City Research Online

Abstract

One day during the run-up to the 2010 UK General Election, Lis Howell was listening to a BBC radio news analysis of a marginal constituency. She heard one male voice after another for nearly ten minutes.

Back at her desk, Howell wrote a comment piece for Broadcastmagazine –and a campaign to increase the number of female authority figures appearing on air in Britain was born.

Howell and her colleagues began tracking the use of women as experts on leading British broadcast news programmes. Thedata showed that men consistently outnumbered female experts on the nation’s flagship television and radio news shows by a ratio of about 4.4:1 –a ratio disproportionate to the actual presence in British society of female authority figures in various occupations.This study, which also incorporates interview and questionnaire data from journalists and expert women,suggests two key reasons for the disparity: journalists applying preconceived attitudes about “the best person,”and women experts fearing being seen as “pushy” –or alternatively, seeking to be wooed.

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter to bepublished by Routledge in Journalism Research in Practice: Perspectives on Change, Challenges and Solutions on 2020, to be available online: http://www.routledge.com.
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1990 Broadcasting
Departments:	School of Communication & Creativity > Journalism

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