Lesson 10 – Representation

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Lesson 9

TV News and Representation

• As we have seen news broadcasters select which stories to run – they mediate events and act as gatekeepers.

• This means they can only show “a version” of events. The version they have decided that you the audience need to see.

• They represent events in a particular way – some modern news is often as much entertainment as information.

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TV News and Representation

• Some bulletins use some of all of the following to help create and maintain audience interest:– Sensationalism– Generation of fear– Drama and conflict– Moving, emotive images– Simplification for ease of understanding– Human interest for identification.– Links to celebrity– Vox pops

• What are the problems with some of these? 3

Female newsreaders

You will be given a worksheet which contains a list of newsreaders. 

How many current newsreaders in this list are female? Can you work out the percentage?

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Gender Representation

Starter

Female newsreaders

As of May 2014 the list contained 46 newsreaders, 11 of which are female.

24%

Question:Why do you think this is?

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Representation of gender in TV news

What is the stereotypical representation of women?

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Representation of gender in TV news

Women are housewives or mothers

Women are seen as sex objects represented to entertain and titillate the male audience

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Representation of gender in TV news

Consider these comments:

Males have deeper voices and are therefore more authoritative

Men are mostly in a position of power and authority

Do we take men more seriously?8

Representation of gender in TV news

Women news presenters are generally pretty – sexual objects?

News is a masculine narrative – because it is usually about war, crimes and violence

Hard news for men; soft news for women

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Representation of gender in TV news

Because of the patriarchal nature of our society, women are less likely to be the source of leading news stories as there are fewer females in these

roles.

How many women do you think there are in top TV jobs?

(i.e. in charge of TV broadcasting companies)10

Representation of gender in TV news

There are TWO women in top television broadcasting jobs – both work for the BBC.

• Tony Hall – Director General of the BBC• Charlotte Moore (female) – Controller of BBC One• Kim Shillinghall (female) – Controller of BBC Two and BBC

Four• Archie Norman – Chairman of ITV• Adam Crozier – Chief Executive of ITV• Lord Burns – Chairman of Channel 4• David Abraham – Chief Executive of Channel 4• Richard Desmond – Chairman of Northern and Shell who own

Channel 5• Nicholas Ferguson – Chief Executive and Chairman of Sky

Researched May 201411

Gender inequality in TV newsReading Activity

Go to this website: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/apr/03/male-experts-female-tv-radio-research

Read the report on ‘Women still vastly outnumbered by men on UK radio and TV news’.

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Gender inequality in TV newsReading Activity‘Women still vastly outnumbered by men on UK radio and TV news’

Identify what you think is the most important piece of information regarding gender inequality.

Share your important piece of information with the person sitting next to you.

Did you choose the same piece of information?

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BBC masculine / ITV feminine?

Are the TV news programmes produced by BBC and ITV separated by gender?

Can this be proved by the content of the programmes?

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BBC masculine / ITV feminine?

Can we prove this idea?

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Look back at the names of leaders in broadcasting – how many weren’t white?Is this a fair representation of British society today?

Read the article below: http://www.city.ac.uk/news/2014/aug/new-survey-reveals-level-of-ethnic-minority-representation-on-tv

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Representation of Ethnic Groups

Plenary

Read the news report on this link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532095/Sky-News-presenter-Jacquie-Beltrao-announces-Twitter-breast-cancer-apologises-stopped-

tweeting.html

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Plenary

Discuss the type of story – hard or soft news?

How would it come across if it was from a male perspective?

Would it have the same effect on the audience?

Are women naturally more emotional about such subjects?

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