Audience Responses to the Physical Appearance of Television Newsreaders

Summary: Women still face much greater pressure than men about their physical appearance and body image. How they look matters, especially with regards to newsreaders and broadcasters. In this study, we investigate the opinions of those who watch television news in relation to the appearance of news presenters through the use of 20 semi-structured interviews with female and male viewers and 167 questionnaires. We found that audiences were well aware that female newsreaders may have been chosen for their appearance and many of our respondents thought that this was rather unjust. The audience felt that male newsreaders were credible whether they had grey hair or were young and good looking. Where women were glamorised they were often belittled and trivialised in terms of intelligence and abilities. We found that audiences were more interested in the actual news than newsreaders’ appearance and some respondents wanted more diverse representations