Women as Correspondents and Newsmakers

Women as Correspondents and Newsmakers in a 37-Nation Study of Foreign and International News Flow

Presented to:International Association for Mass Communication Research Annual Conference Sydney, Australia August 1996

W. Joseph Campbell
Robert L. Stevenson
Stephen P. Jackson

School of Journalism and Mass Communication
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
C.B.#3365, Howell Hall
Chapel Hill, NC, USA 27599-3365
(919/942-2525)

Introduction
Method
Results
Endnotes

Introduction

The importance extended to women in the news -- both as correspondents and as newsmakers -- has, to be sure, become a rich source of enduring debate, discussion, and scholarly research. 1 Indeed, it has become a debate that rages across continents and across differing types of media.

The continuing and wide-ranging nature of the discussion about women as correspondents and newsmakers was among the important issues in international communication that helped give rise to an ambitious, collaborative, and ongoing multinational analysis of the variety and nature of international news in the closing years of the 20th century. This multinational analysis -- called the Cooperative Study of Foreign News and International News Flow in the 1990s -- was organized by international communication scholars in the United States and Britain, and includes contributors from nearly seventy countries in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

The International News Flow Study is intended to expand on earlier investigations, notably the UNESCO Foreign Images study of 1978, and to produce a detailed, up-to-date portrait of foreign and international news, and the flow of foreign news. The centerpiece of the International New Flow Study is a quantitative content analysis of foreign and international news published or broadcast during two weeks in September 1995. The study includes leading print and broadcast media in more than seventy countries. The two-week sample was preceded in May 1995 by a two-day trial, to test methods and coding procedures. In the May 1995 trial, the foreign and international news content of more than 120 print and broadcast media in forty-one countries was examined.

Results from the extensive analysis of September 1995 are being compiled. Data from the May 1995 trial -- which coincided with events in Europe and elsewhere that commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II in Europe -- are available, however. This paper is an exploratory study that draws on data collected in the May 1995 trial.

Specifically, this exploratory study seeks to examine two important elements about the role of women in foreign and international news: The extent to which women report the news and, separately, the extent to which women are principal figures, or "actors," in newsworthy events. This study also seeks to assess whether levels of press freedom are significant factors influencing whether women are accorded as correspondents and newsmakers. Moreover, this study examines such contributing factors as comparative levels of human development, gender-related development, and gender empowerment.

It must be emphasized that a two-day sample of foreign and international news allows for only exploratory analyses. Data are unstable and do not allow researchers much power to generalize. Nonetheless, patterns detected from the analysis of even a limited sample can be valuable in developing hypotheses that can be tested against a much larger, and more stable, data set -- such as that collected for the International News Flow Study in September 1995.

Method

Units of analysis in this exploratory study were the individual print and broadcast media in the May 1995 trial. This study includes 125 separate media from thirty-seven countries. 2 Data from four countries were insufficient3 to warrant inclusion in this paper.

Aspects of each medium (that is, whether it is print or broadcast) and of each country (that is, the comparative degree of media freedom from political, economic, and legal restraints4) were coded as independent variables. Measures of media content (percent of foreign and international reports in which women were identified as the correspondent; percent of foreign and international news reports in which women were identified as the principal or secondary main actor) were coded as dependent variables. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to assess relationships among the variables. Separate covariates of comparative measures of human and female development and empowerment in the world -- the United Nations Human Development Index, the Gender-Related Development, and the Gender-Empowerment Index5-- were incorporated into the analysis of variance.

Results

Results of this study indicate that women are more likely to be reporters of international and foreign news in broadcast media than in print -- and particularly in countries having "free" press systems. In other words, broadcast media may be more likely than print to assign female correspondents to foreign and international news reporting, and that likelihood increases where press freedom is greater. The two-way interaction of press freedom and media type was found to be significant [<0.047] in analysis of variance. However, measures of human development, gender-related development, and gender empowerment were found not to be significant. <

Results of the ANOVA are shown in Table 1. Cell means are shown in Table 2.

Table 1. Female correspondents by type of media and level of press freedom, with human development, gender-related development, and gender empowerment indexes as covariates.

Experimental sums of squares. Covariate entered with main effects.

Source of variation

Sum of Squares

DF

Mean Square

F

Significance of F

Main effects

8669.318

6

1444.886

7.788

.000

Press freedom
Media type
HDI (covar)
GRDI (covar)
GEM (covar)

333.220
5302.254
4.439
34.643
4.395

2
1
1
1
1

166.610
5302.254
4.439
34.643
4.395

.913
29.07
.024
.190
.024

.406
.000
.876
.664
.877

2-Way interactions

1167.221

2

583.610

3.200

.047

Press Freedom/Type

1167.221

2

583.610

3.200

.047

Explained

9836.538

8

1229.567

6.741

.000

Residual

12584.836

69

182.389

Total

22421.374

77

291.187

Table 2. Cell means. Female correspondents in foreign and international news.
(Includes reports in which correspondents included women and men.)

Total Population

14.45

Media type

Print

Broadcast

7.04

25.10

Press freedom ranking

Free

Partly Free

Not Free

20.11

8.94

7.47

Media type

Press freedom

Print

Broadcast

Free
Partly Free
Not Free

9.37
5.40
4.10

33.83
14.51
13.24

Just as female correspondents are more common in broadcast media, this study also found that female news figures, or "actors," tend to be more prominent in foreign and international reports broadcast on television and radio than printed in newspapers. Analysis of variance did not show those differences to be significant, however. Women were more likely to be main news figures in "free" press systems than in those that are "partly free" or "not free," but those differences were not found to be significant, either.

Interestingly, analysis of variance did find significance in covariate of gender-empowerment, which indicates that the greater level of female participation in public life, the more women will be recognized as important news figures in international and foreign news. Results of the analysis of variance, in which the gender-related development and gender-empowerment indexes were covariates, is shown on Table 3. Cell means are in Table 4.

Table 3. Female actors in foreign and international news, by media type and level of press freedom, with gender-related development and gender empowerment indexes as covariates.

Experimental sums of squares. Covariate entered with main effects.

Source of variation

Sum of Squares

DF

Mean Square

F

Significance of F

Main effects

2291.549

5

458.310

2.462

.040

Press freedom
Media type
HDI (covar)
GRDI (covar)
GEM (covar)

98.979
533.725
50.760
795.979

2
1
1
1

49.490
553.725
50.760
795.979<<

.266
2.974
.273
4.276

.767
.089
.603
.042

2-Way interactions

8.916

2

4.458

.024

.976

Press Freedom/Type

8.916

2

4.458

.024

.976

Explained

2300.465

7

328.638

1.765

.107

Residual

13962.361

75

186.165

Total

16262.827

82

198.327

Table 4. Cell means. Female actors in foreign and international news.

Total Population

17.65

Media type

Print

Broadcast

15.30

21.22

Press freedom ranking

Free

Partly Free

Not Free

20.50

16.62

12.75

Media type

Press freedom

Print

Broadcast

Free
Partly Free
Not Free

17.73
15.33
10.61

24.04
19.05
16.41

Discussion and conclusions

The two-day sample drawn in May 1995 allows, at most, for limited generalizability. Even so, the results can be treated as indicators, as offering or suggesting interesting hypotheses that can be explored in more detail, using the larger, more stable data set from the September 1995 sampling of the International News Flow Study.

The significant finding in this exploratory study that the gender-empowerment index is linked to women as important figures, or "actors," in foreign and international news certainly deserves further attention. Also meriting additional analysis is the more general issue of the roles of women as correspondents, and as figures in foreign and international news. This exploratory study found significant results in that female correspondents were more common in broadcast media than in print. The two-way interaction of media type and level of press freedom also was significant for female correspondents.

Women, moreover, appeared more likely to be treated as important news figures, or "actors," by broadcast outlets than by print media, although analysis of variance did not find that those differences to be significant, however. Similarly, the comparative levels of press freedom -- "free," "partly free," or "not free" -- were not found in this study to be significant indicators of whether women are more likely to be newsmakers. Nonetheless, the data collected for this exploratory study were clear and consistent in showing that women were more likely to be correspondents, as well as important news figures, in countries where political, economic, and legal restrictions on press freedom are comparatively few. That element certainly deserves additional examination and analysis. Press freedom may very well prove to be tied inextricably to the advancement of women as reporters and as makers of foreign and international news. Open media systems -- particularly broadcast outlets -- may be more receptive to female correspondents and female news figures.

Endnotes

1See, among others, Maurine H. Beasley and Shelia J. Gibbons, Taking Their Place: A Documentary History of Women and Journalism (Washington, D.C.: American University Press, 1993); Kay Mills, A Place in the News: From the Women's Pages to the Front Page (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Pamela J. Creedon, ed., Women in Mass Communication: Challenging Gender Values (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1989); and Julia Edwards, Women of the World: The Great Foreign Correspondents (New York: Ivy Books, 1988).

2Media from the following countries were included in this study: the United States and Mexico in North America; Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, and Venezuela in Central and South America; Austria, Finland, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Spain in Western Europe; Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Ukraine in Central and Eastern Europe; Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa in sub-Saharan Africa; Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, and United Arab Emirates in the Middle East; China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, New Zealand, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand in Asia and the Pacific Rim.

3That is, fewer than ten cases.

4The 1995 comparative ratings of press freedom, compiled by Freedom House, were applied in this study. Countries are ranked by Freedom House as "free," "partly free," or "not free." The annual Freedom House ratings are derived from the organization's analysis of political and economic pressures on national news media, of national measures to harass, intimidate, and jail journalists, and of legal restrictions on national news flow. See, Leonard R. Sussman, "The Press: Pressed and Oppressed," Freedom House report, 15 April 1995, 7.

5The Human Development Index compiled by the United Nations Development Program was used to assess levels of human development in the countries included in this study. The Human Development Index, comprised of measures such as life expectancy at birth and adult literacy rates, is plotted on a scale of 0 to 1. The greater the value, the greater the level of human development. The Gender-Related Development Index and Gender-Empowerment Index are plotted on a similar scale.