Successful International Co-operation in the Promoting Good Practice in Gender Portrayal Project
by: Bernadette van Dijck, NOS Gender Portrayal Department, Netherlands
The images of men and women that we see on television are still a great deal more stereotypical than real life would suggest, and it is therefore important to make a deliberate effort to encourage greater diversity. Five northern European broadcasting organisations, united in the Gender Portrayal Network, are together developing audio-visual material to stimulate the debate on this subject with programme-makers. The European Commission is providing financial support for the project under its Fourth Community Action Programme on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men.
In 1996 five broadcasting organisations - YLE (Finland), SVT (Sweden), NOS (Netherlands), DR (Denmark) and NRK (Norway) - decided to pool resources for some of their image creation activities in the Gender Portrayal Network (GPN). The past year has shown just how productive such co-operation can be.
Who speaks on television?
In October and November 1997 a 'constructed' week of public service television was examined in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands to see how much time men and women were given to speak in different programmes. The study employed a method developed at NRK, and NRK researchers were responsible for processing and analysing the research data.
The data from this quantitative study are forcing the broadcasting organizations to face some facts: on average, what we see in the participating countries is that two-and-a-half times as many men speak on television as women; the longer women are on screen the shorter their speaking time becomes; there is not a single genre in which women are better represented than men, and the only genres in which there is anything like a reasonable balance are children's programmes and religious programmes.
There are, however, some differences between the individual countries in the survey. In Finland and Sweden 36% of speakers are women. In the Netherlands and Denmark the comparable figure is less than 30%. So in terms of quantity alone there is plenty of scope for improvement for northern European broadcasting organisations.
Quality and discussion
Gender portrayal is not just a matter of quantity, however. Quality too is obviously important: how are men and women portrayed on television?
- Traditional roles: often we see men in the role of expert, politician or scientist: in short, as people in authority. Women are more often seen as victims, mothers or housewives or as a silent background: in short, in positions dictated by physical aspects. Even where a programme has two presenters there is often a conventional division of roles: the woman handles the 'cosy' items and does the introductions while her male colleague conducts the serious interviews.
- Camera angles: women are more often filmed from a higher position so that we as the viewers look down on them. This emphasises their lack of authority. It is worth noting that this happens even in the case of women politicians or experts. However, there is a simple explanation: camera operators tend to be men, and as such they are often taller than the woman they are filming so that the camera angle is unwittingly higher.
- Interview techniques: Interviewers often use different approaches in the way they address men and women. Women are less likely to be given the floor and they are interrupted more often. There is also a tendency for a woman to be addressed by her forename whereas a man is commonly addressed by his surname.
- Commentaries: these tend unconsciously to adhere to the conventional division of roles as their governing principle. Women as experts and men as caring figures are exceptions.
- Setting: women are more often filmed in a home setting such as a garden or living-room. Men are seen more often against a professional background, e.g. an office.
To present these issues in a way which would render them easier to discuss, the GPN developed a video entitled 'What do we see on television?'. The video consists of a number of programme examples selected by the five partner organisations to demonstrate various aspects of the way perceived images are formed.
A typical example
A weekly chat show discusses the theme of 'successful immigrants'. At the beginning of the programme the host introduces the people with whom he intends to discuss this subject. They are immigrants from a variety of European and African countries. A number of academics and politicians have also been invited to take part. All ten guests are male.
A show like this creates the impression that all successful immigrants are men. This is not borne out by reality: there are plenty of immigrant women who have successfully started their own businesses or made careers for themselves in the academic world or in government. It probably never occurred to the makers of the programme to go out and look for these women: the producers' own starting-points and preconceptions are so embedded that they leave no room for new angles. Immigrant women's stories might have added a new dimension to the debate, and might have improved the quality of the programme.
Does awareness of gender portrayal matter?
A second video entitled 'Does awareness of gender portrayal matter?' uses specially produced segments to illustrate the potential improvement in quality to be gained through paying attention to gender portrayal. Improving quality continues to be the chief objective of television programme-makers working in public service broadcasting. But audience size and market share are increasingly important too. According to research such as that carried out by the NOS in 1995, a varied picture of men and women in television programmes leads to greater audience appreciation. Fair gender portrayal therefore makes perfect sense in terms of both quality and commerce.
Together with written material, the two videos will form the basis of a toolkit for use in the training of and in discussion with programme-makers. Some eighty programme-makers, trainers and researchers have already viewed and discussed the videos at workshops organised by NOS and YLE in Hilversum and Helsinki. Almost everyone agreed on one point: the best examples are those that either make you laugh or make you angry. These emotions are the perfect trigger for discussion. In some examples, however, the image perpetuated was subtler, and this required discussion at greater length. Even so, it was agreed that precisely these subtler forms of conventional image-forming were indispensable for raising awareness. They are very close to what happens in everyday life and they often happen quite unconsciously.
One important conclusion from the workshops has to do with the international aspect of the cooperation. Using examples from several countries makes it clear that gender portrayal raises issues which are broadly similar in all northern European countries. Even so, some gender aspects do differ from culture to culture. For example, sports programmes in Norway have always paid a great deal of attention to women's sport, whereas in the Netherlands women's sport receives very little air time indeed. It is instructive to see that this is not an insurmountable fact of life!
Will the toolkit work? This is what the partners will be finding out over the coming year at workshops with various groups of programme-makers in the different broadcasting organisations. The plans include some interesting activities such as three four-day courses for news production staff at YLE. The German channel ZDF will join the project in its second year.
An earlier version of this article appeared in 'Diffusion', quarterly journal of the European Broadcasting Union, Summer 1998.