Network News: Women Less Than a Fifth of Sources; Quoted Most Often as 'Ordinary Citizens'

Media Tenor Ltd. (www.mediatenor.com), a media analysis firm, in its study of U.S. network newscasts in 2001, found women at the margins of public debate.

For each report on ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News, Media Tenor coded the topic, time period, location, personalities involved and source information (including gender, among other characteristics). Media Tenor profiled 14,632 sources in 18,765 individual reports airing between January 1 and December 31.

In general, the analysis showed that selection of sources favored "elite interests": prominent politicians, particularly those in the current political administration, and persons with considerable economic influence.

In terms of gender representation of sources, women were 19% of total sources. However, they accounted for 40% of "ordinary citizens" quoted, indicating that they were less likely to be contacted for expert opinion.

High Female Enrollment in Mass CommCourses, But Little Research On These Students

"Female students have been the majority in mass communication for nearly 25 years," writes Kim Golombisky in Journalism & Mass Communication Educator (Winter 2002). "Yet rarely are these women the focus of mass communication discussion."

Women first became mass communication's undergraduate majority in 1977. By 1999, women constituted nearly 62% of undergraduates, 63% of master's students, and 56% of doctoral students in mass communication. "But we have not evaluated the implications of this female majority for our degree-granting programs," Golombisky says. Multiculturalism and racial diversity are addressed in the research, she says - but not gender.

The New Yorker: Famed Literary Mag Light on Contributions from Women

The New Yorker stable of contributors is overwhelmingly male, according to an analysis published on the MobyLives web site in July.

According to its examination of all the issues published in 2002 through the July 22 issue, there has been little fiction by women, and when there has been, "it's usually by a big star," wrote MobyLives' Dennis Loy Johnson. "By far, the preponderance of contributions written by women so far this year have come from staffers filing reviews in the back section, as opposed to being featured in a star turn in the features section." For issue by issue comparison, and notes on who female contributors were, visit: www.mobylives.com/NYer_survey.html.

Violent, Sex-Filled TV Content Undercuts Viewer Retention of Commercial Messages

The shock value of television programs, thought to be an audience-builder, may work against the very companies that sponsor the programs.

A study published in June in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that people watching shows with sexual banter and sex scenes, and provocatively dressed characters, were less likely to remember the commercials that aired during the programs both immediately after the show and a day later. Violence content also was associated with lower recall of ads.

Media Women in Japan: Long History, Less Opportunity - But Progress Apparent

With the revision of the Equal Employment Opportunity and Child Care Leave Laws, the percentage of women journalists working in newspapers increased from a mere 1.12% in 1985 to 10.6% in 2001, according to a survey by the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association.

Five major national daily newspapers, which hire new graduates every Arpil, showed better figures for women in the newsroom: the Asahi (28.2%), Mainichi (22%), Yomiuri (21.5%) and Sankei (29.4%). The same could not be said, however, for the Nikkei, Japan's best-known financial daily, where fewer than one in 10 of the journalists - 9.8% -- are women.

Plus: Research roundup of women-themed topics from the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, News Briefs, People, Book Reviews and more!

Media Report to Women has hard copies of back issues dating to its founding in 1972. Indispensable for research!