Women are highly under-represented in Maltese media – 83 per cent of the news subjects were men and 17 per cent were female – according to the recent results of an international study.

On 16 February 2005, 76 countries participating in the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 2005 project monitored the role and representation of women in almost 13,000 stories in TV, radio and newspapers.

It is essential for Malta take part in the GMMP every five years, the report said, “as it plays a crucial part in providing invaluable data for Malta and other countries”.

The University of Malta and the Malta Broadcasting Authority participated in the project because “there is an awareness of the importance of understanding the issues of gender balance in the news and in the media in general”.

Furthermore, the report said, there is “an awareness of the need to have access to reliable data”.

University lecturer specialising in gender studies Brenda Murphy was the local project coordinator.

The four daily newspapers, The Malta Independent, The Times, In-Nazzjon, and l-orizzont, six radio stations, Super 1 Radio, Radju Malta, Bay Radio, RTK, Capital Radio and Radio 101, and three main TV stations, TVM, One TV and Net TV, were monitored.

The local news carried reports on: the one billion euro question; President Edward Fenech Adami was invited to address the European Parliament; the General Workers Union agreed on the devaluation of the Maltese lira; an appeal for social partners to work together; the police besieged a residence in Qormi after a man fired a gun; and Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi set a day for the voting to ratify the European Constitution.

This discrepancy is consistent across all media – TV, radio and newspapers – with female subjects least represented in newspapers, the report said.

Across all three media, 62 per cent of women were presenters, 19 per cent were reporters and 17 per cent were subjects.

In television, 20 per cent of news subjects were women, 18 per cent in radio and 13 per cent in newspapers.

The highest percentage of female news subjects per topic was registered in crime and violence (49 per cent), followed by politics and government (22 per cent).

Another seven per cent were registered in economy, five per cent in celebrity, arts and sport, five per cent in science and health and two per cent in social and legal.

According to the report, women are less likely to be described in terms of their occupation and position.

In 8.5 per cent of news stories in which the subject is female, her occupation is not stated, compared to only one per cent of news stories where the occupation of the male subject is not stated.

Women’s predominance in the media was as news subjects (65 per cent), followed by spokesperson (14 per cent) and expert or commentator (five per cent).

Furthermore, women were five times more likely to be described in terms of their family status: 15 per cent of all women were described in terms of their family status as opposed to only three per cent of men.

In newspapers, men are three times more likely to be quoted compared to women. In fact, 17 per cent of men were quoted as opposed to six per cent of their female counterparts.

In local TV, it was found that 75 per cent of presenters were women while 61 per cent of presenters in radio were women.

However, 29 per cent of journalists in TV were women and newspapers had only 10 per cent of female journalists.

There were no female journalists working in radio at the time.

Furthermore, female journalists were twice as likely than male journalists to cover a story with a female news subject.

The report found that 17 per cent of all news subjects across the world were women and 83 per cent were male.

There was a similar trend in the specific media: in TV 20 per cent of news subjects were female and 80 per cent were male, in radio 18 per cent were women and 82 per cent were men, and in newspapers 13 per cent were women and 87 per cent were men.

According to the results, women only dominate in the role of presenter on TV and radio and that all three media showed a greater dominance of male journalists.

Female journalists were least likely to report on topics in politics and government (0.4 per cent), and most likely to report on health and science (50 per cent).

Only 0.7 per cent of monitored news stories challenge gender stereotypes in the media, while 2.2 per cent actually reinforce these stereotypes.

The report found that most of the media is stereotypical, depicting women as victims and helpless figures.

The overwhelming majority (99 per cent) of news stories monitored did not highlight the issue of gender equality or inequality – stories that did only made up less than one per cent.

The full version of the report ca be found on http://www.whomakesthenews.org/who_makes_the_news/report_2005.