In the sample of this study, human rights discourse is almost
exclusively employed by representatives of various human rights
organisations, such as lawyers, researchers and trainers working in
CSOs, or people referred to as “human rights activists” in the articles.
From the perspective of the human rights discourse, gender issues
are essentially a matter of rights of women and generally, human rights.
“Whether one supports safe abortions or not, the reality is
that women have them in countries where they are legal, safe
and affordable or in nations where they are illegal, dangerous
and expensive”, said Tawla’s facilitator Annmarie Mavenjina.
Tawla said: “There is a linkage between what we support –
the right of a woman to make her own personal and private
decision about abortion without the government interfering –
and what happens when that right is denied.” (Abortion key
contributor to maternal deaths: report, The Citizen 8.5.2013.)
Ms Ussu Mallya [TNGP managing director] said that their
organisation expects the new Constitution to nullify all laws that
contradict the fundamental and basic human rights for women
and men. She singled out personal laws and those that allow
cultural and social practices which are harmful to women and
those that allow discriminatory practices.
“The new Constitution should spell out principles that
protect women’s dignity, respect and freedom from genderMedia ReseaRch PaPeR
47
It is important to bear in mind that analysing discourses is not
about speculating on intentions of individual reporters or sources.
Individuals often employ a specific discourse, without even being
conscious of the discourse and the meanings it implies and
constructs, simply because it is a culturally familiar way of thinking
and talking about a specific topic, and/or because they adopt the
discourse from their background institution. In other words,
discourses are essentially related to socially and culturally shared
meanings.
based violence,” she added. (Network to launch women
constitutional manifesto, The Citizen 8.5.2013)
Within the system of the human rights discourse, women are
represented as a vulnerable group and victims who need to be protected
from harmful cultural and social practices.
One of the human rights activists from TGNP, Mr Deogratius
Temba, also opined that the new Constitution should provide
for the protection of women’s dignity, respect and freedom from
gender-based violence.
“This will include, among others, prohibition of cultural
practices which undermine women’s dignity, such as female
genital mutilation (FGM), wife inheritance or cleansing,
domestic violence, forced marriages and other practices that
undermine the rights of women”, he said. (TGNP calls for
inclusive, gender-sensitive parent law, The Citizen 12.5.2013)
Presenting the report [2012 Human Rights Report], LHRC
Researcher, Mr Patience Mlowe, said the survey found out that
more than 1,000 school girls were affected by Female Genital
Mutilation (FGM) in Mara Region at the end of last year. He said
children and women remain vulnerable groups and victims of
rape and physical torture. (Right violations ‘increased in 2012’,
The Citizen 1.5.2013)
In these articles, ordinary women do not usually speak; the
“activists” – both women and men – speak for them. In the regular
Talking Gender column of the Sound living pullout, also reporters also
discuss gender issues and may lean on the human rights discourse
in their articles:
In Tanzania, many men still believe a family without a male
child is incomplete. As a result, too many wives who give birth
to baby girls in a row find themselves with no choice but to try
to give their husband what they want: a son.
“For my husband, a male child is his priority: He wants a
successor,” says Rahma, who looks like she is in her late 40s. She
looks all worn-out and overworked. Her health had
deteriorated since doctors told her she had anaemia.
According to a study conducted recently in Mbeya Region,
too many men still disregard family planning, putting a heavy
burden on their impoverished wives and families. The study on
48
the attitudes of men in the region shows that men believe family
planning is for women only.”
(Daniel Muhau: When a man loves a boy child, Sound living
12.5.2013, The Citizen)
Whereas the Human rights discourse takes universal human rights
as a starting point, the Cultural relativity discourse represents gender
issues rather as a matter of cultural traditions and of personal
opinions and believes. It is not a common discourse; the sample
includes only one article which is a clear example of it. However,
since it is a rather problematic discourse, it is worth taking a closer
look at the article.
In the ‘Woman’ pullout (4.5.2013), the cover story When love turns
sour discusses gender-based violence, but instead of taking a clear
stand against it on the basis of human rights, it brings out opinions
of four interviewees, two women and two men; two who are opposed
to violence and two who justify it and blame it on women. Three of
the interviewees are just random “people from the street”, one works
as a lawyer in Tawla and can be regarded as an expert in this subject
– but the reporter actually treats him in the article much like other
sources, as if he is just giving his opinion on the issue. None of the
ordinary people interviewed is talking on the basis of their personal
experience. This article on gender violence provides an examples of
celebrity couples.
Already the lead of the article sets the stage for cultural relativism:
it does not take a stand against violence against women, instead it
asks a question and lets interviewees answer.
Every single day, we wake up to tales of women who have
been beaten by their partners. Many are left severely injured,
maimed and sometimes the abuse ends up in fatalities. Can
violence bear any fruits? (When love turns sour, Woman, The
Citizen 4.5.2013)
The same question is posed on the cover of the pullout, but with
different words: Can anything justify wife beating?
This perspective is explained and justified in the body of the text
with a reference to customary law and beliefs by people:
For a long time now, domestic violence has been a global
concern. Surprisingly, customary and codified legal system
49
(II) Cultural Relativity Discourse
particularly in Africa, justify it.
Does a man have any right to his partner? People hold varied
beliefs regarding this and TDHS 2010 [Tanzania Demographic
and Health Survey 2010] points out that, 54 per cent of women
and 38 per cent of men age 15-49 believe that a husband is
justified to beat his wife – for certain reasons. (When love turns
sour, Woman, The Citizen 4.5.2013)
The choice of words by the reporter is cautious to the point of
being absurd. No-one for example condemns violence against women,
instead people “are in favour” or “support” gender-based violence,
or alternatively “consider it unnecessary” or “unjustified”. In the
article, it is primarily the reporter herself who employs the cultural
relativity discourse – after all, all the interviewees have rather clear
opinions on the issue and they speak from that perspective. Of the
four interviewees, the lawyer clearly uses human rights discourse
(typical of people working in human rights organisations, as was
shown earlier), when speaking on gender violence.
The representations of women constructed in the article are
somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, women are clearly
portrayed as victims of gender-based violence both in the text and in
photos. On the other hand, two of the interviewees depict (some)
women as disrespectful troublemakers who actually deserve a
beating, since they “argue too much with their men”, and are not
respectful enough towards them.
“I am not saying that all women are disrespectful, but as a
man respect means everything to us. If my partner is trying to
compromise that, then I use everything in my power to control
it.” (An interviewed man in ‘When love turns sour’, Woman,
(III) Women’s Economic Empowerment Discourse
In the framework of the Women’s economic empowerment, economic
independence and self-reliance are represented as the core issues in
women’s empowerment. By educating women and providing them
with entrepreneurial skills, women can be given a chance for a better
life. The sample data includes several news in brief, where, for
example, politicians (or their wives) “encourage” or “urge” women
to employ themselves to become economically independent.
Women in Mbeya Region have been encouraged to engage
fully in entrepreneurship activities – such as keeping chicken,
50
animals and engaging in agriculture – in order to improve their
standards of living rather than being dependent on men.
(Official calls on women to engage in entrepreneurship, The Citizen
8.5.2013)
“Women are increasingly becoming breadwinners in many
families. This requires us to work hard to acquire
entrepreneurial skills and employ ourselves,” said Ms Bilal.
(‘VP’s spouse advises women to create jobs, curb abject poverty,’
Women’s economic empowerment discourse is present also in success
stories of female entrepreneurs or women working in good positions,
and in longer feature articles focusing on special projects or
initiatives. In these articles, lack of education and entrepreneurial
skills are presented as a core problems leading to economic
dependency and an economically disadvantaged position of women.
However, a 61-year-old retired teacher mentions a catalogue
of challenges facing women in extricating themselves from the
economic quagmire, including lack of education on
entrepreneurship and the government’s aloofness on women is
development. (‘Stronger women’s, girls’ voice for economic
independence’, The Citizen 13.5.2013)
Educating women, and thereby giving them skills needed for selfemployment and participation in decision-making, are represented
as solutions to major challenges facing women.
In collaboration with government leaders, these women
have formed groups that will enable them to be economically
empowered and participate in decision-making, thanks to a
project called Women and Girls Empowerment (Woge)
The Woge project aims to contribute to poverty reduction by
strengthening women’s and girls’ voices for economic selfreliance. (‘Stronger women’s, girls’ voice for economic
independence’, The Citizen 13.5.2013)
The discourse constructs two kinds of representations of women.
Those who are still struggling for economic self-reliance are
portrayed as a hardworking, but vulnerable and disadvantaged
group in need of special support:
51
The wife of the Vice-President, Ms Asha Bilal, has urged
women to employ themselves in an effort to fight poverty.
“Why women and girls? Because most of them are not
independent. When they are not empowered, they depend on
other people to make decisions for them”, says Tano
(programme manager of Woge).
He adds that women and girls lack knowledge and skills to
articulate and harness all basic economic resources and
opportunities for self-dependence.
Those women, who have already made a successful career, are
portrayed in a very positive, even idealising way. They are not only
determined and talented, but also generous and unselfish:
Granted, charity work, though fulfilling, is real hard work,
and it takes a lot of sacrifice. But Edna says she has discovered
the secret of being kind and generous.
“I always feel that when helping people, there is something
that is added to you, something that a better, more generous and
more resourceful you. More so, by helping others you are more
likely to meet interesting people, discover more important
things about life, and experience new things that improve the
quality of your life”, says Mrs Hogan, a charming lady.
A chic, sophisticated woman, with a deep sense of humour,
Edna also loves writing. In fact, she is also set to launch her book
entitled ‘Poems of heart’. (I know the secret of being kind, Profile,
Sound living, The Citizen 5.5.2013)
(IV) Moralising Discourse
Moralising discourse constructs very normative representations
of women, by suggesting directly or indirectly what are acceptable
roles and behaviours for them. In The Citizen, moralising discourse
is present mostly in articles discussing parenting and motherhood or
behaviour of young girls. In our data, reporters themselves rely
strongly on the moralising discourse in feature articles, with
collaboration from their interviewees.
Mother’s day on Sunday 12th May brought the issue of
motherhood strongly on the agenda of The Citizen, both in the
‘Woman’ pullout on Saturday and in Sound Living on Sunday. This
material provides an interesting opportunity to scrutinise the
representations of motherhood and mothers. After all, motherhood
is one of the most traditional roles of women and this gender role is
loaded with strongly emotional meanings and often represented in a
stereotypical way.
52
A mother is a protector, disciplinarian and friend. A mother
is a selfless, loving human, who must sacrifice many of her
wants and needs for the wants and needs of her children. Being
a mother is perhaps the hardest, most rewarding job a woman
will ever experience. Mothers have unconditional love for their
children. (Mother’s Day: What does it mean to be a mother in this
age? Sound Living, The Citizen 12.5.2012)
Motherhood is a lifetime job many women cherish every
single day. It is said to be one of the best experiences ever in a
woman’s life. (‘Bundles of Joy’, Woman, The Citizen 11.5.2013)
According to Ms Neema Ibrahim, an entrepreneur based in
Dar es Salaam, the old generation mother’s selflessness nature
[sic] is what makes her the model mother to today’s mum. (Have
modern mothers stopped being self-sacrificing parents? Sound
Living, The Citizen 12.5.2012)
“Our mothers were superwomen; they had many roles to
play, and yet they gave us full attention without complaining.”
(A comment of an interviewed woman in ‘Have modern mothers
stopped being self-sacrificing parents?’ Sound Living, The Citizen
12.5.2012)
When talking of these “old generation” mothers or just otherwise
traditional type of self-sacrificing mothers, the representations of
them are not only stereotypical, but also idealising. Mothers are
“superwomen”; they are “angels” and “gifts from heaven/God”, as
a foster mother of six foster kids is described by the reporter and the
interviewed foster children:
It’s such a heartrending life that two beautiful siblings
endured until an angel came into their life in the form of a foster
mother.
“Our life has changed. We are so happy to have a mother like
her. We are grateful because God heard our prayers. Mother
Consoler is a gift for us from heaven.” (‘Our foster mum is a gift
from God’, Profile, Sound Living, The Citizen 12.5.2013)
53
Feature articles on motherhood construct representations of
appropriate and acceptable mothers, on the one hand, and bad
mothers, on the other. Good mothers are depicted as being selfsacrificing, loving and devoted to their children and their mother’s
role:
Juxtapositioning of the traditional, unselfish mothers and the
modern working mother is clear. The latter are described as selfish
and self-centered. A cover story by Sound Living (12.5.2013) is
provocatively titled in the cover of the pullout as ‘Modern mothers –
Are they self-centered or simply doing the best they can for their young
ones?’ The headline of the actual article asks: ‘Have modern mothers
stopped being self-sacrificing parents?’ The article starts with a long
introduction where the reporter very clearly reveals her take on the
issue:
Yet, motherhood has changed over the years. Unlike the old,
traditional mother, today’s mum is considered self-absorbed
and not as caring as her predecessors.
Many parents today want so much for their children: the best
education, the best clothes, and freedom of choice that easily
translate to tolerance for, mostly, reckless behaviour. Other
people see much of the modern mothers as lacking in selfsacrificing for her children.
But are modern mothers really self-absorbed? Or just doing
what’s best for their children? It is a widely undisputed fact that
teenagers and children today are behaving in a generally
unacceptable manner, raising many questions about the roles of
mothers in raising their children. (Have modern mothers stopped
being self-sacrificing parents? Sound Living, The Citizen 12.5.2012)
Another article in the ‘Woman’ pullout (11.5.2013) creates
normative representations of acceptable roles and behaviour of
women by sharing a “confession” of an interviewed woman, who is
“cured” or “redeemed” from a selfish and promiscuous lifestyle of a
single woman by becoming a mother:
“Before I had children, I used to think only of myself, but
now that has changed. My family comes first.”
Partying and having fun was part of her past. She enjoyed
life, went out with wealthy and good-looking men. In deed she
confesses that she had no room for paupers.
“Honestly, I exchanged men at will depending on their
wallet size. Image was everything to me and so I followed
fashion trends. But after starting my own family, all that is
history.” (Bundles of Joy, Woman, The Citizen 11.5.2013)
Also teenage girls get their share of the moralising discourse. In
54
[One interviewed girl:] Girls who become pregnant in
schools should not be allowed back because they promote
premarital sex among students. By mingling among normal
children, they share their experiences with them.
[Another interviewed girl:] To give young mothers a chance
to school is likely to send the wrong message to other girls who
may not see any harm in getting pregnant. (Teen mothers should
be allowed back in school, ‘Young Citizen’, The Citizen 5.11.2013)
Another cover article of Sound Living (5.5.2013) talks about young
girls wanting to grow up too soon. Again the discourse is moralizing:
young girls are represented as promiscuous and as something other
than the “innocent girls” in the past.
You will be forgiven to think that they are young women in
their 20s. But they are just little girls, teens, a generation of girls
who for once, have stopped being the innocent girls, and now
feel the pressure to grow up sooner and sexier than ever before.
Gone are the days when little girls had fun playing simple
games. Now, the social media has replaced social games. (It’s a
new breed of young girls who dream of being adults, Sound Living,
Same kind of representations of sexually promiscuous and
morally corrupt girls or young women are also constructed in a news
article covering sex trade, based on the views of MPs and the Minister
for Community Development, Gender and Children, Ms. Sophia
Simba. In this article, which is strongly based on the moralising
discourse, young girls are not represented as disadvantaged or
abused victims – they are the seducers and predators who prowl on
men in night clubs “half-naked”.
In her response, Ms Simba said that the first solution was for
men to stop entertaining any kind of seduction from girls, and
to stop going to nightclubs where those girls go to entertain men
and get cash from them. (Men ‘hold key to curbing sex trade’, The
Citizen 13.5.2013)
55
‘Young Citizen’ (5.11.2013) magazine, students from various schools
give comments on whether teen mothers should be allowed back in
school. Those interviewees who are opposed to it, use moralising
discourse to justify their views. In their views these girls are not
victims, but rather deviant and morally corrupt, and they may also
corrupt the “normal” students around them.
Reporting the views of MPs, the article even suggests that the way
women dress instigates rape and other sexual offences, implying that
women themselves are to be blamed for these crimes:
MPs said that it was now the norm for young girls to wear
skimpy outfits that left them half-naked, adding that this was
contributing to moral decay and an increase in sexual offences,
including rape. (Men ‘hold key to curbing sex trade’, The Citizen
13.5.2013)
An editorial on the same topic the following day was a bit more
careful with its wording and arguments. In the editorial, the concern
about the “moral standing of citizen” is not targeted only at women,
but also at men who buy sex. However, even in the editorial, women
engaged in commercial sex are represented as sexually promiscuous
and morally corrupt rather than as victims of life conditions and lack
of options.
Why is this trade flourishing? Why do more girls keep
joining in the so-called “oldest profession”? Do those practising
it do so just because they like it? We would like to believe that
the answer is a loud and clear “Certainly not!” (It’s a deeper
national issue, Editorial, The Citizen 14.5.2013)
Weather talking about mothers or young girls, when discussing
reasons for the changing roles and behaviour of women, articles point
a finger at foreign influences, namely the evil West.
As expected, it all begins in the West, and then through the
media it trickles all the way closer to home. (It’s a new breed of
young girls who dream of being adults. Sound living, The Citizen
5.5.2013)
Mrs Sella Victor, a trainer at the Women Centre in Mabibo,
Dar es Salaam, blames the mixing of African and European
lifestyles on the tendency of today’s mother to be lax with their
children.
“Modern mothers copy their parenting styles from Europe
where there is a whole generation of teenagers without norms
and values.” (‘Have modern mothers stopped being self-sacrificing
parents?’ Sound Living, The Citizen 12.5.2012.)
56
In the two mainstream newspapers, representations of women in
photos are diverse and mostly positive. In the news pages, readers
get to see mostly either women in power, traditional hardworking women
or active citizens participating in public life. In some instances women
also represented as caregivers or victims in news stories. In the pullouts
focusing either on entertainment (artists, celebrities, etc) or on
women’s issues and home, women are portrayed in photos mostly
in the traditional role of caregivers (mostly mothers), or as successful
career women. Pullouts represent women also as decoration and
sometimes even as sex objects.
57
5.3 Representations of Women in Photos in the
Mainstream Newspapers
58
News pages (national and international news, politics and
business news sections) of Mwananchi and The Citizen represent in
their photos women in various power positions. There are MPs,
ministers and deputy ministers speaking in parliamentary sessions,
women in expert and management positions in economic institutions
speaking in meetings or press conferences, and women in important
public office positions giving interviews to reporters. Most of these
women are Tanzanians, but some are representatives of a foreign
countries, or in the case of East-African or African news pages,
powerful women in the neighbouring countries.
There are several things in common with regard to these photos.
First of all, in almost all the pictures, women are shown speaking,
either publically or to reporters. This is clear from both, their facial
expression and the body language, especially their use of their hands
to emphasise a point. These non-verbal cues make women appear
very confident and in some cases, aggressive.
Secondly, in these pictures, women typically do not look at the
camera, but at the audience they are talking to. In other words, they
are not posing to the camera, but are focused on what they are doing.
Photographers usually take the photo rather from the side than
standing directly in front of their subjects.
Thirdly, pictures are mostly either medium close ups or mid shots,
which means we see either only the head and shoulders of the subject
in photo, or the whole upper body from the waist up. This means we
don’t actually see the audience, we just know the audience is there
based on the context provided by captions, headlines and the articles
and/or the picture itself showing women directing their eyes and
words at someone.
Mid shots allow us to see the hand gestures of the speaker and
give us some idea of the place the subject is speaking to by showing
some background. The impression is more active and dynamic than
in middle close up, where the main point is showing the subject
herself. Middle close ups of women appear mostly in interview
articles and personality profiles, where the person is in the centre of
the focus also in the article. Mid shots are used, for example, in
photos from parliamentary sessions, where the person in the picture
is not necessarily always even mentioned in the text of the article.
In all of the pictures of women in power, women are identified in
the caption with their name and title, sending the message that they
59
Women in Power
are not just some random people, but it is important to know who
they are.
Traditional Hardworking Women
In the news pages there are also quite some pictures of
traditionally dressed women working either in fields, factories or as
street vendors. Some of these pictures are from rural areas, from
villages, some from the streets or factories in different towns. These
photos probably correspond most closely to our everyday
experiences of encounters with ordinary Tanzanian women.
In these pictures, it is clear that what is considered important is
the activity women are engaged in rather than the individual subjects
in the pictures. That is why the view of the photo also varies
according to the action that needs to be shown. There are long shots
showing not just the woman but also the field she is working on, and
there are mid shots which include the essential elements such as the
groundnuts women are selling. In most of these pictures, women
don’t look at the camera, but in some shots the frozen and static pose
seems to suggest that women are aware they are being
photographed. In some photos women seem very engaged in their
work and have not necessarily even noticed the photographer.
Women in these pictures are almost always anonymous. Captions
refer just generally to a group of people, such as farmers, petty
traders, groundnut vendors or workers. In some cases the
photographer or reporter has clearly talked to the women, since
specific information is provided such as the price of the products they
sell. Therefore, also the names of the women could have been sought
and readers duly informed. However, since it is not the role of these
women to represent themselves in the article, but to represent some
broader phenomenon the article is dealing with (mostly different
economic activities of women), apparently journalists do not find
naming these subjects important.
Women as Active Citizens
Photos of women as active citizens are typically group photos of
meetings and collective actions taken in public places. They are long
shots which show several people and also some of the setting at
which the photo has been taken. Photos from schools can also be
included in this category, since they show women educating
themselves, which can be seen as a precondition of engaging in
public affairs and practising one’s citizen rights.
60
As in the case of the traditionally hard working women, also in
the photos of active citizens it is not the individuals in the photo that
are important, but rather the event and activity they are engaged in.
Therefore, the captions again do not identify women – or men, since
many of these pictures include both women and men – but rather the
place and the event in question. Women are shown for example
participating in political meetings or marching during the Labour
Day.
61
62
63
Women as Caregivers
Photos of women in caregiver roles include two different types of
photos. In the news pages, women are shown undertaking the role
of professional caregivers, mostly as nurses. The bomb attack in
Arusha explains a fairly big number of pictures from hospitals during
the sample period, and in most of these photos we see women taking
care of patients. Professional caregivers are focused on their activities,
and the camera is following them from the side. There is no posing,
rather the situations seem natural.
Pullouts present very different types of caregivers: mothers
(including women taking care of children as foster mothers or other
volunteers). These photos are completely different from the photos
of professional caregivers. Women pose for the camera together with
children, looking directly at camera, smiling and hugging children.
Women in this context are beautiful and smartly dressed; children
are cute, clean and healthy. These photos are an embodiment of a
stereotypical ideal of a good mother, and they are very much in line
with the moralising discourse appearing in the relevant articles.
Women as Victims
Pictures representing women as victims were not very common
in the sample of mainstream newspapers, although the role of victim
is regarded as one of the stereotypical roles of women in the media.
Several of the photos representing women as victims were related to
the above mentioned incident in Arusha. Therefore, women in these
pictures were victims of the terrorist attack – either wounded or
suffering from the loss of loved ones. The victim wounded in the
attack was identified with her name in the caption and in the
adjoining article. Another photo representing a woman as a victim,
identified by her name, was one of a poor mother of several children,
abandoned by her husband, struggling to support herself and the
children.
Women were also portrayed as victims of harmful beauty norms
and chemicals used to lighten the skin, and as victims gender-based
violence, in photos related to articles dealing with these topics. In
these cases women in photos are anonymous. In The Citizen’s
‘Woman’ cover story on gender-based violence, photos of battered
women were from archives and therefore not representing any real
persons mentioned in the article. Foreign news also included pictures
of victims of conflict, featuring both women and men.
64
65
Women as Successful Career Women
Since success stories are one of types of stories covering women
in the daily newspapers, also photos include some representations of
successful women who have made their career either as selfemployed or as employees in a good position in an organisation.
Politicians were not included in this category, but in the category of
“women in power”. There is quite a lot of variation in these photos,
depending on the woman and the type of her career. Since these
photos are part of profile articles, women in the photos are naturally
identified and the whole article focuses on them.
In The Citizen there are also other types of photos of successful
career women. These ones, which are from photo archives, have
anonymous women in them and don’t have much informative value.
Rather, but they are symbols of success, giving colour to the articles
in questions. They could also be interpreted as photos representing
women as decoration, except that the style of photos and women in
them is very different from those photos where women are just
supposed to be “beautiful”. At the sametime, the archive photos
presenting anonymous, urbane, modern career women are rather
stereotypical in their own way: they represent confident women
dressed in smart jacket suits and business-like outfits, looking all
busy in an office environment with their mobile phones and laptops.
This is probably the kind of representation with which majority of
Tanzanian women would find it hard to identify with – but then
again, The Citizen does not target the majority of Tanzanians.
Women as Decoration or Sex Objects
Pullouts of the two dailies use women also as “decoration”,
Mwananchi clearly more than The Citizen. Representing women as
decoration means that the only role of women in the photos is to look
beautiful. These photos don’t have much of an informative value but
their only function in the paper seems to be to please the eyes of the
reader. Women in these pictures are mostly celebrities.
An illustrative example of the use of woman to “decorate” paper
is from Mwananchi’s pullout Starehe (Leasure). The pullout has
typically a woman posing on the cover page, in a big picture which
fills basically the whole page. Even the front page of the main paper
has a small photo of the woman with a headline (in case of the
example issue 4.5.2013, the woman was former Miss Tanzania Nancy
Sumari). Based on the front page and the cover of the pullout, one
might expect that the woman is the subject of a long main article in
66
the pullout, a so called “cover story”, but no – inside the pullout,
there is a tiny article size of one column. So the woman as a person
is not that important – what is important is her beautiful face.
Mwananchi also publishes photos where women are represented
not just as decoration, but as sexual objects. The line between the two
types of representations is sometimes very thin, since in a mainstream
newspaper even the photos which sexualize women are rather subtle.
Clothing is not as revealing and poses not as provocative as in the
tabloids. But the way women pose for the camera brings sexual
connotations to the pictures (more about sexual posing in the
discussion on photos in tabloids). These are all photos of celebrities,
such as actresses or artists, either Tanzanian or foreign, and the
women posing in them are identified in the caption and in the
adjoining article.
Even though cartoons are not included in our actual data, one
cannot avoid mentioning them here. It is in the cartoons of
Mwananchi where one would see the most stereotypical and
sexualizing visual representations of women. Cartoons, of course,
often have caricatures of people, with exaggerated and distorted
features – although this depends on the style of the cartoonist.
However, the important question is: which features are the ones
exaggerated. In case of one of the Mwananchi cartoons, it is the breast
and/or bottoms of women.
Strong and Fit Women
Even though women are not frequently used as sources in the
sports section, there are still quite some pictures of women athletes
engaged in different sports – even more if we would include also the
foreign sports news materials from news agencies. In addition,
women (or girls) are also occasionally seen involved in ball games or
other sporting activities. also outside the actual sports sections of
Mwananchi and The Citizen, for example in the ‘Young Citizen’
pullout.
In sports pictures, women are represented as active, capable,
physically fit and strong. There is a lot of intensity and movement in
67
Also other pullouts use big pictures of women on their cover, both
in Mwananchi and The Citizen. The style of photos varies, though, for
example The Citizen uses typical fashion photos with women who
look like professional models. ‘Sound Living’, on the other hand, uses
photos related to the cover story, so their use has a journalistic
motivation.
the pictures and there are exceptionally lot of vertical photos, which
makes them dynamic, enhancing the impression of active women.
Women do not pose for the camera; they are focused on their
performance, whether it is running, swimming or playing golf or
basketball. Photos of the fitness competitor are of course an
exception, since in fitness competitions posing in bikinis to show the
muscles is part of the game. Yet, compared to the traditional ideals
of what women should look like, these pictures of a strong and
muscular female body have the potential to challenge stereotypes.
In photos of physically fit women, women and girls are not only
competing, but also doing sports for fun, for example in the school.
Compared to the static posing pictures representing women as
decoration and sex objects, these photos seem very empowering.
68
69
5.4 Representations of Women in Photos in the Tabloids
The range of different representations of women in photos in the
tabloids is clearly more limited than in the daily newspapers, and the
representation are mostly stereotypical, negative and even degrading.
Photos of women in tabloids can be categorized into four main types:
women as decoration, women as sex objects, women as morally
bankrupt and women as victims. All these represent women as
passive objects of gazingat, and of admiring, moral contempt or pity.
Only rarely do we see women actively doing something, such as
singing or doing sports.
Representations of women as victims do not appear often in our
sample, and when they do, they are victims of gender-based violence
or sexual abuse. Since women in these photos could too easily be
recognised, these example photos are not included in this report and
we don’t analyse them in detail. Obviously, the tabloids are not doing
much to protect the identities of victims in photos.
Women as Decoration and Women as Sex Objects
Photos of women as decoration and as sex objects are used
commonly in the tabloids in connection with the articles discussing
relationships. These are photos of models and therefore, anonymous,
with no direct connection to the article. Also Tanzanian and foreign
celebrities are represented in the photos of tabloids as sex objects.
As in the case of daily newspapers, the line between women being
used as decoration of stories and being portrayed as sex object is
sometimes thin. As opposed to the daily newspapers, the tabloids
also publish pictures with clearly sexual connotations. In these
pictures women are presented with very revealing clothing, and they
pose in provocative positions with strongly sexual connotations.
Photos representing women as decoration differ from the above
mentioned sexualising photos, both in clothing of women, which is
not as revealing, and in the posing.
In the sexually suggestive photos women look directly at the
camera. In most pictures – especially those where models are posing
– women have their eyes half closed and mouth slightly open which
is usually interpreted as a sexual sign. They pose at least partially
sideways to the camera, in positions which accentuate their breasts
and behind.
Women as Morally Bankrupt
Another common type of photos in the tabloids represents women
70
The tabloids do not try to protect the identity of women in photos
(the faces of women in the illustrate photos have been covered by the
writer of this report), but are rather actively involved in exposing
women, for example by pointing out who is in a picture from which
it might be difficult to recognise people. In the photos representing
women as morally bankrupt we see celebrities as well as ordinary
people.
The texts adjoining the photos direct interpretations of readers
and make the photos appear even more degrading. In the texts,
women caught in bed with a man in a hotel room are for example
accused of prostitution. There is no doubt, that these are the most
harmful type of representations of women in the media.
71
as morally corrupt. Women are shown in various embarrassing and
humiliating situations, such as drunk, half-naked and/or caught in
the bedroom with a stranger.
72
6. Cultural and Practical Challenges related to gender sensitivity
Altogether, 30 journalists working for Mwananchi
Communications Limited were interviewed for this study. Most of
them work for Mwananchi and The Citizen newspapers while two
work for Mwanaspoti. Twenty interviews were conducted in the main
offices in Dar, and ten in regional offices in Arusha and Mbeya.
Most of the interviewees work as general news reporters or as
specialised reporters. Twelve interviewees work in various editorial
positions, i.e. as sub-editors or editors, as bureau chiefs or as chief
reporters. Most of the interviewees working in editorial positions
were men, since there are only few women working in editorial
positions at the media house.
The youngest interviewees were in their 30s, oldest in their 60s.
Journalistic work experience of interviewees varied from one year up
to 40 years. Most of them have a permanent job with MCL, but two
of the interviewees work as correspondents and one as a trainee.
Most of the interviewees had done a Bachelor’s degree either in
the field of journalism/mass media/mass communication or in some
other field. Those who did not have any university degree or who
had done their undergraduate degree in some other than mediarelated field, had done a journalism diploma, advanced certificate in
journalism or had participated in journalism training programme
provided by Nation Media Group (NMG) in Kenya. Only three
interviewees (all editors) told that they hold a Master’s degree. Only
a few of the interviewees said that they had received training on
gender issues either as part of their degree studies or as training
organised by CSOs focusing on gender issues and/or media.
For the purpose of evidence and illustration, the followings
sections include a lot of quotes from the interviews conducted with
journalists. Recorded interviews have been transcribed as carefully
and exactly as possible (and in case of interviews conducted in
Kiswahili, they have been translated into English). Researchers have
followed the customary research conventions and ethics in the use
of quotations: if any changes have been made to the original
quotation, changes have been marked using [brackets]. Combination
means that some words or sentences have been left out in the middle
73
6.1 Background of Interviewed Journalists
of the quotation, either because they are irrelevant to the theme in
question, or for the purpose of avoiding repetition and making the
quote more understandable to the reader. Putting a [word] in brackets
means that either the word has been added to the original quote to
make the sentence complete and understandable, or the word has
been changed into the grammatically correct form, such as from
singular to plural form. No such changes have been made to the
quotations which would alter their original meaning. When a
quotation has a triple point without brackets, it marks hesitations and
pausing by the interviewee.
6.2 Gender Awareness among Journalists
Awareness of interviewed journalists on gender issues and their
understanding of concepts of gender balance and gender sensitivity
varied a lot. Some of the interviewees were not able to explain at all,
how they understand gender balance or gender sensitivity and what
they could mean in the context of journalism. Journalists found it
especially difficult to say, whether there is any difference between
gender balance and gender sensitivity and what that difference might
be. Most of those who were somewhat familiar with the concepts,
connected gender balance to the balance of women and men in the
media organisations, rather than to media coverage:
Gender balance is to look at equality… maybe in numbers, how
many women are there, how many men, how many in the newsroom,
workers, in editor positions, things like that. (Editor 8, male)
Some interviewees thought about gender balance in terms of both,
media organisations and media coverage. For them, gender balance
was about equality in newsrooms and equal representation of women
and men as sources:
When you come to the newsroom, how do you balance the use of
the work that has been done between men and woman, and as well the
sources, how do you incorporate women, how you incorporate women
in the coverage? (Editor 1, male)
I think it’s news reporting that is based on two sides as in not men
only. It’s that in news reporting that even women are capable of being
journalists and they can do it. (Reporter 7, female)
Yes, I know, [gender balance] is when a person tries to consider the
imbalances of genders in the story and tries to eliminate them.
(Reporter 16, male)
74
So covering these stories [gender issues ] is not like covering any
other stories[…], you need to be, to have that focus, you need to be
impartial, you need to be objective and at times you need to even
sympathise with somebody that you interview which I find it has gone
missing among many journalists in the country. You know women
are so much put down, even us […] the media people, we are the main
culprits of that, because we tend to shun, we tend not to focus much
on the women. But it is very true that women have compelling stories
to tell and if we decided to gather special attention to let their voices
be heard then that’s what I think will be gender sensitive. That is my
first perception of gender sensitively. (Reporter 1, male)
[…] gender sensitivity also comes in when you talk about, maybe
how… how you do your stories, of the content, because there’s some
issues that… as a journalist you should be able to know how [coverage]
is going to affect the other gender. (Editor 5, female)
Gender sensitivity was mostly understood as something positive
and worth pursuing by the interviewed journalists. However, one of
them seemed to connect gender sensitivity to emphasising
differences between genders and saw it as something that works
against equality:
Gender sensitivity… oh my, it’s quite wide... […) I am not so
sensitive on these gender issues because I try to think we are all equal.
Any moment you try to say a lady cannot do this, because she is a lady,
I think you’re becoming gender… maybe too sensitive, I mean about
gender. You see, for example, you say maybe a lady cannot do
something to this level, I mean, I find it quite odd because I believe if
we have all the basic, the similar qualifications, I think the gender issue
should not come across. (Reporter 4, male)
When interviewees were asked to tell what they consider to be
gender issues, they mostly mentioned things related to economic and
political rights of women and issues which are visibly on the agenda
of various CSOs, such as female genital mutilation (FGM), genderbased violence and widow inheritance.
[Gender issues are] those specific to male or female with the
intension of harmonising interests of the two genders. For example
75
When asked what gender sensitivity could mean in media coverage,
interviewees mentioned for example avoiding any kind of
discrimination, being considerate to both genders, being unbiased
and impartial, and having a sensitive and sympathetic approach
towards interviewees:
equal access to education, political power, right to own properties,
respect, engagement to development, and so on. In some societies
people tend to abuse the other gender, for instance females may be
considered as powerless, disadvantaged group, tool to be used by male,
which is very wrong. Issues such as female genital mutilation are
intolerable. (Editor 12, male)
For example the issue of location of resources among women and
men, men tend to have the upper-hand of resources compared to the
women. This is magnificent rural areas, so when we go there you’d be
shocked to see how women are harassed and being violated by the men
and that is where things like gender based violence are so common and,
women are not allowed to speak in front of the men. (Reporter 1, male)
Violence against women, women’s access to education, what they
inherit and their participation in decision-making. (Reporter 13,
female)
Widow inheritance, female circumcision, women deprive from
schooling and alike. (Reporter 14, male)
6.3
Views on Gender Sensitivity in Tanzanian Media
With a few exceptions, the interviewed journalists were critical of
the current situation in Tanzanian media. Most of them felt that there
are widespread problems in gender balance and gender sensitivity.
Even though many journalists had difficulties in explaining
theoretical gender concepts, they were still able to provide illustrative
practical examples of the existing problems. In their examples,
journalists focused mostly on media coverage. Problems that were
mentioned included over-representation of men among sources and
in general in coverage and negative and stereotypical portrayal of
women.
I think still there is male dominance. There is male dominance,
because… actually if you read many papers, the sources are men […]
Where people go and take stories, it is male dominant, and readers
themselves most of them are men who buy the paper. (Editor 2, male)
If there was [gender sensitivity], why stereotyping and superiority
prevail in our daily newspapers’ stories? […]Even in our media, there
is no gender balance, every time men dominate our stories and rarely
women come into the platform, and most of them are politicians and
not ordinary citizens. (Reporter 15, male)
Some interviewees referred towhat they describeed as double
76
Pictures of men are the ones that represent hard news; serious news
run pictures of men, but you find pictures of negative exposure… like
a lot of negative exposure, negative exposure are of women. You will
not find a man has been photographed wearing shorts and all, no, a
man is featured wearing suits. Even in cartoons, a man is wearing a
suit and all. But a woman – if a woman is drawn, she will be drawn
with big breasts and bottoms that… I don’t know… is shaped like this.
(Reporter 6, Female)
Photo ethics should be considered, why having bad pictures of
women, for example, who were caught committing adultery with
someone’s husbands, were they alone? No adultery without both sexes,
why men’s images are not portrayed? (Reporter 17, male)
Reporters are also well aware of the differences between tabloids
and mainstream newspapers in their coverage of women.
It’s even worse with the yellow…tabloids, because…they’ve been
so unfair with women since that… women have been represented as
commodities. For example today is a Friday […], on Fridays we have
popular tabloids. Today’s paper, I was outside, I saw it. It had a huge
photo of a lady skimpily dressed. It says that this lady sells herself to
get money. So not only that even… at times these guys will use those
kinds of photos to sell their papers because they think that, they have
this mentality that Tanzanians love to read so much about leisure and
sex and so when we put across these photo we will sell. So to them
women sell more than men so there has been a very negative
representation of women in the yellow newspapers, tabloids as
compared to serious newspapers. (Reporter 1, male)
Interviewees explained the imbalance in media coverage by
structural reasons, namely over-representation of men in powerful
positions and as spokespersons of various organizations.
The system itself tends to discriminate females and favour males.
[…] men dominate the system, everywhere you find them having
better positions compared to females, and when you find females don’t
doubt they are just there under their influences, they [women] are
there because of them [men], so in most cases they become their tools.
(Reporter 17, male)
Because…because in most positions you have the spokesmen are
men. […]. So if you see in the media… it’s almost most of the time is
77
standards in the media: women and men are treated differently, with
women receiving more negative publicity.
men or male spokesmen or sources, it’s because in most cases more
men in most offices, you have men who are holding the position to talk
to the media. (Editor 3, male)
The society’s system favours men a lot. (Reporter 11, female)
Education imbalance, women are not well represented in
Parliament, etc. (Reporter 12, male)
Some interviewees who had historical perspective due to their
long experience in the field felt that things have improved during the
past decade or two, both in terms of gender balance in the
newsrooms and visibility of women in media coverage.
For my part, I am saying that they [women] get the chance to be
interviewed, to be listened to, even to be on television… appear on
television, to give their opinion, to speak out their opinion. […] men
and women are both interviewed. Before… 2005 things [were] not
good, but nowadays both are given equal chance. Things have been
improved compared [to] 1996–1997 when I joined the profession of
journalism. (Editor 4, male)
Currently I think a little bit better than before. Because nowadays
there are more women who are… so much active in various fields so
there are more women who are sources of news right now than some
years ago. Within the media I think currently women are in a better
position to do much, to perform, than before. (Editor 6, male)
Only one interviewed male journalist felt that there had not been
a problem to start with, and women have sufficient access to both
media coverage and media organisations:
I think in Tanzania we are real fair. It depends on what you are
speaking. If it’s newsworthy, you will be covered. As a matter of
covering, as a matter of coverage I think there is no gender imbalance
… as for employment, if a female is interested in journalism as a
reporter, we have a lot of them as you can see here, we have a lot of…
it’s almost balanced. We have girls and boys who join as journalists
and we don’t…we don’t…normally to my experience we encourage
girls... women journalists, we encourage them to work, as they can
just as us men do. So there is nowhere you can find a newspaper which
says we cannot employ for instance a woman because she is a woman,
but I think she will be employed because she is a reporter. We don’t
see sex as something to qualify for this profession, that is my
understanding. (Editor 3, male)
78
6.4 Views and Experiences of Gender
Sensitivity at MCL
I think we are better compared to other media house, as we take
deliberate moves to recruit more females that we think can influence
female interviews for our stories. (Editor 12, male)
I think we are doing better, here there is a policy, first of all the
company policy allows that for equal opportunity to all regardless of
the gender. I think that gives women more field to play. (Editor 6,
male)
However, most interviewees also admitted that there is room and
need for improvement in their newspaper.
Compared to other media houses, I think we are better though I am
not proud of the achievement, we need to make some efforts to improve
more. (Reporter 15, male)
Well, we try but we haven’t reached where we want… I think at
least… This is, it’s basically propagated by big guys, top guys there.
[…] We have a special pullout called ‘Woman’; it comes out every
Saturday, at least that’s the platform where women now can speak.
But if I pull out The Citizen newspaper and I would come across all
the stories and count the number of sources, women sources, you
would be shocked. So that’s why I am telling you, we have a long way
to go, a very long, long way to go. (Reporter 1, male)
Several interviewees referred to ‘Woman’ pullout magazine and
other pullouts dealing with women’s issues when justifying their
assessment that MCL is doing better than the media in general with
respect to gender sensitivity of coverage.
I think Mwananchi is doing better because of… we have special
pullout for women in The Citizen and Mwananchi every weekend and
I don’t see it in other newspapers, so Mwananchi I think we are doing
great, we give it priority. (Reporter 2, female)
Today is Saturday, we have a pullout, it’s called ‘Woman’, a lot of
issues, success stories of women are in that pullout, so if you cannot
have them as a news story pieces, which are always short, we have a
very big platform to explain a success story about a woman in that
pullout. The same happens with Mwananchi, they also have theirs.
(Reporter 4, male)
79
When assessing the performance of their company and
newspaper in terms of gender balance and gender sensitivity, almost
all interviewees considered MCL a better media house than others in
Tanzania.
I think The Citizen is doing better, yah, in my assessment, I think
it’s doing better, because for instance here we have a specific pullout
magazine which just deals with women issues, it’s called ‘Woman’,
it’s all about women’s issues from lifestyles to success stories. (Editor
6, male)
It seems that male journalists have a more positive conception of
gender balance and equal opportunities in the company than female
employees. Female reporters and editors were clearly very well
aware of the marginal positions of women in the organization
structure, and many of them brought it up in the interview. Situation
clearly arouses some discontent.
In the setup of our media, still a woman has no chance, because 95
percent of the top leaders in media are men. For example here, here you
will find those going to meeting of editors are two, [names of two
women]. (Reporter 6, Female)
Of course we need to make it better, because even when you look
for example a company like ours, if you look at gender balance example,
women are fewer than men in Mwananchi, even. (Reporter 7, Female)
In journalists, for example for us here in Mwananchi, I don’t think
it’s fair, because for example when you see even our structure for
Mwananchi, we have only maybe two or three [woman] editors when
you compare to men, men are many. (Reporter 11, female)
Coming to Mwananchi I could say that… even by looking you’re
able to tell that the number of… I mean men outnumber women here
and to some extent it has gotten to the mind of the women, so they
don’t see the need to fight to be felt, you know. (Editor 5, female)
Interviewed men attribute the scarcity of women in editorial
positions to lack of competence and qualifications and/or confidence
and determination among women. In other words, male journalists
tend to blame female colleagues for their low position in the
organisation. It also seems that men have perhaps an over-optimistic
idea of the treatment of women at their workplace. Some male
journalists emphasised that they give special attention and support
to junior female reporters in their organisation, but the other side of
the coin is that women sometimes feel belittled by their male
colleagues and they may be silenced by them for example in post
mortem13 meetings.
13
Whereas in its normal medical and science context “post mortem” (‘after the death’) refers to the
examination of the cause of death, in the context of newspaper journalism it refers to the morningafter meeting of reporters, editors and editorial management, where the issue of newspaper on
which journalists worked the day before and which is now out is reviewed.
80
According to some interviewed women, female journalists are
easily placed in the features desk, rather than in news desks, and in
general they have less room for serving different positions compared
to men. At the same time, some male colleagues may be reluctant to
cover issues which they consider “women’s issues”. And when a
woman do “too well” in her job, male colleagues may remark that
her article has not not been written by the woman herself.
[…] when my story comes out, my nice stories comes out, you say,
you say, “no how come you do this story, no it must… someone must
have helped you”. (Reporter 10, female)
On the other hand, many interviewed women were happy with
the opportunities provided for women, with the support they get
from male colleagues, and in general with the atmosphere and
culture at their workplace.
I don’t know from others but for example us [in MCL], I think we
are given equal opportunity; there is no one who is discriminated, I
haven’t heard of it and I haven’t seen. In our office, we all do our work
well, woman, man, we all do our work well. We are assigned the same,
we are being involved in a lot of things, we are enabled, so we are all
equal in our company. (Reporter 7, Female)
Yes, in terms of giving value to your work, I have not seen any
form of discrimination, no, none that I know, and I am talking
specifically about my desk, and that’s the only place I know, yah, I have
not really seen any issues, I’ve not had any issues, yah. (Editor 5,
female)
6.5 Taking Gender into Account in Practical Work
Most of the interviewed journalists, whether reporters or editors,
said they take gender into account while doing their actual work.
However, interviewees seem to have a rather narrow, even
mechanical idea of gender balance or gender sensitivity. To the
interviewed journalists it is almost entirely just a matter of balancing
the sources, i.e. interviewing as many women as men or interviewing
at least some women for a story.
81
It’s very, very, challenging very, very, challenging especially when
you’re working with many men like here. You know very many men
even at the post-mortem [if] you speak, they say “No”. I say “Why
no?”, I am a reporter, I work, I have a right to speak, to give my views.
If they are wrong, you’ll correct me, you’ll tell me “This is right”, but
let me speak. (Reporter 10, female)
Yes I do [think of gender]. Like today, I went to investigate more on
the causes of car accidents in our city, I interviewed three women and
three men for my story, see. (Reporter 12, male)
Yes, sometimes I think of that, because there’s a time, within our
newspaper, we once spoke about it, how come our sources, we interview
only men? Is it like women do not know sports and all, so we said we
must balance. (Reporter 7, Female)
By balancing men and women in my interviews, I keenly observe
the number of people and try hard to balance the gender. (Editor 1, male)
Only a few interviewees mentioned some other considerations in
addition to the use of sources, such as what impacts their story might
have in society, or which kind of topics and angles enable them to
bring out the voices of women.
[Question by interviewer:] When you are planning the contents
for the next issue, do you ever consider gender balance at this phase?
[Answer by the interviewee:] Yes, because the contents, topics or
stories give a guideline on which gender is more suitable compared to
another, so you can just tell who will be your interviewees, taking for
examples mothers’ day is obvious for women. (Reporter 17, male)
It depends on the nature of the story, but I take into consideration
many factors, such as what the occasion is, why I should pick a certain
gender, what impacts will story bring to the society and so many others
that guide me into right decision. (Reporter 15, male)
While reporters are the ones who actually do the actual work of
finding and selecting sources in the field, editors can influence their
work through initial discussions and instructions when giving the
assignment and at the point when reporters submit their articles for
further processing. In these discussions, the issue of the gender of
sources sometimes comes up, and editors may encourage or even
push reporters to find female sources or to look at the topic from
women’s perspective.
It’s a democratic assignment, we hear from the reporter: ok what
you think, how can you handle this story? “Oh I do this, I do this, and
this”, then we say ok, for this story look for this source, go to the library
for background info, that’s how we do here. […]
We insist that if possible get a woman in this story, at least two…
if we have five, at least two, if we can get three, if we can get four, then
it’s ok too. (Editor 1, male)
82
I am just wondering what the problem is. Does it mean picking,
for example, two males and two females in a story of four people
difficult? I am telling you my reporters should learn how to balance
the gender otherwise no publications of their stories. (Editor 11, male)
I don’t kind of think of a gender issue on this, I just think if this
idea comes up, I have this idea, I then discuss with my boss and then
he can say, ok, this idea is good, but then it can be maybe better story,
if you look at it from this angle, the gender issue, maybe how it is
affecting women, how women are affected by this story. (Reporter 4,
male)
6.6 Challenges in Getting Interviews from Women
Journalists, regardless of their gender, work experience, position
or desk reported about problems in finding female sources for their
stories. The main problem is reluctance of women to be interviewed,
especially if their name is to be published. From the experience of the
interviewed journalists, this is common in all walks of life, from
politics to public offices, from professionals and experts to ordinary
people.
The biggest challenge is the women themselves for they are not
cooperative, they shy away and seem not to understand the role of
media to them. (Reporter 12, male)
I don’t know why they’re worried, even if you go to the professor,
she will…she will say “No, don’t mention my name, no!” (Editor 1,
male)
Even an MP, our women MP, when you want to ask something
about them, they fear to talk to the media, we don’t know why.
(Reporter 11, female)
Some of the interviewees felt it was easier to deal with ordinary
women, whereas some felt that professional women give interviews
more freely.
You see these professional women, many of them have ambitions
and they know this is opportunity, and the journalist is here, this is
an opportunity for me to talk and flaunt what they have. It’s easy for
them to talk, they talk and they want you to write very, very nice
83
[…] in some cases the editors stress on balancing the gender
especially when it is Women’s Day, May Day and other occasions.
(Reporter 15, male)
things about them, because they have something, they have plans and
future. (Reporter 2, female)
In my experience, it’s even much easier to deal with the ordinary
citizen than professional women, yes, it is way easy. Well, sometimes,
especially those who think you’re supposed to pay them, if they give
you stories, you might encounter those… those hard-ons. But under
normal circumstances I would say that it’s easy to just walk to a
woman on the streets, explain to her who you are and why you want
to interview her and she will grant an interview on the spot, but it
will take 2-3 weeks of back and forth email trying to explain yourself
if you want to interview a woman boss […]. (Editor 5, female)
Several interviewed journalists also mentioned differences
between urban and rural areas. Whereas, especially in Dar es Salaam
women might be comfortable with journalists and media publicity,
things get most challenging when going to field trips in rural areas.
I think everybody will tell you that in Dar everybody, they just
talk, talk, but [when] we go on the other parts of the country, it’s not
easy for women to talk. You see this woman, she’s in trouble, you know
something bad is happening to her, but she won’t talk, she won’t tell
you. […] You know, these stories sometimes affect their relatives, their
husband, you know. If a woman tells you that “my husband beats me”,
it’s trouble for her husband, or “I have been raped by my uncle”, it’s
a problem with the whole family. (Reporter 2, female)
Interviewees referred to the protocol and bureaucracy involved
when they want to talk to women working in various organisations,
making it difficult to get interviews from women even if they were
willing to speak.
The problem is when you go to these professionals who of course…
I think our laws are not in order if I may say so. Such may tell you,
“We have our spokesperson, go to our spokesperson”. But look, you’re
an expert of this specific thing which I’m to talk about, why should I
go to a journalist or a fellow public relations officer to tell me a
technical thing which she doesn’t understand or he doesn’t
understand, you’re in the position to… “Ah, look, this will have…
cause problems to me. So if maybe want talk to me, you need to go to
director general, ask permission, write a letter to him or her asking if
I can volunteer these…” Sometimes it’s just like that. (Reporter 3,
male)
Now there is a protocol… of most of our spokesperson… most of
them are men, so that when you find somebody to want to ask things,
84
you have to face men not women. So that [it is] not us or women they
don’t want to speak, no, that is the system how [it] is. (Editor 4, male)
It’s easier to call a woman and ask her for information and she
would be more helpful If you’re a man, and if you’re a woman,
sometimes I don’t know what really goes on, it’s a bit problematic to
interact with women. […](Editor 5, female)
Some editors also felt that female journalists are more reluctant
than their male colleagues, to interview fellow women. This is of
course quite contradictory with the findings of our content analyses
which showed that women appear more frequently as sources in
article written by female reporters.
Female reporters tend to like to have male interviewees [rather]
than females ones, while male reporters can take on both genders
without any problem at all. (Editor 12, male)
6.7 Explanations and Solutions to Problems with Interviewing Women
Interviewed journalists spoke on the reluctance of women to give
interviews mainly because of cultural reasons and women’s distrust
towards the media and journalists. Cultural sentiments are explained
by the way women are raised and to their subordinate role in
families, communities and Tanzanian society in general.
Maybe our background… our backgrounds. Values, background,
and I think with values are the most of them our tradition values since
then women were not speakers, they were just in the kitchen, feeding
the children, cooking for men; so I think that is still haunting them
now, regardless of how far she’s gone. (Reporter 3, male)
I don’t know why, maybe our culture, you know Tanzanian culture
is different from that of European’s; for us the man is the head of the
family and so the women fear men. (Reporter 11, female)
14
In much of a same way some editors said that female journalists get interviews and information
from male sources more easily than male journalists.
85
Many interviewees also said that there would be a “gender factor”
affecting the interaction between a journalist and potential
interviewee and the likelihood of getting an interview from a woman.
Journalists who brought the issue up where almost unanimous that
women give interviews more easily to male journalists, though they
could not quite explain why this would be so.14
Many interviewees sympathised with women who don’t trust
journalists and believed it is because women in general have
experienced negative coverage on them in the media.
They don’t trust the media in reporting them. I think the way the
media has been reporting them has been bad for so long, they were
normally reported in rape cases, or portrayed as men’s instruments
and they hated it. (Reporter 16, male)
Shying away of women from media is a results of how badly they
have been portrayed for so long. In order to rectify the problem, we
need to change the way we portray them, if the media will help the
women to fight for their rights, campaign for them when they contest
for different positions especially the political positions, women will
have positive image of what the media is doing and the media will gain
their trust. (Editor 12, male)
[Distrust in journalists] is because of that habit of wanting to write
everything negative. You know I used to quarrel even with my editor,
you know, when he tell me to write everything in the negative. I tell
him ‘No’, why we… there is positive angles as well, why do you want
us to write negativity, always negativity, negativity? (Reporter 10,
female)
Because women are reluctant to speak to journalists, a reporter
needs time, patience and people skills to gain their trust and convince
them to give an interview. Once a female source has the first positive
experience with a journalist and media coverage, she will give
cooperation later. One female reporter tells of her experience with a
female source, whom she finally succeeded to meet and interview
after a lot of hesitation and delays on part of the interviewee:
I didn’t give up until I got her. She was happy when I talked to her,
actually she felt very happy… she said, “You know I am afraid of
journalists, when you just say ‘journalist’, actually I get afraid, you
know journalists tarnish your name. You can say a thing, a very small
thing, but for a journalist, they can make it very big and it can tarnish
your name, your company, and so I feel very afraid… I don’t want to
engage with media that much.” […] actually when it [story] came
out, she even told me, I want the… part of this story, I like it. Next
time you have any problem, you want anything from me, come. So
she’s now my friend. (Reporter 10, female)
Some reporters hope that they could get more support and help
from editors with the “difficult cases”. One female reporter suggested
that editors could use their prestige to convince reluctant
86
I think editors, they have a big influence, editors need to support
us. For example, let’s say I go to someone and the person agrees to
grant me an interview but holds on [asks the reporter not to publish
the story at least yet]. […] so I think the editor too needs to call that
person. […] You know everyone wants to be a king, someone calls you
and you’re talking to an editor, they see clearly they have worth. I am
being called and he insists that your story will be treated well.
(Reporter 9, female)
Also, other reporters shared their experiences on how to approach
women in a way which does not scare them off and which
encourages them to speak. They warned fellow journalists over
arrogance and aggressive approach.
At times it takes the power of persuasion, you talk to them nicely
and you tell them what you want to write about, tell them it would be
of special interest to them if just that they are willing to talk, you are
willing to help so that their voice becomes heard and definitely the
government will help them; so when you play along those lines, you
will definitely get their feedback, so at times it entirely depends on your
approach. (Reporter 1, male)
I’m a woman too, so… I knowwe tend to put ourselves in their
position, you just change. I become a part of her, I just change, I am
no longer a journalist, I’m a woman now. […] so you need to befriend
to them, you need time, you shouldn’t be in hurry. (Reporter 2, female)
However, since reporters especially news reporters, work under
a lot of pressure because they have to beat the deadline, reluctance
of women to be interviewed may easily lead to a reporter simply
moving on to more easily available and cooperative sources – often
men.
[The biggest challenge in our work is] chasing for interviewees who
will be quickly interviewed for my stories without wasting time. […]
Yes, especially when your focus is to get female interviewees […], they
know how to waste time. […} They may tell you that they need to call
their husbands to get permissions to do interviews, or parents. If they
sound like that, I normally dump them. (Reporter, male 16)
6.8 Awareness of the Company’s Gender Policy
The gender policy of Mwananchi Communications Ltd has been
formulated in 2013 as a result of the training workshops organised
by GEMSAT. It is clear that the process has not been very inclusive
and participatory, since most interviewed journalists were not even
87
interviewees.
aware that their employer has put in place a gender policy. Some
interviewees had heard about the policy, but mostly at the level of
hearsay.
I started hearing about it not that long [ago], this year, like two
months have passed,. However, I have heard it’s something that’s been
around a long time. It’s around a long time, but it’s underground, it
hasn’t been open for everyone to know […]. (Reporter 9, female)
According to the management, it is the responsibility of editors to
make sure that the gender policy is put to practice and reporters are
aware it. However, the non-participatory nature of the process may
cause problems, since it is possible that all editors don’t see the
importance of the set guidelines or understand the reasons behind
them, but the policy is seen rather as a set of arbitrary orders from
the management.
[Question by interviewer:] You too as an editor, when you assign
your reporters, do you sometimes tell them make sure female sources
are present when interviewing people?
[Answer by interviewee:] No, to tell you the truth no, but now in
the office they have said that women should be given a chance, it’s one
of the new policies which have been introduced brought by the office.
[Question:] Is it written or just spoken words/statement?
[Answer:] It’s written… I don’t have it, but I have it at home. But
it’s written that in any story there should be at least one woman, it’s
necessary to have a woman. (Editor 8, male)
There is clearly need for training to disseminate information about
the new gender policy at MCL, reasons for formulating it and its
practical implementations, to editors as well as reporters. It seems
that currently some reporters don’t even see the connection between
gender balance and the requirement to include both women and men
in a story:
[Question:] How do editors help reporters in the question of gender,
for example when they send you to a seminar, do they tell you to
interview more women?
[Answer:] That happens many times, depending on the nature of
[the] story, but very few… I don’t think… when they say interview
two women and two men, I don’t think they have that sense of gender
consciouness. (Reporter 6, Female)
88
7. Conclusions and Recommendations
Analyses of the journalistic contents of the daily newspapers
Mwananchi and The Citizen, and the tabloids, Uwazi, Ijumaa and Risasi
show in 2013 women are quite invisible in the media compared to
men, both as sources of the news and feature stories and as subjects
of photos. On average, women were used as sources in 24% of
articles, whereas men appeared as sources in 70% of the 2013 articles.
Women were visible in photos in 28% of the articles.
In the two daily papers, women are clearly under-represented as
sources and in photos compared to men. However, when women
appear in articles or photos, the representations are diverse and
mostly positive. Some of the representations are more traditional in
nature; some are more modern; some representations are passive and
objectifying while some represent women as active actors.
There are several rather stereotypical representations of women
in the two MCL newspapers, namely those depicting women as
caregivers, victims, decoration or sex objects. There are, however, also
several representations which have the potential to change
stereotypical conceptions of women. These include representations
of women in power, women as active citizens, successful career women, and
strong and physically fit women. The representation of traditional
hardworking women is traditional, but not particularly stereotypical,
and it is active and positive in nature, since it shows women as active
subjects struggling to improve their livelihood.
It is mostly the moralising way in which gender issues and
women are covered in some articles in The Citizen that give reason
for concern. Articles which rely heavily on the moralising discourse,
represent women as moral bankrupts, i.e. as indecent, promiscuous
and morally corrupt women. Moralising discourse has a tendency of
blaming the victim: it turns young school girls impregnated by
elderly men into objects of moral contempt and despise; it turns
vulnerable women forced to resort to selling their bodies into overlysexual predators hunting for men in night clubs; and it turns victims
of sexual violence into indecent sluts “asking for it”. For women, this
is the most harmful and dangerous discourse, since it can have
dangerous real-life consequences on them.
In the tabloids, women are more visible than in the daily
newspapers, both as sources and in photos. However, in the tabloids
89
7.1 Summary of Key Findings on Media Coverage
the representations of women are mostly stereotypical and
degrading. Women – mostly celebrities and models used to visualise
articles focusing on relationships – are portrayed as beautiful
decoration or as sex objects with revealing clothing and seductive
poses. Alternatively, women are represented as moral bankrupts in
various embarrassing situations: appearing drunk and/or halfnaked, or caught cheating their partner or having sex with a stranger
– even accused of prostitution. Only in very rare occasions women
appear in active and positive roles in the tabloids. The way tabloids
treat women is, all in all, very disrespectful and demeaning; from the
perspective of professional code of conduct and journalism ethics
their coverage is very poor.
7.2 Summary of Key Findings on Interviews with
Journalists
Interviews with a total of 30 reporters and editors of MCL
provided us with some insights into why women are so poorly
represented even in the newspapers of a media company which, on
a policy level, aims at gender balanced journalism and has been
rewarded as a centre of excellence in gender balance.
It seems journalists working with MCL are not very well aware of
the gender policy oftheir employer. Most of the interviewed reporters
had not even heard of the policy. Journalists working in senior
editorial positions were better informed of its existence, but it seemed
that the policy had not yet been fully internalised and integrated into
the daily practises of the journalist.
Interviews revealed that there is still a lot to do in gender
awareness of journalists, both women and men. Only a few of
interviewees had received any training on gender, either as part of
their formal studies at a university or as training organised by CSOs
dealing with the issues. Those who seemed to be more aware of what
gender entails were comfortably able to articulate the essence of
gender balance and sensitivity in the context of journalism and how
they took it into consideration in the course of their work.
Most interviewees found it difficult to explain the concepts of
gender balance and gender sensitivity, but when moving on to more
practical issues and examples, most of them showed understanding
of problems related to visibility and portrayal of women in media
coverage and their role in media organisations. Interviewees shared
the view that gender awareness among the media professionals is
only moderate, and journalists in their organisation would need and
90
The interviewed journalists understood gender sensitivity mostly
in quantitative terms, as a matter of balancing female and male
sources in a story. Only a few said they consider gender when
thinking of topics and angles of stories, or of the consequences and
impacts of a story. This rather mechanical understanding of gender
sensitivity as a mere balance in the gender of sources does not always
lead to the best outcome. There are cases when abandoning the
general principle of balancing sources is very well justified on a level
of a single article, such as when doing a feature story on an issue
which mainly affects women, in which women are the best experts.
Balancing of sources on the level of different sections and the whole
paper is much more vital and requires coordination and active
involvement of editors.
Interviewed journalists explained under-representation of women
in media coverage – in their own newspapers as well as more
generally in the Tanzanian media – by structural, cultural, historical
and practical factors. These explanations can be summerised as
follows:
Structural reasons: Women are under-represented in
various visible power positions such as politics or as
spokespersons of various organisations and public offices.
Therefore, women are also under-represented as sources of
news, as reporters routinely look for persons with official
status and authority to be used as sources.
Cultural reasons: Tanzanian women are not used to voicing
their opinion and speaking publicly, since in families,
communities and in formal education they have been raised
to be silent and submissive. Women are concerned of the
possible adverse consequences of speaking out publicly, to
themselves and their families. Therefore, it is much more
difficult to get interviews from women than from men,
whether they are professional experts or ordinary women on
the street or villages.
Historical reasons: Women have been treated unfairly and
disrespectfully by journalists before, and the previous bad
experiences – whether oneself or other women, have led to
distrust towards journalists.
Practical reasons: Limited time causes journalists to turn
to sources from whom it is easy to get an interview. If women
91
benefit from in-house training on gender issues and perspectives.
who are approached are reluctant to give interviews,
journalists simply skip them and settle for men, instead of
spending time to find other female interviewees who could be
cooperative.
7.3 Conclusions and Discussion on Findings
Findings of our research show that visibility of women in
newspaper coverage has not improved much over the past decade.
However, it seems that in mainstream newspapers, there is now more
diversity in the portrayal of women and less stereotypical
representations of women than previous studies indicate (see
Chapter 2).
There is no denying that to a certain extent, the
underrepresentation of women in Tanzanian media is a reflection of
underrepresentation of women in politics and other position of
power, authority and expertise. However, journalists should not just
settle for reproducing inequalities in the social structures in their
coverage. Journalism is not a mirror which just passively reflects the
society – journalism is a result of countless choices and decisions
made by reporters and editors, informed by professional ethics and
code of conduct and underlining values. If gender sensitivity is
accepted as an important ethical guideline for journalism, then
journalists should take it into account while making practical
decisions on their work.
Gender sensitivity is not only a matter of who to interview, even
though gender balance of sources is one important aspect of it.
Gender perspective should permeate the whole work process starting
from looking for ideas for news and feature stories and narrowing
down topics into more specific angles, and extending to the structure
of the story, quotations used, and the choice of words and images
used to describe and represent women and men.
Based on our interviews with journalists, it is clear that the underrepresentation of women as sources in not entirely a result of
journalists ignoring the gender perspective. Many interviewees
emphasise that they do their best to find both female and male
sources for their stories. However, the reluctance of women to give
interviews is a real problem for journalists and it contributes to
invisibility of women in the Tanzanian media.
Since difficulties in getting women to give interviews appear to
be at least partly a result of deep-rooted cultural factors related to the
92
position of women in Tanzanian society generally, journalists alone
cannot change things. A more general cultural and social change is
required. However, each time they get interviews from women
journalists, write positive stories about them, portray women in
diverse roles and write articles on gender issues which contribute to
better understanding of them, they are in effect facilitating this
cultural change. Our analyses confirmed what others have noted
before (see e.g. MCT 2012; MCT 2013b, 3–4): journalists on their own
are not very active in promoting gender issues, but the initiative – in
form of press conferences, publications or such other initiatives,–
typically come from CSOs dealing with gender issues. And this
normally results in rather superficial coverage of gender issues based
on only a single source.
Journalists also seem to have a rather limited idea of issues
concerning women. It is of course important to publish success
stories on which can function as empowering examples for other
women. And there is nothing wrong with serving female readers
with a special pullout targeted them. However, it is not enough to
have only some special dedicated columns and pages on women. It
is important for journalists to understand that all societal issues
covered in various news sections concern women just as they concern
men – even though implications can sometimes be different.
Therefore, coverage requires gender sensitivity and inclusion of the
gender perspective. As Joseph Ammu (2012, 9) puts it:
There is still an assumption within the profession that
gender is, at best, a “niche” issue that can be left to those who
choose to specialise in such “soft” stories and need not concern
those who cover “hard” – read weighty – news. It is not yet
widely recognised that coverage of events and issues
traditionally categorised as hard news – such as conflicts and
disasters, politics and business, crime and punishment – can
actually benefit from a gender perspective.
Commitment of the editorial management is a precondition to any
advancement in gender sensitive journalism. It is not enough to write
gender policy papers; relevant recommendations need to actually be
put into practice. That requires investments in training the editorial
staff and sufficient resources for journalists to be able to do their work
well. The editorial management of the two daily newspapers
included in this study is aware of gender issues and their importance,
and therefore there is a good reason to believe that with training and
coaching on gender sensitive journalism, positive developments can
be achieved.
93
It is much more difficult to say what should and could be done to
improve portrayal of women in sensationalist tabloids. As long as
people keep buying these papers, regardless of how badly they treat
women, there might not be enough incentives for the editorial
management and staff to develop the contents and practices towards
a more ethical and gender sensitive approach. Therefore, it is not
enough to educate just journalists; the public also needs to be
educated on gender issues and the role of the media for them to
become more critical and media literate consumers. Here the media
themselves can again have an important role, since a well-planned
media campaign might be an effective way of sensitising the
audience to gender issues and gender perspectives. More specifically,
a media campaign might make the public more aware of the role of
the media in constructing gender representations and stereotypes,
and of the harmful consequences of stereotypical and negative
gender portrayals.
Finally, the role of journalism training institutions is of utmost
importance. Covering gender issues and theory and practice of
gender sensitive journalism should be an integral part of the curricula
of journalism and mass communication programmes at any level of
education. Currently gender issues are covered in the degree
programmes provided by universities,15 but journalists who enter in
the profession after completing a certificate or diploma programme
don’t necessarily have any training on gender.16
Introducing courses on gender and media in the journalism
curricula would in a long run contribute to enhancing gender
sensitivity and of the future generations of journalists. However,
unless the editorial management and staff currently running the
media outlets are also sensitised to gender through shorter courses,
it will take a long time before we can expect to see real changes in the
media practices and contents.
15
In the University of Dar es Salaam School of Journalism and Mass Communication, BA in Journalism
and BA in Mass Communication programmes contain a course Gender and the Media (see UDSM
2012), and the MA in Mass Communication includes a course Media, Gender and Society (see UDSM
2013). In the University of Iringa (formerly Tumaini University, Iringa University College), the BA
in Journalism includes a course Sociology of Gender Issues, and the new MA in Journalism and Media
Management to be launched in 2014 will include a course Media, Gender and Minority Groups (see
UoI, forthcoming 2014). BA in Mass Communication of the University of Saint Augustine Tanzania
includes a course Gender Issues, but the MA programme does not include courses focusing
specifically on gender (see SAUT 2013).
16
Media Council of Tanzania has noted that various schools providing journalism training at the
certificate and diploma levels have big discrepancies in their curricula and teaching methods, and
to enhance the quality of training, MCT has prepared a standardised competence based journalism
training curriculum in collaboration with the National Council for Technical Education, NACTE
(MCT 2013c).
94
7.4 Practical Recommendations for Reporters and Editors
AI) From Event Coverage to Issue Coverage
Currently, the news agenda of mainstream newspapers is to a
large extent set outside the newsrooms, meaning that the papers
cover events (parliamentary sessions, press conferences, court and
police beats etc.) and statements given in them, rather than issues. For
example gender issues mostly make it to the news when CSOs
dealing with gender issues or more generally human rights publish
reports and organise press conferences or seminars. This is especially
a problem of news desks; feature journalists are more used to looking
for their own original story ideas.
A more active approach would be beneficial not only for the
visibility of women and gender issues, but also for the quality and
independence and integrity of journalismin general. More active
approach means in practice that journalists actively look for their
own news ideas, not just “collect”, “cover” and “report” news. It
requires following actively what goes on in various sectors of society
and in various communities, and taking initiative to investigate
various issues and topics. Investigative journalism should not be
something left only for investigative reporters: all journalists would
benefit from good skills in investigating issues, in collecting and
critically analysing information. For example, the so-called data
journalism could be an approach which would enable newsrooms to
find their own original news and feature stories. In the era of the
Internet, journalists have access to vast amounts of information – but
investigation and analyses of information, of course requires time,
and it means that media organisations need to invest resources to this
end.
AII) From Elite-orientation to Citizen- and Community-based Approach
Elite-orientation in news reporting is closely linked to eventorientation. News reporters are used to think that what various elite
groups, such as politicians, business managers or experts, say and
do, is important and worth covering (the so called “prominence news
value syndrome”). This is certainly true to the extent that decisions
made by politicians affect all citizens. However, different elite groups
represent a very small part of the population and as such are strongly
over-represented in the media, and basing coverage only on their
views produces a very narrow representation of the reality. Relying
95
A. Practical Recommendations for Reporters and Editors
primarily on elite sources also means that the news media reflects
and reproduces the gender inequalities present in the social
structures. If women are under-presented in politics, they will also
be under-presented in the news.
The so-called public journalism or civic journalism movement has
since 1990s challenged this “top-to-bottom” elite orientation by
promoting a citizen - and community-based “bottom-to-top”
approach. Civic journalism approach means that journalists recognise
that ordinary citizens and various communities are best experts of
their own lives and everyday realities and as such, they have valuable
things to say. Instead of just conveying information from elite sources
to the citizens, it is just as important for journalists to convey concerns
of the citizens to the decision-makers and to enable dialogue among
citizens and communities and between citizens and decision-makers.
It is also important to report how various political initiatives and
decisions discussed and made in political cabinets affect ordinary
people – and specific groups, such as women, children, people living
in rural areas, or elderly people. Since all decision made by politicians
affect either all citizens or some specific subgroups, each news story
covering a political decision could be turned into or supplemented
by a story examining the impacts of it from the perspective of
ordinary people. And that is where finding women for interviews
should be much easier than finding them among the political elites.
Again, the alternative approach of civic journalism requires time
and resources, and therefore investment and commitment on the part
of media organisations. Reporters cannot find “ordinary citizens” in
phone catalogues, databases of regular expert sources, or – in case of
Tanzania, where the majority of people don’t have access to the
Internet and consequently, the social media. Reporting on concerns
of local communities and ordinary citizens and the impacts of various
decisions on them requires doing fieldwork. That means leaving the
newsrooms, landing on the streets, and travelling to rural areas.
AIII) Expanding the Expert Source Network
Journalists throughout the world are guilty of the same sin: using
the same sources over and over again, and not only that, but also
using the same sources all the other media are using. Phoning the
same familiar source whom you have known for long, and who you
know is willing give an interview, is easy and saves time. But it also
means that the diversity of voices in the media becomes more and
more narrowed.
96
Whereas ordinary people are mostly not to be found in the
Internet, many expert sources are. Journalists need to develop their
research skills also in finding people sources. Many Tanzanian
universities (or other organisations) don’t list their staff on their
websites yet, but spending some time for phoning the numbers
provided their in and asking around may enable you to find the best
expert for your story – such as the lecturer or researcher who has
actually done some work on your topic. In some cases the social
media can work even better: many experts and professionals can
nowadays be found in the professional social networking website
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) and many researchers share their
findings and papers, for example, in Academia.edu. By doing a
search in these websites country-by-country or the topic, a journalist
may find experts she/he needs. Of course, it is better to start
developing the source network well on time and not to look for the
best expert hours or minutes before the deadline! At least for
journalists working in a beat, i.e. specialised in specific area such as
economics and business or sports, preparing beforehand for the need
of experts on a specific topic should be possible.
AIV) Practices and Ethics of Interviewing
Since getting interviews from women is clearly a big challenge for
reporters, it is worth paying extra attention to the practices and ethics
of interviewing people – even more so, if the topic is somehow
sensitive and there is a possibility that the media coverage could have
some negative consequences for the interviewee.
According to the experiences of some of the interviewed
journalists, the way a journalist approaches women can make all the
difference. Reporters should not act aggressive or arrogant, but rather
be respectful and friendly – which does not mean the same as actually
making friends with interviewees. Accommodating the style of
communication or even the outfit according to the place and the
people is often a good idea – one does not talk to a farmer in a rural
village the same way one talks to a university professor at a campus.
The interviewee should be informed of what the interview will be
used for: what is the story going to be about; what is her role in it and
how her statements will be used in it; which newspaper and section
is the story going to be published in. If a potential interviewee is not
familiar with the media outlet in question, it may be a good idea for
a reporter to carry a copy of the newspaper with her/him, so that a
hesitant interviewee can get an idea of what kind of stories the
newspaper publishes. If the story is going to be a “success story”, it
97
may be a good idea to show the potential interviewee examples of
previous success stories.
A potential interviewee may feel more comfortable if she knows
she has a chance to preview the story before publication. If time
permits, a journalist could, for example, email the story or read the
story over the phone to the interviewee before publication, so she can
feel safe that she won’t be misreported or misquoted. There is no
harm in this practice, as long as the interviewee understands that it
does not mean giving her the right to rewrite the whole story or to
prevent its publication it, but only to verify that her comments have
been understood correctly.17
And at the end of the day, it is also good to remember that being
interviewed should be voluntary. No matter how much a journalist
would like to have the interview, if the interviewee, after all the
convincing, still does not want to talk out of the fear of negative
consequences, that decision should be respected.
AV) Adopting a More Holistic Understanding of Gender Sensitivity
Gender balance in the use of sources is one important aspect of
gender sensitive journalism, but it is not the only one. Reporters and
editors should move from a rather mechanical and quantitative
conception of gender balance (as “how many women, how many
men to interview”) to a more holistic and multi-dimensional
understanding of what gender sensitive journalism is or could be.
In practice, this means permeating gender perspective throughout
the journalistic work process, from finding story ideas to actually
writing the story:
Topic: It is important to look for ideas for news and features
actively, also from various groups of women and from sources
providing data or research findings concerning women (see AI).
Angle: Whatever the topic, there are always several angles
available. A gender sensitive journalist should remember to ask
her/himself the following questions: Are women affected by the
17
Guidelines for Journalists of the Council for Mass Media in Finland actually include these guidelines
under the heading “The rights of interviewer and interviewee”. Guidelines advise that interviewees
“have the right to know in advance the context in which their statements will be used. They must
also be told if the interview will be used in multiple mediums. The interviewee must always be told
whether the conversation is intended for publication or will be used exclusively as background
material.” Guidelines also say that “It is worthwhile consenting to interviewee’s requests to read
their statements prior to publication, if the editorial deadline permits. This right only concerns the
personal statements of the interviewee, and the final journalistic decision cannot be surrendered to
any party outside the editorial office.” (CMM 2011)
98
Sources: It is worth working extra hard to also get women
interviewees for your story (see AIV), especially when the issue at
hand concerns women. Most issues do. However, there are also
stories, in which experiences of one gender are more relevant than
those of the other. If a journalist is covering, for example, violence or
sexual offences against women, it is important to interview women
– but not necessarily men. If a journalist is covering a football game
with male sides and coaches, introducing female sources could be
artificial. Gender of sources can be balanced also on the level of the
news page, section and the whole issue of newspaper, not just within
each individual article.
Photos: Whether the journalist takes photos her/himself or works
together with a photographer, it is important to make sure that there
is a variety of pictures to choose from. This way the most
stereotypical ones can be abandoned. It is useful to discuss with the
photographer what would be the most obvious ideas for photos –
and then, try to think how it could be done differently. The captions
of photos should also be paid attention to. “Ordinary women”
deserve to have their names mentioned too, if they can be recognised
from a photo, even if they are not interviewed in the accompanying
article.
Writing the story: The way the story is structured reflects the
importance the journalist puts on different aspects of the issue or the
different interviewees. Whose thoughts are quoted first in the story?
On whose views are the headline and lead based? Who gets most
space in the article? Who gets the final word? The reporter and the
editor should pay extra attention to the use of language in the article:
How are the people or groups of people and their actions named and
described in the article? How are individuals identified?
B. Practical Recommendations for Editorial Management
BI) Permeating Gender Policy Through the Newsroom
Gender policy in a media organisation is a good start, but it not
of much use unless it is actually put into practice. The first absolute
precondition to this is that everyone working in the organisation,
from junior reporters to editors, from photographers to
advertisement and HR staff, is aware of the gender policy and has a
copy of it. A recommendable approach for launching a new gender
99
issue or event covered differently than men? Could women have a
different perspective or different experiences on the issue in
question? How can women’s perspective be included in the story?
policy is to combine it with in-house training on gender issues, to
make sure journalists not only know the policy exists, but also
understand its implications to actual journalistic work and the
purpose of the policy and practical guidelines.
BII) Recruiting More Women in Newsrooms
The findings of this research support the widespread conception
that female reporters are more inclined to use women as sources.
Whether it is because they are more aware of the importance of
bringing out fellow women’s voices, or because they are more
successful in getting interviews from them, clearly women are more
visible in the articles written by female reporters. Recruiting more
women in newsroom is therefore vital, not only for the sake of gender
balance in newsrooms, but also for gender balance in media
coverage.
BIII) Supporting Female Reporters Through Scholarship and Mentoring
Programmes and a Career Track System
Currently, one cannot say there is gender balance in the
newsrooms. Even if the percentage of women working as reporters
may be fairly high, there are very few women in senior editorial and
management positions. This is sometimes explained and justified by
the lack of qualified women – which as an argument is becoming less
and less credible since journalism programmes at the university level
nowadays have a remarkable proportion of female students.
If formal education is the issue, employers could support their
female employees in achieving higher educational qualifications by
setting up a systematic scholarship programme. Through a
scholarship programme, an employer could send, for example, one
or two journalists at time to complete their BA or MA studies, in
exchange to a commitment on part of the employee to continue
working for the same employer for a time specified in a written
agreement. Scholarship programmes do not of course need to be
targeted only at women, but the striking gender imbalance in
newsrooms would justify positive discrimination of women.
Alternatively or simultaneously, newsrooms could establish inhouse mentoring programmes, where each junior journalist at the
beginning of their career would have a mentor appointed among the
senior staff. The experienced senior journalists would support their
junior colleagues in the daily work by supervising them in their
assignments and giving them thorough and constructive feedback.
Currently, this happens in newsrooms to some extent in an
100
Along with the increased numbers of graduates from various
journalism or mass communication programmes in universities,
media organisations are likely to get more and more new employees
who have formal educational qualifications but only little practical
work experience. Besides the mentoring programme, employees
could establish a “career track” system (crf. academic tenure track in
American colleges and universities) for reporters with a degree,
where after a certain time of working in the organisation, junior
reporters could apply for a career track position. Career track system
would basically mean that the employer would spot early the most
promising junior journalists and coach them to become editors and
at some point possibly to be promoted into top management.
Coaching would in practice mean, for example, sending reporters to
various training workshops and courses – plenty of them are
available for journalists, some of them free of charge – and making
sure they will work in different desks of the newsroom for a period
of time, and gradually in more demanding tasks to get familiar with
different desks and positions. For junior reporters themselves, being
selected to a career track position would basically mean that they can
expect to move on to senior positions provided that they have first
demonstrated their competence at the previous level.
This is, again, something that takes place in newsrooms already
now, but formalising it as a career track system would make it more
transparent and predictable to employees, and provide extra
motivation for junior reporters and the ones selected to career track
positions to work hard for their professional development. Again
positive discrimination of women would be justified for the purpose
of coaching them to be promoted for management positions.
However, it is important to recognise, that even though positive
discrimination of women through scholarship and career track
systems would bring more gender balance in media organisations,
that would not automatically lead to gender sensitive media
coverage. Female journalists also need to be sensitised to gender
issues and perspectives in order to positively contribute to changes
in the visibility and portrayal of women in media coverage.
BIV) Adopting Regular Self-assessment of Gender Sensitivity
101
unorganised and informal way, but to make it more effective, media
organizations could formalise the practice. That would also require
that the mentors would have time allocated for these activities so that
they would not be just an unpaid extra workload for them.
It is recommendable to mainstream gender perspective as an
integral part of self-assessment and feedback to journalists which
routinely take place in daily post mortem meetings in newsrooms. It
may be a good idea to appoint one of the editors as the person in
charge of reviewing the daily newspaper from the gender perspective
and of giving feedback to colleagues in the meetings.
To follow the changes over time in the gender balance of sources,
or more generally in the coverage of women, it may be a good idea
to use quantitative content analyses as a tool for analysing
systematically a small sample at regular intervals, such as all the
articles of one issues (and of different pullouts published at different
days) four times a year. The coding matrix we have used in this
research project can be easily adapted for that purpose, and when the
data is small enough, calculation of frequencies and percentages can
easily be done without any computer software.
BV) Providing In-house Gender Training for Journalists
There is no doubt that journalists in any Tanzanian media house
would benefit from training on gender issues generally and gender
sensitive journalism specifically. CSOs dealing with gender issues
have been doing invaluable work in this field, but their seminars and
workshops reach only a very small group of journalists.
The best approach for permeating gender awareness through
newsrooms would be to organize in-house training targeting all
journalists working in the organisation. Training would naturally
need to be arranged in a way which does not interfere too much with
the daily operations of the newsroom. However, it is recommendable
to organise training during the working hours of journalists, as part
of their regular work. This way the employer can expect and require
each member of the editorial staff to take part in training.
Training should introduce journalists to fundamental gender
issues, concepts and theories – as well as the practical implications
of gender sensitive journalism. It would be a good idea to combine
some coaching/mentoring activities to training for a period of time
to make sure that journalists will try to apply what their learn in their
routine work, and when doing it, will have support for that.
7.5 Limitations of the Study and Areas for Further
Research
‘Gender and media’ is a broad and multi-dimensional topic, and
102
That said, we believe that through the analyses of the contents of
the five newspapers and the interviews conducted at the MCL
newsrooms, we have been able to identify some crucial tendencies
and problems in the coverage of women, and to diagnose some
reasons causing these problems, which also apply more generally to
the media in Tanzania, especially the print media.
It would be interesting and important to continue this research in
two directions: to expand systematic quantitative content analyses to
other major media products in Tanzania to get a more comprehensive
idea of the visibility of women and of the possible differences
between different categories of media: print, electronic governmentowned or privately owned. At the same time, it would be interesting
to go deeper into the qualitative analyses of coverage of women and
also analyse articles of Kiswahili papers in more detail.
The most important area for further research, however, should be
an action research project aiming at accomplishing real changes in
newsrooms. In other words, it would mean putting to practice at least
some of the recommendations presented in this study in some
newsrooms and evaluating their impacts on visibility and portrayal
of women.
103
in one research conducted in a fairly short period, it is possible to
cover only a small part of what is required. In this case, our strategy
was to focus primarily on one case, Mwananchi Communications
Limited, and in addition compare and contrast the contents of
Mwananchi and The Citizen to the contents of three tabloids. Because
the contents analysed in this study are from five newspapers of two
private publishing companies, the findings cannot be directly
generalised to all Tanzanian newspapers, let alone all the media.
References
Ammu, Joseph (2012). Rationale. In S. Macharia & P. Morinière
(eds.) Learning Resource Kit for Gender-Ethical Journalism and
Media House Policy. Book 1: Conceptual Issues. World Association
of Christian Communication & International Federation of
Journalists.
Bignell, Jonathan (1997). Media Semiotics: An
Introduction. Manchester: Manchester Press.
CMM 2011. Guidelines for Journalists and an Annex. Council for
Mass Media in Finland. Available online:
http://www.jsn.fi/en/guidelines_for_journalists/ [Accessed
15.11.2013].
EAJA (2008). Enhancing Gender Equality and in the Media in
Eastern Africa. A Regional Study by Eastern Africa Journalists
Association. Available online:
http://africa.ifj.org/assets/docs/175/137/cb6f4af-8ab2089.pdf
[Accessed 11.9.2013].
Fairclough, Norman (1995a). Critical Discourse Analysis.
Boston: Addison Wesley.
Fairclough, Norman (1995b). Media Discourse. London: Edward
Arnold.
FAO (2004). What is Gender? Fact sheet. Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations. Available online:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/007/y5608e/y5608e00.pdf [Accessed
15.11.2013].
Gadzekpo, Audrey (2009). Missing links: African media studies
and feminist concerns. Journal of African Media Studies, 1(1).
Gallagher, Margaret (2002). Women, Media and Democratic
Society: In Pursuit of Rights and Freedoms. A paper presented in
the United Nations DAW Expert Group Meeting in Beirut,
Lebanon, 12th to 15th November 2002. Available online:
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/media2002/repo
rts/BP1Gallagher.PDF [Accessed
15.4.2013].
104
Global Publishers website.
http://www.globalpublishers.info/page/please-know-us
[Accessed 11.9.2013].
GMBS (2003). Women and Men Make the News. Gender and
Media Baseline Study. Tanzanian Country Report. Gender Links &
MISA. Available online:
GMMP (2010). Who makes the news? The Global Media
Monitoring Project 2010. Media Monitoring Project (MMP) & World
Association for Christian Communication (WACC). Available
online: http://www.whomakesthenews.org/ [Accessed 15.4.2013].
GMMP (2005). Who Makes the News? Global Media Monitoring
Project 2005. Media Monitoring Project (MMP) & World
Association for Christian Communication (WACC). Available
online: http://www.whomakesthenews.org/ [Accessed 15.4.2013].
Hall, Stuart (1997a). Introduction. In Stuart Hall (ed.),
Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices.
London: Sage, pp. 1–11.
Hall, Stuart (1997b). The Spectacle of the “Other”. In Stuart Hall
(ed.), Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying
Practices. London: Sage, pp. 223–290.
Hall, Stuart (1997c). The Work of Representation. In Stuart Hall
(ed.), Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying
Practices. London: Sage, pp. 13–74.
Hall, Stuart (1982). The Rediscovery of “Ideology”: Return of the
Repressed in Media Studies. In Michael Gurevitch & Tony Bennett
& James Curran & Janet Woollacott (eds.) Culture, Society and the
Media. London: Methuen, pp. 56–90.
IFJ (2001). Status of women journalists. International Federation
of Journalists. Available online:
http://www.ifj.org/en/articles/ifj-survey-on-the-status-ofwomenjournalists-2001 [Accessed
15.4.2013].
IPS (2010). IPS Gender and Development Glossary. 3rd ed. Son,
Johanna (ed.). Inter Press Service. Available online:
105
http://www.genderlinks.org.za/article/gender-and-mediabaseline-study-full-text-2009-11-16 [Accessed 15.4.2013].
http://www.ips.org/mdg3/GenderandDevelopmentGlossary.pdf
[Accessed 15.11.2013].
IWMF (2011). Global Report on the Status of Women in the
News Media. UNESCO & International Women’s Media
Foundation, IWMF. Available online: http://iwmf.org/pioneeringchange/global-research-on-women-in-the-news-media.aspx
[Accessed 15.4.2013].
Made, Patricia A.; Morna, Colleen L. & Kwaramba, Alice (eds.)
(2003). Gender and Media Baseline Study: Southern African
Regional Overview. MISA and Gender Links. Available online:
http://www.genderlinks.org.za/article/gender-and-mediabaseline-study-full-text-2009-11-16 [Accessed 15.4.2013].
Made, Patricia A. & Morna, Colleen L. (eds.) (2009). Glass
Ceilings: Women and Men in Southern African Media. Gender
Links. Available Online:
http://www.genderlinks.org.za/article/glass-ceilings-womenand-men-in-southern-african-media-2009-08-04 [Accessed
15.4.2013].
MCL Facebook page. Mwananchi Communications Limited /
About.
https://www.facebook.com/MwananchiNews/info [Accessed
15.11.2013].
MCT (2012). Print Media Monitoring Report: July–December
2011. Media Council of Tanzania. Available online:
http://mct.or.tz/mediacouncil/images/stories/Publications/M
edia%20Monitoring/Print%20Media%20Monitoring%20Report%20
July%20-%20December%202011.pdf [Accessed 15.4.2013].
MCT (2013a). Citizen’s Journalist Scoops EJAT 2012 Top Spot.
Media Council of Tanzania. Available online:
http://www.mct.or.tz/index.php/42-news/rokstories/186-citizens-journalist-scoops-ejat-2012-top-spot [Accessed on 25.11.2013].
MCT (2013b). State of the Media Report 2012. Media Council of
Tanzania. Available online:
http://www.mct.or.tz/index.php/downloads/category/5State%20of%20Media [Accessed 15.4.2013].
MCT (2013c). Tutors Attend Training on New Journalism
Curriculum. Media Council of Tanzania. Available online:
106
http://www.mct.or.tz/index.php/component/content/article/
42-news/rokstories/250-tutors-attend-training-on-new-journalismcurriculum [Accessed 18.12.2013].
Ministerial Declaration (2010). Implementing the Internationally
Agreed Goals and Commitments in Regard to Gender Equality and
Empowerment of Women. Ministerial declaration of the high-level
segment of the substantive session of 2010 of the Economic and
Social Council, New York 28.6.–2.7.2010. Available online:
http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/docs/declarations/ministerial_
declaration-2010.pdf [Accessed 15.4.2013].
Morna, Colleen Lowe (2002). Promoting Gender Equality In
And Through The Media. A Southern African Case Study. A paper
presented in the United Nations DAW Expert Group Meeting in
Beirut, Lebanon, 12th to 15th November 2002. Available online:
rts/EP5Morna.PDF [Accessed
15.4.2013].
Mtambalike, Pili (1996). Newspaper Reporting and Gender
Relations. In Mbilinyi, Dorothy A. S. & Omari, Cuthbert K. (eds.).
Gender relations and women's images in the media. Dar es Salaam:
Dar es Salaam University Press.
Muthoni Wayneki, Lynne (2002). The impact of (New)
information and communication technologies (NICTS) on the
media professions and media content with respect to gender. Paper
presented at United Nations DAW Expert Group Meeting in Beirut,
Lebanon, 12th to 15th November 2002. Available online:
rts/EP10Wayneki.PDF [Accessed
15.4.2013].
Mwendamseke, Ada N. S. (2003). Mass Media and Female
Images: Reality and Possible Reforms. Iringa: Iringa University
College.
107
Mfinanga, S. (2005). Sexual Harassment of Female Journalists in
IPP Print Media. Research Report Submitted as a Partial Fulfilment
of an Advanced Diploma in Journalism of the Institute of
Journalism and Mass Communication, Dar es Salaam.
Nation Media Group website. http://www.nationmedia.com/
[Accessed 11.11.2013]
NSGD (2005). National Strategy for Gender Development. The
United Republic of Tanzania, Ministry of Community
Development, Gender and Children. Available online:
http://www.mcdgc.go.tz/data/Tanzania__National_Strategy_for_Gender_Development.pdf [Accessed
15.4.2013].
OSCE 2006. Glossary of Gender-related Terms. Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe. Available online:
http://www.osce.org/gender/26397 [Accessed 11.11.2013].
Ross, Karen & Byerly, Carolyn M. (2004). Women and Media:
International Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rutashobya, Leticia 1996. Women’s Images in Advertisements.
In Mbilinyi, Dorothy A. S. & Omari, Cuthbert K. (eds.). Gender
relations and women's images in the media. Dar es Salaam: Dar es
Salaam University Press, pp. 120–133.
SAUT 2013. Prospectus 2013–2014. St. Augustine University of
Tanzania. Available online: http://www.saut.ac.tz/wpcontent/uploads/downloads/2013/11/Prospectus-Ultimatepdf.pd
f [Accessed 18.12.2013].
Shartiely, Eric S. (2005). The Portrayal of the Tanzanian Woman
in Television Commercials: Is She a Piece of Soap, a House, or
Gold? Africa & Asia 5/2005, pp. 108–141.
Solomon, Eva (2006). Women’s roles in the media: Attitudes
towards gender issues in six Tanzanian newspapers. Master’s
thesis in Journalism and Mass Comunication, Department of
Journalism and Mass Comunication. Tampere: University of
Tampere.
Tenganamba, E. (1999). Female Journalists in Tanzania. A
Research report sumitted as a partial fulfilment for the award of
Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism of the Tanzania School of
Journalism, Dar es Salaam.
TMF (2013). Baseline Community and Decision Maker Media
Perception Survey. Tanzania Media Fund. Available online:
http://www.tmf.or.tz/about/tmf-public-perception-survey/
[Accessed 11.11.2013].
108
The Citizen Facebook page. The Citizen / About.
https://www.facebook.com/TheCitizenTanzania/info [Accessed
15.11.2013].
UDSM (2013). Postgraduate Prospectus 2013/2014–2014/2015.
University of Dar es Salaam, Directorate of Postgraduate Studies.
Available for downloading:
18.12.2013].
UDSM (2012). UDSM Prospectus 2012/2013, School of
Journalism and Mass Communication. University of Dar es Salaam.
Available online:
https://udsm.ac.tz/sites/default/files/prospectus2013/Prospe
ctus%202012-2013%20(SJMC%20pg.%20223%20-%20230).pdf
[Accessed 18.12.2013].
UN (1995). Fourth World Conference on Women. Platform for
Action. United Nations. Available online:
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/
[Accessed 15.4.2013].
UNESCO (2012). Gender-sensitive Indicators for the Media.
Framework of Indicators to Gauge Gender Sensitivity in Media
Operations and Content. United National, Scientific and Cultural
Organization. Available online:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002178/217831e.pdf
[Accessed 11.9.2013].
UNESCO (2003). UNESCO’s Gender Mainstreaming
Implementation Framework (GMIF) for 2002–2007. Paris:
UNESCO, Section for Women and Gender Equality of the Bureau of
Strategic Planning. Available online:
unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001318/131854e.pdf [Accessed
11.9.2013].
UoI (forthcoming 2014). Academic Prospectus 2014–2015. Iringa:
University of Iringa.
Van Zoonen, Lisbeth (1994). Feminist Media Studies. London:
Sage.
Van Zoonen, Lisbeth (1998). One of the Girls? The Changing
109
http://postgraduate.udsm.ac.tz/index.php/prospectus-20122014-2015.html [Accessed
Gender of Journalism. In C. Carter,
G. Branston & S. Allan (eds.) News, Gender and Power. London:
Routledge.
WHO 2013. What do we mean by "sex" and "gender"?
http://www.who.int/gender/whatisgender/en/index.html
[Accessed 11.9.2013].
Wodak, Ruth (1996). Disorders of Discourse. London: Longman.
Woodward, Kathryn (1997a). Concepts of Identity and
Difference. In Kathryn Woodward (ed.), Identity and Difference.
London: Sage, pp. 7–61.
Woodward, Kathryn (1997b): Introduction. In Kathryn
Woodward (ed.), Identity and Difference. London: Sage, pp. 1–6.
Unpublished Sources
Msacky, Dennis. Managing Editor of Mwananchi newspaper.
Interview at Mwananchi Communications’ Office, Dar es Salaam,
5.9.2013.
Mwaijega, Daniel Aosisye. Editorial Administration Manager of
Mwananchi Commuications Ltd. Interview at Mwananchi
Communications’ Office, Dar es Salaam, 5.9.2013.
Mwaijega, Daniel Aosisye 2013. Centre of Excellence:
Mwananchi Communications Ltd. Presentation at Country SADC
Gender Protocol Summit, Dar es Salaam, 27th March 2013.
110
APPENDIX 1: CODING MATRIX
Each row represents one coding unit = one newspaper article
111
APPENDIX 2: Variables of QCA (quantitative content analyses)
1. Newspaper
1= The Citizen
2= Mwananchi
3= Uwazi
4=Ijumaa
6= Risasi
2. Date of Publication
3. Section
1= National news (including Tanzanian regional news)
2= International news (including East-Africa/Africa sections)
3= Politics (e.g. The Citizen’s Parliament news pages and the pullout
Political Platform)
4= Business (Business pages and pullouts, such as The Citizen’s
Business Week)
5= Entertainment (e.g. pages focusing on celebrities in tabloids,
The Citizen’s pullout The Beat)
6= Sports (regular sports pages and sports pullouts)
7= Women (The Citizen’s & Mwananchi’s weekly pullouts target
women)
8= Other special theme sections/magazines (e.g. pullouts such as
The Citizen’s ‘Success’, ‘Sound Living’, ‘Young Citizen’, ‘Insight’ and
pages like “local features”)
4. Length of the article (measured in paragraphs of the actual text,
excluding the headline and caption. N.B. stand-alone photos with
only a headline and a caption were coded as having one paragraph.)
5. Genre
1=News (short news and longer news backgrounds, news
reportages or investigative news stories)
2=Feature (for the purpose of this study: anything which is not
news, editorials or opinion columns; i.e. interviews, personality
112
profiles, travel features, local or international features, stand-alone
photos with a headline of their own, vox pops etc.)
6. Gender of the Reporter(s)
1=Woman
2=Man
4=Not identifiable (=no name, e.g. “The Citizen reporter”)
7. Number of people sources in the article (and separately n:o of
different female and male sources)
For the purpose of this study, people sources are those individuals
whose statements are quoted in direct quotes or indirectly in reported
speech (X.X. said that…, According to X.X.…). People sources include
interviewees, people whose public speeches are quoted or
individuals whose written statements are quoted (“X.X. issued a
statement saying that….”). Collective sources referring to an
organizations (e.g. United Nations has critized…”) or a group of
people (“Experts have suggested…”, “Critics have said that…”) are
not categorised here as people sources, unless there is an individual
person speaking for the organisation/group. Document sources such
as reports are not a subject of analyses here.
8. Gender of Source(s)
1=Women
2=Men
3=Both
4= Gender not identifiable (= individual but anonymous sources)
N.B. If there are several people sources in one article, and one can be
identified as a man/woman and other is anonymous, gender is coded
according to the sources which can be identified. “Not identifiable” is used
only when the gender of non of the sources can be identified.
9. Number of Photos in the Article
10. Gender of People in the Photos (of an article)
0= Number people in the photos
1=Women
113
3=Both (=several authors)
2=Men
3=Both
4= Gender not identifiable
11. Reference Group(s) of Female Sources*
1= Politicians: Includes MPs, Ministers, President, Vice President,
elected leaders at the local (village/municipal/district) level,
representatives of political parties, representatives of parlamentary
committees etc. (also those who are referred to as a “former”
something).
2=Public officials: Includes authorities in various public offices
at international national/regional/district/municipal level.
3= Business and finance: Includes e.g. CEOs or managers of
corporations, entrepreneurs, representatives of employers’ unions,
representatives of banks and other finance institutions.
4= Security officers: Includes representatives of police force,
security service (TISS), military (TPDF), or fire and rescue services.
5=Juridical system: Includes judges, attorneys, public defenders,
solicitors etc.
6= Church/religion: Includes all formal representatives of a
church or a religious community.
7= CSOs: Includes various civil-society based, non-profit groups
and organizations (NGOs, associations, informal citizen groups and
social movements), also trade unions. Also references to “activists”
or “campaigners” are included in this category. Excludes sports
organizations, which belong to category “Sports”.
8= Professionals: Includes other than above-mentioned
professionals, who comment the issue as experts or spokespersons
of their own field/profession. Also self-employed.
10= Music/show/fashion business: Includes artists and other
representatives of music business, fashion models and designers, TV
or movie stars.
11= Sports: Includes athletes, coaches, managers of teams/sides,
and representatives of sports organisations.
12=Family: Includes persons who are referred to as a
wife/girlfriend /mother/daughter (for women) or as a
114
husband/fiancé/boyfriend/father/son (for men) of someone.
13=Ordinary citizens: Includes persons whose role is to comment
the issue at hand as a “man/woman in the street”, typically referred
to as “a resident of…”, or in plural e.g. “women in rural areas…”.
15= International organisations: Includes various international
and regional organisations such as international development
agencies, monetary organizations, and political and economic unions
(e.g. UN, ILO, WHO, WTO, WB, IMF, ADB, EU, AU, EAC ).
16=Other: Includes kinds of identifications of persons which do
not fit to any of the categories above (e.g. “war veterans”, “teen
mothers”, “illegal immigrants”, “suspects”, “rebels”).
* Reference group = the social or professional role according to which a
source is identified in the story by the reporter. One source/silenced
participant can be coded only into one category, the one which is mostly
appropriate. If there are several female or male sources in one article, there
can be also several reference groups in one article.
12. Reference Group(s) of Male Sources
See the categories above.
12. Topics Women Talk About
1=Politics: Includes topics such as parliamentary sessions, budget
hearings, political initiatives, actions or statements by political
parties, good government/governance, political corruption; also
foreign affairs, international relationships and cooperation (apart
from foreign financial aid, see n:o 2).
2=Business & Economics: Includes topics such as economic
development, national economy, finance, international trade,
taxation, loans, foreign aid, particular economic activities or
business(es) (with the exception of agriculture, see n:o 16),
entrepreneurship, employment and unemployment, worker’s rights
and safety.
3= Religion: Includes topics such as personal faith, religious
holidays, events or ceremonies, activities of churches/parishes,
religious tolerance, religious conflicts.
115
14=Students: Includes primary or secondary school pupils and
students in vocational training or university. Usually referred to as
“pupils”, “students”, or for example “school girls”.
4=Education: Includes topics related to all levels of education
from preschool to higher education, such as quality of education,
funding of education/schools, training/qualifications of teachers,
form four exams, importance of education etc.
5=Health Care & Social Welfare: Includes topics such as quality
of health care, performance of health clinics, health centres or
hospitals, maternal care, maternity leave, immunization, status of
various diseases and their treatment, day care of children, support
for disabled, pension funds.
6= Infrastructure & Technology: Includes topics such as public
construction and housing projects; electricity, sanitation and water
issues; traffic and road construction related issues; ICT, technological
innovations.
7= Environment: Includes topics such as sustainable
development, environmental conservation, climate change, various
local environmental problems (e.g. water shortage, pollution),
environmental assessments, national parks, game reserves, poaching.
8= Gender Issues: Includes discussions on gender
balance/(in)equality/(in)equity, women’s rights,
women’s
empowerment, and specifically gender-related issues, such as
gender-based violence, pregnancies of school girls, FGM, and
maternal health.
9 = Human Rights: Includes discussions on human rights in
general, on a specific human right (e.g. freedom of speech) or of rights
of a specific group, such as children’s rights, or rights of a minority
group (with the exception of women’s rights which belong to the
category “gender issues”).
10= Crime & Security: Includes topics such as killings, violence
(other than gender-based violence, which belong to the Gender issues
category), crimes against property, economic crime, illegal trade,
terrorism, crime prevention, investigations of a crime or terrorism,
public safety issues in general.
11= Family & relationships: Includes topics such as raising
children, romantic relationships, sexual relations, marriage,
friendships, and family relationships.
12= Health & wellbeing: Includes discussions on physical or
mental wellbeing on an individual level, such as various health
problems, mental distress and mental disorders, benefits of a healthy
116
diet or of doing physical exercise, methods for relaxation and mental
wellbeing.
13=Fashion, Trends & Beauty: Includes topics such as fashion,
interior design, and beauty tips.
15= Sports: In practice all articles in sports pages and pullouts,
dealing with different sports and games.
16= Agriculture: Farming, food production, food (in)security, food
shortage, livestock keeping, fishing.
17= Calamities & Conflicts: Comments on accidents, deaths,
floods and other natural disasters, or on armed conflicts and political
conflicts.
18=Other: Only occationally appearing topics which do not fit
under any other categories (e.g. charity, tourism/travelling,
whichcraft, immigration, citizenship)
13. Topics Men Talk About
See the categories above.
117
14= Popular culture: Includes discussions on artists, music,
concerts, celebrities, movies etc.
APPENDIX 3: Interview Questions for Reporters and Editors
I BACKGROUND
Work history:
Current position in the newspaper?
How long have you been working in that position?
How long have you been working in Mwananchi/The
Citizen?
Previous journalistic work experience?
Educational background:
Highest university degree (if any)?
Which field/discipline?
Journalistic training?
Did it include gender issues?
II AWARENESS OF GENDER ISSUES
How do you understand gender sensitive or gender
balanced journalism? What could it be in practice?
In your opinion, what kind of issues are “gender issues”?
In your opinion, how well does gender balance work in
Tanzanian media in general?
What kind of problems are there?
What is causing those problems in your opinion?
How is your newspaper doing compared to other
Tanzanian media?
III PRACTICAL ISSUES AT WORK
Do you try to take gender balance in account while doing
your work? How?
Reporters:
When you are assigned to a story, do you ever make
specific efforts to find woman interviewees?
118
When you are assigned to a story by an editor, do you ever
discuss any gender considerations related to the story together
with the editor?
If you can choose between equally qualified or relevant
male interviewee and female interviewee for your article,
which one do you select? Why?
In your experience, do women agree to give interviews as
easily as men?
Why do you think that is?
Editors:
When you are planning the contents (topics, stories) for the
next issue, do you ever consider gender balance at this phase?
When you assign a story to a reporter, do you ever discuss
gender considerations? Like should they interview women or
men?
What kind of practical obstacles or challenges are there in
doing gender sensitive journalism?
In general, how would you evaluate your own journalistic
performance in terms of gender balance and gender
sensitivity?
IV INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT
Are you aware of any gender policies in your organization?
Have you received any training on gender issues?
What could be done to improve things?
What kind of support would you need from your own
organization?
Would in-house training on gender issues be beneficial?
119
Is it easy to find woman interviewees?
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127

Media Reseach Paper 2013 - Media Council of Tanzania Website

Transcription

Similar documents

PowerPoint Sunusu

NEWSPAPER ANALYSIS JANUARY TO MARCH 2009 During the

JournALists - Reporter ohne Grenzen

MetroList Seminar_photography flyer

Southern Wayne County Fall Festival

of journalists detained, held hostage or disappeared in

Bishop Eddie Long Not The Only Pastor In Teen Sex Scandal_ Billy

MEXICO Authority, impunity and self-censorship: Frontier journalists

2010-2011

| (2.8 Mbyte)