The SA Gender and Media Baseline Study (GMBS) released on 7 August 2003 is a joint initiative of Gender Links, a southern African non-governmental organisation that promotes gender equality in media, and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa). The Media Monitoring Project (MMP) served as technical advisors and carried out the monitoring in South Africa.
The study covered 114 out of the 317 print and electronic media in the 12 countries covered, or 36 percent of the media in these countries, during September 2002. The countries covered were: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Here follows the key findings:
The news in South Africa, in all media, is told primarily through the voices and perspectives of men. Women constituted only 19 percent of the known news sources, compared to an average of 17 percent for the region.
The Sunday Times, with 29 percent women sources is at the top of the league, with YFM (eight percent women sources) at the bottom. The fact that a radio station that targets youth is so low in the hierarchy is a cause for concern. The Sunday Times performance, however, needs to be balanced against the qualitative findings that stress that just because stories have women as sources does not mean they are gender sensitive.
The relatively poor showing of the public broadcaster, and especially SAFM (nine percent) is also disturbing, as the SABC is one of the few media houses in the region that has a gender unit.
Black women, who constitute about 45 percent of the population, represented some five percent of news sources, and were the group least well represented in the media relative to their strength in the population. Black men constituted four times the proportion of black women as news sources (21 percent) yet this is still only half their strength in the population. In contrast, white men, who constitute some six percent of the population, constituted a staggering 32 percent of news sources.
While men still constituted a significant proportion of news sources in the 50-64 year old category (more than 20 percent in both the print and electronic media) women sources declined substantially in this age category to less than five percent in both the print and electronic media.
The only occupational category in which women predominate as sources was as beauty contestants, sex workers and homemakers. Women's voices were least sourced in the sports and mining categories (where men constituted 100 percent of the sources). Women came closest to achieving parity with men in the occupational categories of social worker, office worker, students and entrepreneurs. The latter may be a reflection of the preponderance of women in the informal sector.
Women were not represented in proportion to their strength in important categories such as politics, where women constitute 31 percent of members of parliament and cabinet, yet only accounted for eight percent of sources.
Both in the region and South Africa, economic and political coverage accounted for about a quarter of coverage, with sport following closely behind, and accounting for some 21 percent of coverage in South Africa. Both in the region and South Africa, gender equality and gender violence accounted for a tiny proportion of coverage - about one percent each.
There is no topic category in South Africa in which the voices of women predominate - not even in the topic code gender equality where there are more female than male voices in the region. Like the rest of the region, women's voices are least well represented in economics, politics and sports, and (other than gender equality) come closest to achieving parity in the topic codes gender violence, children, media and entertainment.
White journalists account for 56 percent of all journalists, compared to 13 percent of the population. White males, the smallest proportion of the population group (6 percent), accounted for 34 percent of media practitioners, and white females a further 21 percent (three times their strength in the overall population). Black female practitioners, accounting for a mere eight percent of media practitioners were least well represented relative to their strength in the population (45 percent). At 33 percent of the total, black male media practitioners are coming closer to being fairly represented in the media, but there is still a substantial gap between this figure and their strength in the overall population (41 percent).
Women have made the most strides in the electronic media. Unlike the region, where this is restricted to the TV presenter category, women in South Africa constituted 44 percent in both the TV presenter and radio category - an important tribute to the strides that have been made in bringing about gender balance among radio reporters.
Like the rest of the region, women in South Africa are still least well represented in the print media (29 percent, compared to 22 percent in the region). This is disturbing, because it suggests that the media profession still values women's looks over their intellectual ability in their placement within the profession.
Male journalists predominated in all the beats in South Africa, including gender equality. Women are still least well represented in the economics, politics and sports beats.
These include crime, health and HIV/AIDS, where women and male journalists in South Africa came close to achieving parity in the study.
The qualitative research showed that not only are women severely under-represented but that they are also misrepresented in the media. The consistent representation of women in passive, subordinate roles is at odds with reality and the media's responsibility to represent women in a diversity of roles, occupations and positions.
Generally there were very few attempts to link any of the common struggles for equitable representation in terms of challenging the representation of gays, lesbians, people with disabilities and children.
In a world where the roles of men and women are constantly adapting and changing so too must the representation of men and women in the media.
Download the South African report (64 pages).
