article subject

One year: A look at female authors, sources by article subject in Gender Check study

Jasmine R. LinabaryLeave a comment

Editor’s note: In January 2011, we set out to examine the ways in which women are represented in online news both as sources and as authors. To mark our first year here at The Gender Report, we’re revealing our findings from our year-long studies as well as other statistics and commentaries in a series of posts. View other coverage of our one-year anniversary here.

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What article subjects have the lowest representation of female sources and authors? Well, that’s what we’ve looked at in the data from our year-long Gender Check monitoring study.

Yesterday, we released findings in two parts, one on female sources and another on female authors, from this project. We’ve decided to look at our data in some additional ways, including by article subject, to see if there are any differences in the representation of women as sources and authors. We first explored this after the six-month mark in our study and again after nine months. Now after completing 12 months of the project, we’ve examined each of the 354 articles we gender checked by topic to see if the differences we uncovered at earlier points in the study still hold. (For the Gender Check study, we monitored the lead news articles from eight U.S. online news websites. For details, click here.)

To determine article subject, we’ve made use (to the best of our ability) of the Global Media Monitoring Project‘s news stories classification system (Click for a PDF of the system) to categorize stories. This system divides articles into eight categories with a numbering system for further breakdowns within each category.  None of our articles have fallen under the categories of “Other” and ‘The Girl-Child” yet, so we’re sticking with the six remaining categories.

After a year of study, here’s how the articles broke down by subject.

Articles by subject

The largest number of our articles have still fallen under “Crime and Violence” (106 out of 354).The category with the fewest articles was “Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports” with 21 articles. Below, we’ve broken down each larger category by the number of articles in our sample, the subjects within that category associated with the highest number of articles, and the news site or sites that were the sources for the largest number of articles in that category.

  • Politics and Government: 72 articles; Key subjects: “Other domestic politics, government” (43 articles); Main source: St. Louis Beacon (19 articles)
  • Economy: 73 articles; Key subjects: “Economic policies, strategies” (17 articles); Main source: Seattle Times (15 articles) and St. Louis Beacon (13 articles)
  • Science and Health: 33 articles; Key subjects: “Medicine, health, hygiene, safety” (10 articles); Main source: ProPublica (10 articles)
  • Social and Legal: 49 articles; Key subjects: “Education, childcare, nursery, university, literacy” and “Legal system, judiciary, legislation apart from family” (both with 19 articles); Main source: Seattle Times (11 articles)
  • Crime and Violence: 106 articles; Key subjects: “Violent crime, murder, abduction, assault” (36 articles) and “Non-violent crime, bribery, theft, drugs, corruption” (30 articles); Main sources: Seattle P-I (33 articles) and Stltoday.com (24 articles)
  • Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports: 21 articles; Key subjects: “Arts, entertainment, leisure, cinema, books, dance” (10 articles); Main sources: Patch (Seminole Heights) (7 articles)

As a note to our readers, we acknowledge that the sample of articles in some categories is still small, so please keep in mind that limitation when viewing our data.

Here’s how the gender representations worked out within those categories:

Sourcing

“Politics and Government” articles dropped to the bottom with the lowest percentage of female sources at 19.9 percent. “Social and Legal” articles had the highest percentage of female sources with 31.4 percent, passing “Science and Health” articles, which had maintained the highest percentage at both the six and nine month marks. As demonstrated in our overall findings, the total sample shows women as 26 percent of sources.

Here’s how it separated out by classification:

  • Politics and Government: 254 males, 63 females (Women as 19.9 percent)
  • Economy: 202 males, 60 females (Women as 22.9 percent)
  • Science and Health: 76 males, 31 females (Women as 29 percent)
  • Social and Legal: 129 males, 59 females (Women as 31.4 percent)
  • Crime and Violence: 262 males, 116 females (Women as 30.7 percent)
  • Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports: 55 males, 14 females (Women as 20.3 percent)

Authorship

“Science and Health” articles have continued to hold the lowest percentage of female authors at 18.2 percent overall. “Economy” articles have also still demonstrated highest percentage of female authors at 39.7 percent. Overall, women are 32.2 percent of authors.

Here’s the breakdown by classification:

  • Politics and Government: 26 stories by women, 38 by men, 6 shared bylines between a man and a woman, 2 other/unidentified (Women as 36.1 percent)
  • Economy: 29 by women, 40 by men, 4 shared (Women as 39.7 percent)
  • Science and Health: 6 by women, 24 by men, 2 shared, 1 other (Women as 18.2 percent)
  • Social and Legal: 17 by women, 30 by men, 2 shared (Women as 34.7 percent)
  • Crime and Violence: 31 by women, 62 by men, 10 shared, 3 other (Women as 29.2 percent)
  • Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports: 5 by women, 15 by men, 1 shared (Women as 23.8 percent)

Review our findings

Below you can find links to the breakdown of the articles in our Gender Check study at previous points in the year.

For other data on gender representations in online news and to compare these findings to others’, check out our “Findings and Statistics” category and our “Useful Resources” page.

We’re interested in what you make of the findings. Share your thoughts in the comment section below or using the #GRdiscuss hashtag on Twitter.

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Nine months: Science and health articles showing high female sources, low female bylines

Jasmine R. LinabaryLeave a comment

At the nine-month mark of our Gender Check study, articles about science and health have the highest percentage of female sources and one of the lowest percentages of female bylines compared to other article subjects.

Last week, we unveiled our findings from the first nine months of our Gender Check project. Another way we’ve been looking at our data is by article subject, to see if there is a difference in the representation of women as sources and authors. We first explored this following our six-month mark and we did, in fact, find some differences. As a result, we’ve gone back through our most recent findings and looked at each of the 272 articles we gender checked by topic, in order to see if those same differences still hold.

We’ve opted to use (to the best of our ability) the Global Media Monitoring Project‘s news stories classification system (Click for a PDF of the system) to categorize stories. This system divides articles into eight categories with a numbering system for further breakdowns within each category. At this point, we are just looking at the larger categories. None of our articles have fallen under the categories of “Other” and ‘The Girl-Child” yet, so we’re sticking with the six remaining categories.

In the first nine months of our Gender Check project, the largest number of our articles still fell under “Crime and Violence” (84 out of 272). “Economy” with 60 articles narrowly passed “Politics and Government” with 58 to be the second highest. Thirty-five articles fell under “Social and Legal,” 20 under “Science and Health” and 15 under “Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports.” We recognize that the sample of articles in some categories is still small, so please keep in mind that limitation when viewing our data.

Here’s what we found within those categories:

Sourcing

“Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports” articles moved to the bottom of the pack by producing the lowest percentage of female sources at 19 percent. “Science and Health” has continued to hold the highest percentage of female sources with 31.4 percent. As we’ve seen in our overall findings to date, the total sample shows women as 25.3 percent of sources.

Here’s how it separated out by classification:

  • Politics and Government: 193 males, 53 females (Women as 21.5 percent)
  • Economy: 163 males, 48 females (Women as 25.4 percent)
  • Science and Health: 59 males, 27 females (Women as 31.4 percent)
  • Social and Legal: 89 males, 32 females (Women as 26.4 percent)
  • Crime and Violence: 224 males, 92 females (Women as 29.1 percent)
  • Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports: 47 males, 11 females (Women as 19 percent)

Authorship

Even with the highest percentage of female sources, “Science and Health” articles still had one of the lowest percentages of female authors at 20 percent. This tied with “Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports” articles. “Economy” articles continued to show the highest percentage of female authors at 40 percent. Overall, women are 38.2 percent of authors.

Here’s the breakdown by classification:

  • Politics and Government: 22 stories by women, 30 by men, 5 shared bylines between a man and a woman, 1 other/unidentified (Women as 37.9 percent)
  • Economy: 24 by women, 34 by men, 2 shared (Women as 40 percent)
  • Science and Health: 4 by women, 16 by men, 2 shared (Women as 20 percent)
  • Social and Legal: 13 by women, 20 by men, 2 shared (Women as 37.1 percent)
  • Crime and Violence: 26 by women, 47 by men, 9 shared, 2 other (Women as 31 percent)
  • Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports: 3 by women, 11 by men, 1 shared (Women as 20 percent)

We’ll still be watching these findings to see what other trends emerge in certain subject areas over time. For more information on gender representations in online news, check out our “Findings and Statistics” and “Useful Resources” pages.

Gender Check breakdown: A look at female authors, sources by article subject

Jasmine R. LinabaryLeave a comment

Is there a difference in the representation of women as sources and authors based on the subject of the article?

This is a question we’d been asking ourselves. We did look at the issue of coverage type when we examined the number of female principal staff members for online news sites through the Columbia Journalism Review’s News Frontier Database and found differences, but we’d yet to address it through our article monitoring.

Since marking six months of our Gender Check monitoring project and releasing our initial findings at the end of July, we’ve had a chance to spend some more time with our data and look at it from different angles, including this one.

We went back through our findings and looked at each of the 190 article we gender checked by topic. To have a basis of comparison as well as a some-what standardized approach, we opted to use (to the best of our ability) the Global Media Monitoring Project‘s news stories classification system (Click for a PDF of the system). This system divides articles into eight categories with a numbering system for further breakdowns within each category. Due to the number of articles in our sample at this time, we’ve opted just to look at the representation of women in each of the main categories, though we hope to look at further divisions in the future. None of our articles fell under the categories of “Other” and ‘The Girl-Child,” so we’ll just be sticking to the six remaining categories.

In terms of the subject classification of the articles we monitored in the first six months of our Gender Check project, the largest number fell under “Crime and Violence” (62 out of 190). That was followed by “Politics and Government” (41), “Economy” (38), “Social and Legal” (24), “Science and Health” (16) and “Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports” (9).

Within those categories, here’s what we found:

Sourcing

The classification with the lowest percentage of female sources was “Social and Legal” at 19.8 percent followed closely by “Politics and Government” at 20.2 percent. The highest percentage of female sources went to “Science and Health” at 30.4 percent.

Here’s the breakdown by classification:

  • Politics and Government: 142 males, 36 females (Women as 20.2 percent)
  • Economy: 100 males, 34 females (Women as 25.4 percent)
  • Science and Health: 55 males, 24 females (Women as 30.4 percent)
  • Social and Legal: 73 males, 18 females (Women as 19.8 percent)
  • Crime and Violence: 180 males, 73 females (Women as 28.9 percent)
  • Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports: 22 males, 9 females (Women as 29 percent)

Authorship

Even though they had the highest percentage of female sources, “Science and Health” articles did not fair well when it came to female bylines. Articles in this classification had the lowest percentage of female authors at 25 percent. The closest to byline parity was in “Economy” where females made up 44.7 percent of authors.

Here’s how it separated out by classification:

  • Politics and Government: 15 stories by women, 23 by men, 3 shared bylines between a man and a woman (Women as 36.6 percent)
  • Economy: 17 by women, 21 by men (Women as 44.7 percent)
  • Science and Health: 4 by women, 11 by men, 1 shared (Women as 25 percent)
  • Social and Legal: 9 by women, 13 by men, 2 shared (Women as 37.5 percent)
  • Crime and Violence: 18 by women, 35 by men, 8 shared, 1 by contributors (Women as 29 percent)
  • Celebrity, Arts, Media and Sports: 3 by women, 6 by men (Women as 33.3 percent)

We’ll be continuing to watch for trends that emerge in subject areas over time as our study progresses. We’d like to hear from you. What did you find most interesting or surprising about these results? What are you curious to know?

For more information on gender representations in online news, check out our “Findings and Statistics” and “Useful Resources” pages.