Front Covers of The Dominion Post - November 2009
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n t C o v e rs o f
F ro
i n i o n P o st
The Dom
November 2009
Gina Garvey
WELLINGTON, NZ
ABOUT THIS PROJECT THE BASICS • Looking at the representation of women on the front cover of Wellingtonʼs only daily paper. • Focusing on the visual representation of women versus men. • Using a template to collate comparative data BONUS EXTRAS! • Sport - observations • Ads - a couple of examples of standard gender use • Editorial of a weekend magazine, about a woman, written by a woman - youʼll be shocked!
ABOUT THE NEWSPAPER • Dominion Post - metropolitan broadsheet newspaper published in Wellington, New Zealand • Owned by the Australian Fairfax group • Circulation - 98,000 • Daily readers - 250,000
ABOUT THE RESEARCHER
tion
is-rep r e s e n ta
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• A Sc there’s rather
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• Thin en in mass me g
of wom ider o m e n are bein
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sp a r ur youn ia
• A V e s a b o u t w h a t o th e m a s s m e d
v o u b y
• N er g ender n
o rm s
u rd y
fe d a s
k e r s w h o stick ‘p
s ta - m a m a ke r ll it
• A pa to wallop ad-
!
p r o d u c t, to s e
ts t - any
• W a n e x t to a p r o d u c
lady’ n
!
No ad-makers were harmed in the making of this project.
THE RESEARCH APPROACH • I collected the front page of each newspaper during November and assessed each page by completing a template I drafted. • The template assesses and compares the number of images of men compared to women and then categorises them on the type of image that was associated with each gender to enable a broad comparison. • I did not assess editorial content, headlines etc.
SAMPLES OF FRONT PAGES
Following are samples of front pages from the
Dominion Post.
KEY FINDINGS
Each front page has a corresponding template
that I filled in.
The following results are the summary
findings. Please feel free to look at the
collated hard copy newspapers.
(Available upon request.)KEY FINDINGS Across all of the front pages studied, there were 182 images: 29% of the images were of women 71% of the images were of men
KEY FINDINGS
30% of all the images of women,
used womenʼs appearance, bodies or
beauty as the main reason for the
image, compared with 0% of menʼs
images.KEY FINDINGS
Menʼs images were featured along the
top promo banner more than
twice as often as womenʼs
images.KEY FINDINGS
Women’s images portrayed women as
victims or deserving sympathy 23% of
the time, while men’s images used in the
same way, featured less than 1% of the
time.KEY FINDINGS
Nearly one quarter (23%) all of images
on the front page, featured men in a sporting context,
compared with 1.5% which featured women in a
sporting context.CONCLUSIONS & QUESTIONS POSSIBLE CONCLUSIONS FROM THE DATA: 1. There are 71% more men in New Zealand than women. 2. Men have newsworthy things happen to them 71% more often than women. 3. Newspaper readers prefer to read about men rather than women. 4. Newspapers like most mass media, choose headlines and images that they think/know/suspect/have evidence of - will sell the most newspapers. 5. None of the above, it’s completely random. 6. There are other explanations.
KEY FACTS
Reminder
There are 2,107,347 men in New Zealand
and 2,159,151 women.
(Source: UN Statistics Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. "World Population Prospects:
The 2008 Revision")CONCLUSIONS & QUESTIONS
Interpreting the facts led to more curious
questions about the use of women’s
images on and in the newspaper:
• Asking the question, “would editors choose to represent the same story with
a photo of man dressed/represented like that?” and vice versa:-
• “If this news story did not feature a young/attractive woman, would it still
have made the front page?”
• How are these choices made, who makes them and do newspaper readers
really ‘vote’ with their pockets when there is no other daily newspaper to buy
instead? (i.e the argument that ‘well if people don’t like it, they don’t need to buy the paper’)GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
Men are far more likely to be photographed being silly,
funny or joking around, than women.Women’s images are more often than not used as some kind of
enticement broadly relating back to sex, whilst men’s images broadly
relate back to achievement or power.OTHER THINGS I FOUND As I looked through the newspapers for this project, a couple of other aspects caught my eye: •Sport •Advertising (& a weekend story)
SPORT
What I noticed:
• 9 out of 10 sports sections have only men on
the front cover
• Menʼs sporting images are often ʻactionʼ
images involving, movement, tension, sweat,
grimaces and dynamism.
• When womenʼs images are used, they are
nearly always, static, smiling, passive poses.
The message seems that it's ok to be physical, sweaty and passionate about scoring a goal
if you're a man, but if you're a woman, you have to stand and face the camera smiling.SWEAT!!
RR
rrr
f!!!
!
!!
POW
Pa
ss
io n!!!!
Pow
K a
!!
Eerrrfff!! llop
a
WSay ‘Cheese’
ASH!
N EWS FL
y smiling!
sportb
play
LadiesADVERTISING What I noticed: • Like all mass media, newspaper advertisers often use, womenʼs faces or bodies, parts of their bodies or faces to associate them to the advertised product or service. • It is astonishing to me that this technique is still being used so frequently, and accepted, in 2010.
GAME TIME!!
2 Newspaper ads
Play “Gina’s Advertising
Guessing Game!!!”Newspaper Advertising
Image #1
CAN YOU GUESS ?
Q: What is the purdy lady advertising?
A. Shampoo
B. Face cream
C. Fake tan
D. Garden MulchNewspaper Advertising
Image #1
ANSWER - YES!!! YOU GUESSED IT!:
D. Garden MulchNewspaper Advertising
Image #2
CAN YOU GUESS ?
Q: What is the expression on the
purdy lady’s face?
A. She’s been stabbed and is about to
die
B. She is just about to kiss the
photographer
C. Aliens have taken over her soul and
her empty eyes cannot see you
D. She is 3 seconds away from dying of
severe dehydration and is asking
you (with her eyes) for water
E. She wants you to get your varicose
veins seen to.ANSWER - YES!!! YOU GUESSED IT!: E. She wants you to get your varicose veins seen to.
1952
2010Weekend Story What I noticed: • Even though my research project wasnʼt looking at editorial content as it pertains to women, I thought this was a good example of the type of representation I saw throughout the paper. • This is a story about Sue Chetwin, an ex journalist, who is the CEO of the Consumerʼs Institute. • The story was wirtten by a female journalist, Sharon Stephenson. • Applying the same kinds of questions I asked of the images used of women - would a story about a male CEO be written in the same way? Why / why not? Does it matter? Why / Why not?
WHAT: A 3-page feature bio story in the glossy Weekend insert of the paper. Features photos of Sue Chetwin.
WHAT: The opening lines, refer to a dress that CEO Sue Chetwin wore SIX years ago.
WHAT: The second intro paragraph details what Sue is wearing at the time of the interview, who her favourite designers are and suggests she would rather talk about clothes than be CEO…..
WHAT: The third intro paragraph comments on Sueʼs physical size (apparently out of proportion to her role according to the writer), her height (which the writer insinuates is a lie) and the colour of her hair. As CEO of Consumer NZ thatʼs relevant because.…..
Final Word
These examples are not from music
videos, from mens or women’s
lifestyle or fashion magazines.
These are from our local broadsheet
newspaper which over 250,000
people read every day.
What impression are we giving our
young men and women of what it
means to be female? What can
individuals (parents, teachers,
grand-parents), do to counter the
messages of the mass media?n t C o v e rs o f
F ro
i n i o n P o st
The Dom
Thanks to all the ROW women in particular to:
Beth Ivy Buxton, KJ Smith & Panteá Farvid.You can also read
