Syns du inte - finns du inte : En kvantitativ studie om inverkan av kön och andra sociala kategorier på människorssynlighet i Aktuellt och Rapport

Title: If you can not be seen - You do not exist: A quantitative study of how gender and other socialfactors affect the degree of visibility in the Swedish newscasts of Aktuellt and Rapport. (Syns duinte � finns du inte: En kvantitativ studie om inverkan av kön och andra sociala aspekter påmänniskors synlighet i Aktuellt och Rapport).Number of pages: 46Author: Helena HuhtaTutor: Martin FredrikssonCourse: Media and Communication Science CPeriod: Autumn of 2009University: Division of Informatics and Media, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The aim of this study has been to investigate to what degree women and menparticipate in the newscasts of Aktuellt and Rapport, broadcast on the Swedish public servicechannels of SVT 1 and SVT 2. Furthermore, I have also looked into how social identities, such asage and ethnicity, affect the degree of representation for each gender, respectively. Some of thebasic research questions comprise: 1. how much space is given to men compared to women in termsof: number of participants for each gender, speaking time and position in the news order? 2. Howdo the roles differ for male and female participants in terms of position and topic? 3. How do ageand ethnicity affect the degree of visibility for men and women in Aktuellt and Rapport?Material/Method: This study has been carried out as a quantitative content analysis of Aktuellt andRapport, during ten weekdays in October and November of 2009. The research units included in thestudy consist of all people visible and talking actively, on screen during the domestic news, of saidperiod, in Aktuellt and Rapport.Main results: The results show that men are more visible than women, due to there being a largernumber of male participants, and men also having a tendency to get longer speaking times.Regarding roles, women participate to a much greater extent as private persons than men - the latterrather being made visible as representatives. The main subject areas between the genders also differ, where women usually occur in a “soft news” context, and men in “hard news” context.When looking into the intersection between gender and age, the newscasts have a tendency todisplay younger females and older males. Hence, the female participants seem to have adiminishing chance of being seen as they grow older, while there is an opposite tendency for maleparticipants.Finally, regarding the intersection between ethnicity and gender, the study has shown that thegenders are more evenly represented among people of a non Swedish origin. The ethnic minoritiesare, however, underrepresented in these newscasts as a whole.Keywords: gender, ethnicity, age, intersectionality, news, media, representation