Gender Representation in the Editorial and Repotorial Staff of Newspapers in Nigeria

Abstract

The issue of gender misrepresentation and stereotyping still occupies center stage in social science discourse across cultures, though at varying degrees, and the mass media being strong tools for shaping government policies and public opinion have become an area of focus in this regard. The expectation is that a fair or balanced gender representation in the mass media is capable of addressing, perhaps to a large extent, the seemingly nagging issue of gender misrepresentation and stereotyping. This is a content analysis study of four selected newspapers in Nigeria with a view to ascertain the ratio of male-female representation in editorial and reportorial capacities in newspaper journalism. The findings revealed that there is a huge male domination at both editorial and reportorial levels in the newspapers studied irrespective of the observed high number of female enrollments at mass communication and journalism schools in the country and across the world.