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information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjos20GENDER, TWITTER
AND NEWS CONTENTCory L. Armstrong & Fangfang GaoAvailable
online: 11 Nov 2010To cite this article: Cory L. Armstrong &
Fangfang Gao (2011): GENDER, TWITTER AND NEWSCONTENT, Journalism
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be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,demand, or
costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
orindirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this
material.GENDER,TWITTERANDNEWSCONTENTAn examination across
platforms and
coverageareasCoryL.ArmstrongandFangfangGaoWiththecontinuingdisparitybetweenmaleandfemalementionsinnewscontent,
thisstudyseeks to compare how news organizations employ men and
women in Twitter feeds and how thatconnects to portrayals in news
stories. In particular, the research examined how mentions of
menandwomenintweetsmayinfluencementionsinnewsstoriesthat
werelinkedtotweets. Thestudy employedacontent analysis of national,
regional andlocal newspaper andtelevisiontweets,
alongwiththeiraccompanyingnewsstoriestocomparemediaplatformsandcoverageareas.
The results indicated a positive relationship between male and
female portrayals in tweetsandportrayalsinnewscontent. Further,
malementionsweremorelikelytoappearinnationalnews stories than
inregionalorlocal news storiesandmore frequentlythan
femalementionsinprint mediathanintelevision. Thus, it appears as if
news agencies havenot
developednewdisseminationstrategiesforemployingTwitter.KEYWORDS
gender; newsorganizations; TwitterIntroductionNumerous studies on
representation of women in the mass media have shown
that,comparedtomen, womenhavebeentrivialized, stereotyped,
andunderrepresentedinmedia coverage (Armstrong, 2004; Tuchman et
al., 1978; Zoch and Turk, 1998). AccordingtoMediaWatch(1995),
womenwerelesslikelytobethenewssubjectsacrossdifferentmedia
platforms including newspapers, TV, and radio; women were
especially less likely tobe news subjects for topics such as
politics, government, and economy, but most likely
tobenewssubjectsfor newsabout health, social issues, arts,
andentertainment; womenwere also less likely to be interviewed on
television news or cited as sources (see Yun et al.,2007). Since
our society has traditionally been male-dominated (Freidan, 1963;
Nelson andBridges, 1999),
itisnotsurprisingtofindoutthatsuchgenderdisparitywasreproducedandmaintainedwithintheinstitutional
practiceofsocietyinnewsorganizations.However,
newsmediaareinastateof transition. Theemergenceof
theInternetandthewideadoptionof newmediatechnology
amongthepopulationmakeit animportant strategyfor newspapers
andTVstations toconnect their audiencethroughgrowingonlinechannels.
Asaresult, newspaperwebsitesorTVwebsites, readerforums,and blogs
were developed to attract an online audience. Now, with the
increasingpopularity of social networking sites, traditional news
organizations such as the New YorkTimesandtheWall StreetJournal
areintensifyingtheiruseofserviceslikeFacebookandTwitter to
circulate stories and attract audience (Schulte, 2009). Newsrooms
arescramblingtoadjust their strategiesandnews-developingskills.
Sincetheseinnovativenews products represent the future directions
for media in the digital age, it is importantJournalismStudies,
Vol. 12, No4, 2011, 490505ISSN1461-670Xprint/1469-9699online
2011Taylor&Francis DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2010.527548Downloaded
by [University of Sydney] at 03:43 12 November 2011 for
practitioners andscholars toknowwhether thepast gender dynamics
havebeenduplicated in news organizations practice online,
especially in social networking sites likeTwitter.This study was
designedtofindout howmenandwomen compare
innewscoverageintweetsfromnational, regional andlocal
newspapersandTVstations, alongwiththeir accompanyingnews stories,
exploringhowmaleandfemalementions
varybetweenmediaplatformsandcoverageareas. Theoverall
researchquestionsfocusonhow the target audience and medium may
affect the gender equity within the content. Toprovideadditional
insightintotheanalysis, thesocial mediumTwitter
wasusedasthesteppingoffpointintothisstudy.
Toprovideanup-to-the-minuteviewoftechnologicalploys used by news
agencies, the news stories associated with Twitter were the focal
pointforstorieschosen.LiteratureReviewMediaRepresentationsofWomenInnews
content, portrayals of women have traditionally come upshort
whencomparedwithmalerepresentations (Hallmark andArmstrong, 1999;
Tuchmanet al.,1978; ZochandTurk, 1998). Current
researchhasreplicatedandextendedthisfinding,suggestingthat
maledominanceinmediarepresentationcontinues (Armstrong,
2004;Everbach, 2005; Freedman and Fico, 2005). For example,
Freedman and Fico (2005)
foundthatmalesourcesdominatednewscoverageofgovernorsracesin2002,
andEverbach(2005) proposed a masculine culture within newspapers,
within which content isgenerally produced for a male audience.
Finally, Armstrong (2004) found that male sourcesandsubjects
appearedmorethandoublethat of femalesources andsubjects*evenacross
sections of thenewspaper. CullityandYounger (2009)
analyzedthethumbnailimagesthataccompaniedall
thenewsheadlinesontheNewsFrontPagefromtheBBCwebsitein2007,
findingoutthattherewaslittle, ifany,
departurefromthepatternsofbiasedandimbalancedgender portrayal
inoldmedia*womenweredepictedconsis-tentlylessfrequentlythanmen.The
lackofmedia representationhasbeen
conceptualizedassymbolicannihilation(Tuchman et al., 1978). The
scholars focused on women for their analysis and criticized
themediafor promotingstereotypes andignoringthepresenceof
particular segmentsofsociety. Their research of television coverage
from 1954 to 1975 found that onscreen
menoutnumberedwomenbymorethanatwotooneratio.Others have
followedthis same line of research, findingthat these
disparities,universallyfavoringmalesources,
havealsorangedacrossmediaplatforms. Inacontentanalysis of three
southern US daily newspapers from1986 to 1996, Zoch and Turk(1998)
looked at international stories and found that males were used as
sourcesroughlyfourtimesasoftenasfemales. A2002studyof
governorsracesinninestatesfoundthat femalepolitical
expertswere10percent of all expertsused(FreedmanandFico, 2005).
WhileTuchmanandcolleaguesfocusedonthedisparityintelevision,
somenews scholars have found that female sources have made progress
in the visualmedium. For example, in a study of television news
sources, about 20 percent ofwomenwerefoundtoappear as sources
on60Minutes, whileintheless-mainstreamTWITTERANDGENDERINNEWSCONTENT
491Downloaded by [University of Sydney] at 03:43 12 November 2011
news program, Hard Copy, women were used as sources in about 40
percent ofsegments (Grabeet al.,
1999).Scholarshaveattemptedtoisolatesomepredictorsof
theportrayalsof menandwomeninnews coverageby examiningbothsources
andsubjects innews content.Armstrong(2004, 2006)
arguedthattheoverall portrayal of womeninnewscontentisdetermined as
much by the number of women quoted as sources as by those
individualswho are discussed in the story although not quoted. She
suggested that a more
accurateexaminationofgenderportrayalsinmediacontentwouldbecapturedbyexaminingallmentionsofanindividual
withinthattext*evenifanindividual
hasnotbeenexplicitlycitedasasource. Forexample,
oftensportsfiguresarementionedwithnewsstoriesforthe role they play
in a sporting event, but those figures may not all be cited as
sources inthose news stories. This was supported by some other
researchers, such as Len-Rios et al.(2005), who coded all
individuals within a news story, whether or not they were sources,
intheir study. For thepurposeof this study, thetermgender mentions
will refer toacombinedmeasureofsourcesandsubjects.Generally, when
examining news content, research has found that portrayals of
mendominate overall news coverage when compared to their female
counterparts (e.g., Zochand Turk, 1998). A 199899 study comparing
news content and photos found that roughly75 percent of all news
sources were male and roughly two-thirds of news photos
depictedmen(Len-Riosetal., 2005).
Theirsampleof199899newspaperstoriesfoundthatmorefemalementionsappearedintheentertainment
sectionof thenewspaper. CullityandYounger(2009)
foundthatinTopStories sectionthatfeaturedhardpolitical
newsonBBCwebsite, menandwomenwerepresentedinaratioof4:1.Finally,
prior work into predictors of news content has found that the
gender of thewriter and the genre of the content have some specific
influence on gender portrayals. Forexample,
Armstrong(2004)foundthatfemalejournalistsweremorelikelytousefemalesourcesinnewsstoriesandthatstoriesinthelifestylesectionhadthesmallestdisparitybetween
male and female mentions (although men still appeared significantly
more thanwomeninall typesofcontent). However,
womenwerelesslikelythanmentobeinthepositionof thehighest-level
editorsof traditional mediaaswell asonlinepublications(Thiel-Stern,
2006).
Throughinterviewswithcurrentandformerwomensenioreditorsatnational
online news publications, Thiel-Stern (2006) found that, although
womenjournalists expectedthat onlinejournalismwouldbecomea
newparadigmwithlessgender disparities, newmedia actually mirror the
gendered hierarchies and genderdisparities fromthe traditional
newsroom. Scholars have also foundthat womenTVreporters were more
likely than their male colleagues to use female and minority
sources(Zeldes and Fico, 2005, 2007) and that female reporters,
particularly at smaller newspapers,usedagreater diversityof sources
that includedwomenandminorities (Rodgers andThorson, 2003).
Inlaterwork,
scholarsfoundpositivecorrelationsbetweenthegenreofthestory
andthegender of thesource. Inparticular, whenmalepublic officials
andprofessionals appear in news stories, female public figures and
professionals are also likelytoappear(Armstrong,
2006).CoverageAreaandAudienceFocusManyofthestudiesinmediaportrayalshavefocusedonaparticularmediumoraspecific
nicheof coverage(magazines, newspapers, regional news). Thepresent
work492 CORYL.ARMSTRONGANDFANGFANGGAODownloaded by [University of
Sydney] at 03:43 12 November 2011
attemptstoreplicateandextendthisworkbycomparinggenderportrayalsacrosstwomediaplatforms*televisionandonlinenews*alongwithnewsagenciesfromlargeandsmall
circulationareas. Armstrong(2004) examinedlarge andsmall
circulatingnews-papers but found no significant differences based
on circulation. However, it seems likelythat
coverageareaandmediummayhavespecificinfluenceongender portrayals,
soperhapsamoreencompassingstudywouldhelpfleshout thisidea.When
examining media content, one of the first factors to consider is to
whom thecontent isaddressed.
Mediaorganizationsgenerallyfocusonatarget audiencewithintheir
circulation area, and content is generally geared toward the
organizationsperceptionofthattargetaudience(ShoemakerandReese,
1996). Astudyofnewspapergoals byagroupof
ClevelandStateUniversityscholars foundthat newspaper
origin,advertisers, andlocal pressurescanaffectthefocusof
acommunitynewspaper(Jeffresetal., 1999). Asaresult,
twonewspaperswith25,000dailyreadersintwogeographicallydistinct
communities may have vastly different content on a given day, in
part because ofdifferent audience segments (McGrath, 1993; Wicks,
1989). These authors, andmanymarketingscholars, suggestedthat
themost effectivewaytosell mediacontent is
todeterminewhichaudiencesegment wants toconsumethat
mediaandthenprovidecontentthatwill bestsatisfythatsegment. Thatis,
givetheaudiencewhatitwantstomeettheneedsofthemediaorganization(Coffey,
2008).Inadditiontotheir target audience, journalists workunder
somebasicvalues*twoof whichareparticularlyrelevant tothepresent
work(Stovall, 2002). Thefirst isproximity,
whichsuggestsfocusingonpeopleandeventsclosetothecoverageareaofthe
news organization. The second is prominence, which notes that
public figuresand other prominent people generally make news. Given
these values, it seemslikelyvarianceexists inmediacontent
betweennews agencies withvaryingcoverageareas.Other coverage area
differences may be exacerbated by media organizationswith a local
focus or a national focus. For example, local and national
newsorganizations have different target audiences and often,
different news goals.
Localtelevisionnewsorganizationsoftenhavelessmoneyandfewerresourcesthannetworknewscasts,
sothe quality of the content is likely tobe lower inthese markets
andgeared toward the local community (Armstrong et al., 2005). In
national markets,stories are nationally or internationally focused,
often with shorter news storiesspanning a variety of coverage. The
same rational holds for local versus nationalnewspapers. Larger
newspapers inthe UnitedStates (e.g., The NewYork Times, USAToday)
tendtobill themselves as national newspapers, focusingonlarger
issues withnationwideimplications.Becausethesenational
newspapershavealargerandmorediverseaudience, theymay attempt
moregender parity toreachtheir audience. Prior researchhas
definedcontentdifferencesdependinguponnewspapersizeandlocation.
Forexample, scholarshave found that newspapers that focus on
enterprise reporting are generallycorporately owned(Demers
andWackman, 1988), have a larger circulationsize,
andoftenemploydiversesources (Hansen, 1991).
Whenexaminingcoverageof women, itseemsimportanttoconsider
howwomenmaybeviewedasatargetaudience. Inoneof
thefewaudience-relatedstudiesof womenandnewspaper content,
McGrathfoundthat newspapers haveamalepersonality (1993, p. 103).
Shepointedout that menTWITTERANDGENDERINNEWSCONTENT 493Downloaded
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maintainastronger presenceinnewspaper content,
withmoremalesourcesroutinelyappearingincontent.OtherInfluencesonNewsContentSeveral
theorieshavebeenputforthtoexplainhownewscontentisshapedandformed
(see e.g, McCombs, 2004; Shoemaker and Reese, 1996). Gans (2004, p.
79) profiledfive theories that have commonly been used to explain
the routines newsgatherers followtocollectandpresentnews:1.
Journalist-centered, in which news is shaped by professionals in
the news production
field.Thisiscommonlyreferredtoasjournalisticbias.2.
Organization-centered, where news organizational structures or
corporate ownership andprofitmarginsdrivethestoryselection.3.
Medium-centered,
wherethemassmediumpresentingthenewsdetermineswhatnewswill be
presented. For example, television news would select more visual
stories to presentroutinely.4. Event-centerednews,
orthemirrortheory,
inwhichjournalistsmerelyreflecteventsandimagesastheyoccur.5.
Source-centerednews, inwhichthesources onwhichjournalists
relydeterminewhatnewsispresented.This study focuses heavily onGans
idea of medium-centered influence. Morespecifically,
wearecomparingmaleandfemalementions betweenbroadcast newsand
(online) print news platforms. Prior work has demonstrated that
mediaplatformsoftenvaryinthestorieswhichtheyemphasize, as, for
exampletelevisionnews is moreinterestedinvisual components
thantextual elements (Kaniss, 1991).Choetal. (2003)
indicatedthattelevisionnewscoverageof the9/11terroristeventshad
more emotional content than print news coverage of the same
events,suggesting that mediumdifferences can play a role in the
presentation of newscontent.Prior workhasfoundthat akeyindicator of
sourcesappearinginnewsstoriesisthejournalist(Armstrong, 2004;
PowersandFico, 1994). Gans(2004) notesthattherelationship between
journalists and sources often serves as a starting point
forreporters indeterminingfromwhominformationis sought. Powers
andFico(1994)found that reporters personal judgments about sources
were most likely toinfluence source selection over factors
including organizational pressure and theprofessional backgroundof
thesource. Armstrong(2004) foundthat reporters weremore likely to
employ sources of the same gender (as the writer) in their
newsstories.However, Silver (1986) arguedthat womenare the subjects
of news stories inroughly the same proportion that they appear in
positions as newsmakers, indicating
thatwhilemenarefeaturedinnewscoverage,
itmakessensebecausetheyalsoholdmorepositionsof authoritythanwomen.
Similarly,
womenareoftenbeingassignedtomorehuman-interestnewsorsofter
storiesthanthehard-hittingpiecesthatmalereportersare writing
(Lynch, 1993). Liebler and Smith (1997) found that when men and
women arewritingaboutthesamesubject, theirstoriesappearverysimilar.
Theauthorsassertthatthis is because female writers have been
socialized into masculine definitions of494
CORYL.ARMSTRONGANDFANGFANGGAODownloaded by [University of Sydney]
at 03:43 12 November 2011 newsworthiness. Even if women have power
over their stories, their work looks much
likethatoftheirmalecounterparts (1997, p.
65).TwitterasaNewsToolTwitter is a micro-blogging service as well
as a social networking website that allowsusers to send messages
(termed tweets) about any topic within the 140-character limit
andfollow others to receive tweets (Sankaranarayanan et al., 2009).
As of July 2009, there
weremorethan41millionusersinTwitteranditisgrowingfast(Kwaketal.,
2010). Twitterisanalogous to a distributednews wire service
(Sankaranarayananet al., 2009).
Researchersfoundthatthemajority(over 85percent) of
trendingtopicsonTwitter
wereheadlinessuchasbreakingnewsorpersistentnewssuchasprofessional
sportsteams, cities, andbrands(Kwaketal., 2010).News organizations
areusingthetechnological applicationTwitter as atool
ofinformationdissemination. CNNbreakingnewsand the NewYork
Timeswererevealed torank top 20 in terms of the number of
followers, PageRank in following/follower network,andthenumber of
retweetsinthediffusionnetworkinTwitter (Kwaket al., 2010).
InOctober 2007, during the Southern California wildfires, news
organizations such as the LosAngeles Times and San Diego public
radio station KPBS used Twitter to disseminate urgentbitsof
informationlikeevacuationorders, shelterlocations,
andfirefightingprogresstolargegroupsofmobilepeople(Palser, 2009).
Similarly, inJanuary2009,
thefirstclose-upimageoftheUSAirwaysplanethatplungedintotheHudsonRiverwaspostedandtheinformationwasdistributedthroughTwitterbyauser,
JanisKrums(Palser, 2009).
Theseup-to-the-minutebreakingtweetsallownewsorganizationstofulfill
theirpublicserviceand social responsibility functions (see e.g.,
Kovach andRosenstiel, 2001), by givingconsumers the necessary
information they need to function and react in a crisis. Given
thegrowing influence of Twitter, it is even more interesting to see
that the US StateDepartment asked Twitter to delay its maintenance
to facilitate tech-savvy Iranian citizensto communicate for their
protest against the reelection of President MahmoudAhmadinajad,
whiletheofficialnewsreportingwasrestrictedbytheIraniangovernment(Morozov,
2009).Whiletheseeventscertainlydonotrepresentthenormfortweets,
itappearsthatthenewsindustryhasembracedtheuseofTwitterasawaytoquicklysharenewsanddrive
readers to its news sites. Further, Twitter provides for
journalists connectionsto thecommunities,
tothestoriestheywriteandtootherpeoplethatcanofferhelp(Tenore,2007).
Moreover, Twitter can be a community organization tool for the
newsrooms (Farhi,2009). It can also be a tool for newspapers to
build bonds with readers. It was found that
asurprisinglylargenumberofreadersshowedupinalocalbaraftertheywereinvitedonTwitter
and Facebook by the Colonel Tribune (Adee, 2008). Hermida claimed
that the newbroad, asynchronous, light-weight and always-on system
such as Twitter enables peopleto maintain their awareness of news
around them, hence giving rise to ambientjournalism, anawareness
systemthat offers diverse means tocollect, communicate,share and
display news and information, serving diverse purposes . . . on
different levels ofengagement (2010, p.
301).GiventheemphasisonTwitter,
itseemsthatexaminingtherelationshipbetweengender mentions in tweets
and gender mentions in news stories may shed further light
onthedisparitybetweenmaleandfemaleportrayals. Arguably, individuals
mentionedinTWITTERANDGENDERINNEWSCONTENT 495Downloaded by
[University of Sydney] at 03:43 12 November 2011
tweetsaregoingtobeemphasizedinnewsstories,
asthetweetsarehighlightingthefocusofthestory. Forexample,
somenewsorganizationsuseautomaticTwitterstreamsthatreproducetheheadlinesonstories(Palser,
2009). Headlinesaregeneratedtobringattentiontothemainfocusof
thestory. Thus, if menorwomenarementionedinthetweets, theywill
likelybeemphasizedinthestoryitself. Itfollowsthenthat
apositiverelationshipshouldexist betweenmaleandfemalementions
intweets
andmaleandfemalementionsinnewsstories.HypothesesandResearchQuestionBasedonthesynthesisofliteratureoutlinedabove,
thefollowinghypothesesandresearchquestionwill
beexaminedinthisstudy:H1a: Male mentions will appear more
frequently than female mentions in
newsorganizationtweetsacrossplatformsandcoverageareas.H1b:
Malementionswill
appearmorefrequentlythanfemalementionsinnewsstoriestweetedacrossplatformsandcoverageareas.H2a:
The greater the frequency of female mentions in tweets, the greater
the frequencyoffemalementionsinnewsstoriestweeted.H2b: The greater
the frequency of male mentions in tweets, the greater the frequency
ofmalementionsinnewsstoriestweeted.H3: Male writers will appear
more frequently than female writers in news stories
tweetedacrossplatformsandcoveragearea.RQ1: Howdomentionsof
menandwomencompareacrossplatformsandcoverageareas?MethodsSampleThehypotheses
andresearchquestioninthis study wereaddressedthroughacontent
analysis inthefall of 2009. Tweets fromsixnewspapers
andthreetelevisionstationswerepurposefullychosenfortheanalysis.
Theorganizationswerechosenbasedmainly on theircoverage and
circulationarea (national, regional and local)to represent abroad
geographic range of the United States. A second criterion was that
eachorganizationhadtohaveaTwitteraccountthathadbeeninservicefromthebeginningof
2009. The organizations chosen were (national) the New York Times,
USA Today and ABCNews; (regional) the San Jose Mercury News, the
Minneapolis/St.Paul Star Tribune, WSB-TV,Atlanta, and 9News
(Denver, Colorado); and (local) The Anniston Star and Naples Daily
News.While we found several partial lists of Twitter accounts for
news organizations,1none
werecomprehensiveinJuly2009whenthisstudywasconceivedanddeveloped.
Thus, ourpurposeful selection attemptedto maximize the difference
in location andavailableresources totheorganization,
alongwithfocusingonnews agencies
whowereearlyadoptersoftheTwitterversefornewsdissemination.This
study focused on the main Twitter account distributed by each
newsorganization.2This was found either through a listing on the
news organizationswebsite or througha searchonthe Twitter website
for the individual account (e.g.,496
CORYL.ARMSTRONGANDFANGFANGGAODownloaded by [University of Sydney]
at 03:43 12 November 2011 www.twitter.com/nytimes). A search of
each account found that tweets were available ontheTwitter sitefor
atleast four monthsbeforebeingremovedfromthesite, althoughsome were
available for longer than that time period.3A randomly constructed
week wascreated from May 1 through August 31, 2009, resulting in
the following dates for sampling:Sunday, May24; Monday, August 17;
Tuesday, May12; Wednesday, June17; Thursday,July 9; Friday, August
14, and Saturday, June 13. All tweets from those dates were
collectedand, using a systematic sample, every ninth tweet was
chosen from the news organizationtweets,
resultingin40tweetsperorganization.Inourfinal sampleof361tweets,
115werefromnationalnews, 165fromregionalnews and 81 fromlocal news,
while 245 tweets came fromnewspaper sites and116came
fromtelevisionsites. Twograduate students, includingoneauthor of
thisstudy,conductedthecodingofalltweets,andfollowedthelinkscontainedwithinthosetweetstonewsstories,
videosandotherinformation.
Thefocusofthisanalysisincludesboththeindividual tweets andtheir
correspondingnews stories. Inour analysis, 60.7percent of thetweets
examinedwereidentical totheaccompanyingstory
headlines,whiletheremainingtweets wereoriginallywritten.
Wecodedonly news stories thatwerelinkedfromtheinitial tweets,
andatthetimeofthecoding, 39linksintweetsdidnot
containanewsstory.Individual
codingandintercedingreliabilityinformationwillbediscussedbelow.DependentVariableConstructionThemaindependentvariablesinthisanalysisweremaleandfemalementionsinnewsstories.
Wecomputedthementionsintoproportionstoallowforeasierandmorethoroughanalytical
interpretation(seee.g., Armstrong, 2004; Len-Riosetal., 2005).
First,eachstorywascodedforgender,eitherthroughnameorotheridentifyingattributes,bymentions
of thefeaturedpersonor persons inthestory,
alongwitheachidentifiablesource (Krippendorffs a is 0.74 for male
mentions and 0.71 for female mentions). Then, thementions of
men(mean4.37, SD4.74) andwomen(mean1.14, SD2.20)
weresummedbygenderfor eachstoryanddividedfromthetotal number of
mentionsperstorytocreateaproportionforeachgender.Male and female
mentions in tweets (Krippendorffs a is 0.81 for male mentions
and1.00 for female mentions) were codedin the same manner as other
gender-relatedmentions in news stories, but they were not
transformed into proportions, mainly becauseofthelowtallies.
Theaverageformalementionsintweetswas0.61(SD2.00)andforfemalementionswas0.14(SD0.37).IndependentVariableConstructionCoders
talliedthe topic of the tweet (Krippendorffs ais 0.76)
andfoundthat26.3percent(N95)oftweetswereaboutcrime,
22percent(N80)wereaboutpublicaffairs/politics,
16.6percent(N60)wereaboutlifestylestoriesand10.0percent(N36)were
about sports. The number of men (mean0.44, SD0.51 and women
(mean0.26,SD0.46) containedinthestorybylines was
tallied(Krippendorffsais 0.91for
malewritersand0.85forfemalewriters).
Theaveragenumberofparagraphsinthestorywas14.98(SD9.46;
Krippendorffs ais0.90).TWITTERANDGENDERINNEWSCONTENT 497Downloaded
by [University of Sydney] at 03:43 12 November 2011
ResultsThefirstsetof
hypothesespositedthatmaleandfemalementionswouldappearmorefrequentlyinnewsstoriesandtweets,
regardlessof mediaplatformor coveragearea. Overall, a paired sample
t-test of the male and female mentions in tweets found thatmenwere
muchmore likely thanwomentobe mentionedintweets [difference
ofmean0.48, SD2.08, t (360) 4.47, pB0.01] and in news stories
[difference ofmean3.23, SD4.99, t (322) 11.62, pB0.01]. When the
mentions were brokendownbycoverageareaandplatform,
malementionsweresignificantlymorelikelythanfemale mentions to
appear in all categories (see Tables 1a and Table 1b). Thus,
Hypotheses1aand1bweresupported.The second set of hypotheses
examined the relationship between gender mentionsintweets andgender
mentions innews stories.
UsingPearsonbivariatecorrelations,statisticallysignificantrelationshipswerefoundbetweenfemalementionsintweetsandnewsstories(r0.21;
pB0.001)andbetweenmalementionsintweetsandnewsstories(r 0.44;
pB0.001).As noted in Table 2, significant positive correlations
were found between tweets andnews stories for each gender across
platforms and coverage areas, except for mentions
ofbothgendersinlocal media. Alsonoteworthyisthat all
themalementioncorrelationswerestrongerthanfemalementions,
exceptfortelevision, wherethesignificantfemalecorrelation(r0.41;
pB0.01) wasstronger thanthemalecorrelation(r0.25; pB0.01).Fromthese
results, Hypothesis 2b was supported and Hypothesis 2a was
partiallysupported.Results shown in Table 3 suggest that male
writers were significantly more
frequentthanfemalewritersfornewspapers[differenceofmean0.22,
SD2.21, t(221) 3.77,pB0.01], national media[differenceof mean0.29,
SD0.81, t(106) 3.69, pB0.001]and regional media [difference of
mean0.18, SD0.82, t (152) 2.66, pB0.01].However, nosignificant
differences inthegender of thewriter were foundfor
localmedia[differenceof mean0.00, SD0.83, t (64) 0.00, p1.00] or
televisionnews[differenceofmean0.10, SD0.74, t(104) 1.32, pB0.19].
Thus, thethirdhypothesiswaspartiallysupported.Our final
researchquestioncomparedhowmaleandfemalementions compareacross
platforms and coverage areas. To examine this idea, two
hierarchical linearregressions were conducted, using male and
female mentions as the dependent variables(see Table 4). The first
block of the regressions focused on the media platforms,
coverageareas andnumber of graphs inthestories.
Statisticallysignificant final betas for
maleTABLE1aPairedsamplet-testsofmaleandfemalementionsintweetsacrossplatformsandregionsMalementionsFemalementionsMean
SD Mean SD df t pNewspaper(N245) 0.67 2.38 0.12 0.35 244 3.63
0.000TV(N116) 0.48 0.69 0.17 0.42 115 4.20 0.000Nationmedia(N115)
0.70 3.20 0.10 0.32 114 2.00 0.048Regionmedia(N165) 0.70 1.20 0.21
0.45 164 5.04 0.000Localmedia(N81) 0.32 0.54 0.05 0.22 80 4.13
0.000498 CORYL.ARMSTRONGANDFANGFANGGAODownloaded by [University of
Sydney] at 03:43 12 November 2011 mentionswerefoundfornational
news(b0.23, pB0.05), mediaplatform(b0.14,pB0.05), and length of
story (b0.15, pB0.01). No statistically significant final betas
werefound for female mentions of the first block. The second block
focused on story topics andstatisticallysignificant findings for
femalementions werefoundfor sports (b0.13,pB0.05)
andlifestyle(b0.15, pB0.05). Formalementions,
sportstopicshadtheonlystatisticallysignificantbeta(b0.21,
pB0.01).Finally, the third block added to the analysis the
relationship between the gender ofthe writer of the story and the
gender mentions in tweets. Statistically significant betas
forfemalementionswerefemalesintweets(b0.30,
pB0.01)andfemalewriters(b0.16,pB0.05). For malementions,
malementions intweets (b0.12, pB0.05)
andfemalementionsintweets(b0.14,
pB0.05)werestatisticallysignificantintheanalysis. Theanalysis for
female mentions accounted for 19.5 percent of the variance in its
model,
whiletheanalysisformalementionsaccountedfor17.9percentofthevariance,
including9.3percentinthefirstblock.DiscussionThis study examined
howmedia platform, coverage area and Twitter tweetsinfluenced male
and female mentions in news stories. Results indicated a
positiverelationshipbetweenmaleandfemaleportrayalsintweetsandsubsequentportrayalsinnews
content. Further, male mentions were more likely to appear in
national news
storiesthanspecificregionsandmorefrequentlythanfemalementionsinprintmedia.
Finally,TABLE1bPairedsamplet-tests of maleandfemalementions innews
stories across platforms andregionsMalementionsFemalementionsMean
SD Mean SD df t pNewspaper(N218) 4.94 5.13 1.21 2.48 217 9.98
0.000TV(N104) 3.16 3.53 0.99 1.43 103 6.52 0.000Nationmedia(N107)
6.47 6.34 1.21 2.01 106 8.40 0.000Regionmedia(N150) 3.38 3.37 1.19
2.59 149 7.02 0.000Localmedia(N65) 3.20 2.99 0.91 1.37 64 5.57
0.000TABLE2Bivariate correlations betweenmale/female mentions
intweets andnews stories
acrossplatformandcoverageareaFemalementions
MalementionsNewspaper(N218) 0.15* 0.47**TV(N104) 0.41**
0.25**Nationmedia(N107) 0.24* 0.49***Regionmedia(N150) 0.20*
0.42**Localmedia(N65) 0.08
0.24Significancestatisticsarefortwo-tailedtests.*pB0.05,**pB0.01,***pB0.001.TWITTERANDGENDERINNEWSCONTENT
499Downloaded by [University of Sydney] at 03:43 12 November 2011
and perhaps most importantly, it appears from these findings that
news organizations
arefollowingthesamegenderedpatternsintheirnewsdisseminationtools,
whichsuggeststhat they may not be trying to broaden their appeal to
attract a female audience. Each
ofthesefindingswillbediscussedbelow.One of the key results of this
analysis indicated that the presence of men or womenin news tweets
was a significant predictor of the presence of the same gender
within newsstories. Onthesurfacethisfindingmayseemobvious,
butthisrelationshipunderscoresthe larger gender disparity that
continues in news content. Tweets are generally employedby news
organizations to summarize the particulars of a news story*thus, to
highlight thepoints of emphasis in the story. Therefore, if the
tweets contain female mentions, they areTABLE4Hierarchical linear
regression predicting the frequency of mentions by gender
acrossplatformsandcoverageareaFemalementions
MalementionsIndependentvariables Final b Variance(%) Final b
Variance(%)Block1Nationalnews 0.05 0.23*Regionalnews 0.05
0.09Newsplatform(TV high) 0.10 0.14*Lengthofstory 0.08
0.15**IncrementalR2(%) 2.1 9.3**Block2Politicaltopic 0.01
0.09Sportstopic 0.13* 0.21**Lifestyletopic 0.15* 0.04Crimetopic
0.07 0.13$IncrementalR2(%) 7.2** 5.3**Block3Malewriter 0.02
0.05Menintweet 0.05 0.12*Femalewriter 0.16** 0.02Womenintweet
0.30** 0.14*IncrementalR2(%) 10.2** 3.3*TotalR219.5**
17.9**N361.Significancestatisticsarefortwo-tailedtests.$pB0.10,*p
B0.05,**pB0.01.TABLE3Pairedsamplet-testscomparinggenderoftheauthoracrossplatformsandcoverageareaMalebyline
FemalebylineMean SD Mean SD t pNewspaper(N221) 0.49 0.55 0.27 0.47
3.77 0.000TV(N104) 0.35 0.46 0.25 0.54 1.32 0.191Nationmedia(N107)
0.46 0.59 0.17 0.40 3.69 0.000Regionmedia(N153) 0.48 0.55 0.30 0.49
2.66 0.009Localmedia(N65) 0.34 0.48 0.34 0.48 0.00 1.000500
CORYL.ARMSTRONGANDFANGFANGGAODownloaded by [University of Sydney]
at 03:43 12 November 2011 likely being emphasized in the stories;
conversely, if male mentions are in the tweets,
theyarelikelybeingemphasizedinthestories.Twitter is
anewtechnological tool of informationdissemination. It is
thehotvehicle of news now, in much the same way as special
newspaper editions, television newscrawls,thebreakingnewsemail,
andRSS(realsimple syndication)feedshavefunctionedpreviously(and,
presently, tosomeextent).
IfTwitteristhepopularandefficientwaytogathernewsforanaudience,
thenanexaminationofitscontentisimportant. Itappearsfromthis
analysis that eventhenewest technology follows thepathof other
mediacontent, emphasizingmenmorethanwomen. Or, tospinit another
way,
newstopicsinvolvingmenreceivemoreemphasisthanthoseinvolvingwomen.WhatmakesthisissueparticularlysignificantisthatnewsagenciescouldbeusingTwitter
togarner a more female-centeredaudience. Not only is content more
male-focused, but organizations appear to be falling short in
employing new media
technology.AstudyfromHarvardBusinessReviewfoundthatwomenusersheldaslightmajorityonTwitter,representing55percent
ofTwitter usersasof May2009;however,different
fromothersocialnetworkslikeFacebookwheremostactivitieswerewomen-centered,Twitteris
quite male-skewed, as men andwomen tweetedat the same rate but men
had15percentmorefollowersthanwomen(HeilandPiskorski, 2009).
Giventhatourfindingdemonstratedthereweremoretweetsandnewsfromnewsorganizationsemphasizingmen,
it seems possiblethenews delivery andnews consumptiononTwitter will
beincreasinglymale-skewed,
providinglessspaceforfemaleperspectivesandcertainlynotattractingmorefemalefollowers.In
a nutshell, then, it appears that news agencies are not taking
advantage of socialmedia to attract an audience that traditionally
has not been a focus in news content.
Whilewomenarecertainlyemployingsocial
mediasuchasTwitterasameanstogatherandshare information, news
producers are not making strides toward capturing that audience.Our
findings indicated that 60.7 percent of tweets were identical to
story headlines, whichmeans they were likely disseminated through
an automatic feed to Twitter. It appears thatinsteadof
creatingnewcontent tofit the newtechnology andaudience, the
newsorganizations are trying to fit the same content into a new
dissemination tool, which maynot be the best strategy. This finding
supports prior work by Thiel-Stern (2006),
suggestingthatthesamegenderhierarchyexistedinonlinenewsthatexistedintraditionalnews.
Itappears that some of the same practices are occurring with
Twitter feeds. Future researchshouldfurtherinvestigatethisidea.The
findings fromHypothesis 1a and 1b indicate that male mentions
weresignificantlymorelikelythanfemalestoappearinbothtweetsandnewsstoriesacrossall
platforms and coverage areas. This study then replicates the myriad
of prior findings ofmale dominance innews content (Armstrong, 2004;
Zoch andTurk, 1998), but alsoextends knowledge of these findings
into a new area*Twitter feeds. We argue that thesefindings occur
for tworeasons: first, maledominanceinnews content is still
ahugeproblem, and, frankly, despite the well-documented nature of
that disparity, little has beendonetocombattheproblem.
WhileprogramssuchasGannettNewsCo.sAll-AmericanDiversity
Award4reward news coverage which demonstrates racial and gender
diversity incontent, these showcases are rare and often not
well-supported. The second reason is thatsome news organizations
have not put effort into developing unique content into
tweets.SomenewsorganizationshavetheirheadlinesautomaticallyfeedintoaTwitterstream,while
others have types of automated content that does not factor in any
real changes toTWITTERANDGENDERINNEWSCONTENT 501Downloaded by
[University of Sydney] at 03:43 12 November 2011 their traditional
news content (Palser, 2009). As a result, the same stark gender
disparitiesfavoring men found in newspaper and television news
stories are being simply
transferredtoTwitter.Thisstudyattemptedtoisolatepredictorsoffemaleandmalementionsbymediaplatformandcoveragearea.
Findingsindicatedthatalthoughmalementionsweremorefrequentthanfemalementionsinall
situations, somedifferencesexist. Forexample, inlocal media, no
correlation exists between gender mentions in tweets and
gendermentionsinnewsstoriesandnodifferenceexistsbetweenthefrequencyof
maleandfemale bylines. Possibly, as noted in prior work, there were
stronger socialization pressuresat largernewspaperstopromote
samenessinjournalisticroutines,withmale andfemalereporters
showingmoresimilar reportingpatterns
toconformtothemale-dominatedmechanism (Rodgers and Thorson, 2003).
Apart from local media, the strongestcorrelations between tweets
and news stories appeared for male mentions, excepttelevision,
wherethecorrelationbetweenfemalementions intweetsandstories
weremorecorrelated.Further, it appears that some platform and
coverage area differences exist in terms ofthe gender of the
reporter as well. Our findings indicated that male bylines were
more likelyto appear than female bylines in national and regional
media, as well as newspapersas agroup,
whichisconsistentwithpreviousstudiesshowinganoverrepresentationofmalereporters
and sources in print news coverage (Rodgers et al., 2000). However,
no significantdifferenceswerefoundforlocal
mediaorfortelevisionasaplatform. Whilewecannotinterpret
non-significant relationships, it does appear from the results
perhaps the genderdisparity may be more contextual than
comprehensive. For example, in television, reportersand anchors are
seen, so parity may more noticeable. With local media, perhaps the
lowerpay and less available resources keeps the scales pretty
balanced. Within our results, we cannote that in all significant
relationships, male writers appeared more frequently than
femalewriters. Since these appeared to be news stories being
disseminated through Twitter, theseare the stories being emphasized
by the news
agencies.LimitationsandFutureDirectionsAfewcaveatsarenecessaryforthisinitial
research. First, thisstudyexaminedninenews outlets, which certainly
limits its generalizability. In addition, we sampled from
eachnewsoutletoverafour-monthperiod, sowedonothaveafull
lookathowthetweetslookedoverothermonthsoftheyear. Finally,
weonlyexaminednewsstoriesthatwerelinked from the tweets that were
culled, so our study is not a comprehensive look at
newscontentinthesenewsagencies.Despitetheselimitations,
thisstudyreplicates andextends prior
workingenderresearchalongwithmasscommunicationscholarship. Our
findingsareoneof thefirststudies to examine how the use of Twitter
by news agencies connects to its overall newscontent. We alsohave
beenable toexpandprior work lookingat howwomenareportrayed in news
content and how the gender disparity shifts in context
butyetcontinuesinmainstreamnewscontent. Finally,
webelievethatbecauseofTwittersrelativenewness as adisseminationtool
for news content, practitioners will findusein our content analysis
of hownews agencies employ it to showcase its overallcoverage.502
CORYL.ARMSTRONGANDFANGFANGGAODownloaded by [University of Sydney]
at 03:43 12 November 2011 NOTES1. The following sites listed some
twitter accounts for news organizations. All wereviewedonMarch11,
2010: GraphicDesigner:
http://graphicdesignr.net/blog/2008/09/03/newspapers-that-twitter-august-numbers/;
Twitter fan wiki: http://twitter.pbworks.com/NewsServices; Carlos
Granier-Phelps:
http://red66.com/2008/02/a-list-of-news-organizations-using-twitter/2.
The specic Twitter accounts used for the study were: @nytimes,
@usatoday,@abcworldnews, @mercurynews, @MN_News, @9newsdotcom,
@WSB_TV, @ndn [email protected].
Thefour-monthtallywasfoundfornewsorganizationswhichfrequentlytweet.
Tweetsfor some accounts were available for up to a year, but for
consistency, we focused on thepriorfourmonths.4.
DetailsoftheAll-AmericanDiversityAward,
whichshowcasesnewsagencieswhohaveoutstandingsourcediversitywithintheircontent,
canbefoundathttp://www.gannett.com/go/newswatch/2007/oct/nw1005-1.htmwhichwasretrievedonMarch24,
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