Women in News Programs

The stereotypes that concern the roles determined by one’s sex convey the traditional un- derstanding of the place, role and activity of men and women in society. The paper analyzes the leading Polish news programs in respect of female presence. This presence was defined in a two-fold manner: women as the authors of material in news programs and women as partici- pants of the events reported. In the first case, the number and subjects of reports prepared by female reporters was analyzed and the frequency with which they act as anchors of news pro- grams. The second aspect of the research concerned female participants of stories covered in news programs. The analysis in particular concerned the roles which female protagonists of news reports played. A working hypothesis assumed that women in news programs will be presented in their traditional roles as perceived by society. The analysis corroborated this as- sumption. Female reporters more frequently than male reporters covered social topics and the stories of ordinary people, i.e. the realms that are traditionally perceived as female, while fe- male protagonists of the events covered most often played the private roles of mothers, wives or witnesses. The professional roles of women included politicians related to the social sectors (labor and social care, education, health) or press spokeswomen. The conclusion of the paper is that the news programs of the leading TV stations do not show the reality but rather reflect and reinforce the image of which sex should play which roles in the public domain