Research On Media Coverage on Gender Issues in Africa | Dissertation

Running head: DISSERTATION
Media Coverage on Gender Issues in Africa
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
Research Objective: The aim of this research is to examine the how the media is covering
the gender issues and portraying African women in the audio-visual scale and to analyze how
this media representation is affecting the daily lives and the well being of the women in
Africa.
Methods: In this research work, the researcher chose the positivism philosophy with a
deductive approach to formulate the hypothesis with the help of the theoretical framework.
The researcher has opted for stratified sampling in order to select the focus group and used a
descriptive type design for qualitative analysis.
Results: The results showed that the media channels under-represent African women in the
political and the socio-economic contexts and tend to objectify and sexualize women in the
fields of sports and entertainment.
Conclusion: Objectification and limited media coverage or negative portrayal cast a huge
impact on the self-esteem of the African women.
Recommendation: Media must publish inspiring stories and interviews centering successful
African women to educate and influence the African women mass. They must also come
forward with women centric documentaries, movies and video clips.

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Acknowledgement:
Performing this particular research has been most knowledge gaining experiences of
my academic life. This research is sure to increase my knowledge base and analytical skill. It
also provided me the opportunity to experience the new challenges, which are common in a
research process and subsequently overcoming them. All this, would be impossible without
the dedicated support that I have received from my professors, seniors and friends. I would
like to take this opportunity to thank my supervisor ----------------------- for his constant
guidance and support and encouragement.
Lastly, I would like to thank the women who have actively taken part in the research
survey and have provided valuable inputs into the subject. The constant support received
from all these persons has been extremely inspiring. It has enlightened me with the thought
process of the research.
Warmest wishes,
Yours Sincerely,

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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................6
1.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................6
1.2 Background of the Study..................................................................................................6
1.3 Rationale of the Study.................................................................................................7
1.4 Problem Statement...........................................................................................................8
1.5 Research Aim...................................................................................................................9
1.6 Research Objectives.........................................................................................................9
1.7 Research Questions........................................................................................................10
1.8 Research Hypothesis......................................................................................................10
1.9 Significance of the Study...............................................................................................10
1.10 Structure of the Research Study.............................................................................12
1.11 Conclusion....................................................................................................................12
Chapter 2: Literature Review...................................................................................................14
2.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................14
2.2 Gender: A Fluid Concept...............................................................................................14
2.3 The Impact of Media on Gender Views and Gender Perspectives................................15
2.4 Little Media Coverage of African Women in Print Media............................................17
2.5 Coverage of Women Sportspersons in African Media..................................................19
2.6 Objectification of African Women in Movies...............................................................20
2.7 Reason why Media Contents in Africa Reinforce African Gender Stereotypes in Real
Life.......................................................................................................................................22

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2.8 Media Coverage of Women in Africa During the time of Elections.............................23
2.9 Representation of Queer People in African Media........................................................24
2.10 Importance of Media Democracy.................................................................................25
2.11 Literature Gap..............................................................................................................26
2.12 Summary......................................................................................................................27
Chapter 3: Research Methodology...........................................................................................28
3.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................28
3.2 Research Philosophy..........................................................................................................28
3.3 Research approach.............................................................................................................28
3.4 Research Design.................................................................................................................29
3.5 Data collection Method......................................................................................................30
3.6 Data analysis......................................................................................................................30
3.7 Sampling............................................................................................................................31
3.8 Measures:.......................................................................................................................32
3.9 Procedure:......................................................................................................................32
3.10 Ethical Consideration.......................................................................................................32
3.11 Accessibility issues..........................................................................................................32
Chapter 4: Data Analysis.........................................................................................................33
4.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................33
4.2 Qualitative Data Analysis..............................................................................................33
4.2.1 Contextual Data Analysis........................................................................................33

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4.2.2 Interview Data Analysis..........................................................................................35
Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendation..........................................................................39
5.1 Conclusion......................................................................................................................39
5.2 Linking the objectives with the Findings and Literature Review..................................39
5.3 Recommendation............................................................................................................43
Promotion of women empowerment....................................................................................47
5.4 Research Limitation.......................................................................................................48
5.5 Future Scopes of Research.............................................................................................48
6.0 References..........................................................................................................................49

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Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
African people have long been negatively stereotyped in the mass media and are
portrayed as submissive or passive. While at the same time, they have been used as symbol of
new evolution and power. These contradictory representations are doubly imposed on the
African people and to the special mention, for the women. The portrayal of women & men in
the print and video media is an issue of concern because of the alarming threat of gender
stereotyping. To be precise, woman’s image is used in the media as a mode to grab the
attention of the customers via widely using women in the promotion of the products (Pallavi
2017). However, in case of African women, the scenario is quite different. African women
are often used as a symbol for low income or economic failure. They are always under-
represented in the context of political, socio-cultural, entertainment and sports.
Africans women are ill-treated and neglected for long. However, rise in power of the
African women in the domain of business, politics, sports and fashion has lead to the
fractional change in the perception of the gender issues in Africa. The aim of this research is
to understand the effect of the media coverage on the gender issue in Africa and to analyses
its impact on the political, socio-economic, sports development and gender relation.
1.2 Background of the Study
Media plays a significant role in the society. They inform and subsequently instruct
the audiences about the current issues happening around them. Media is therefore plays a
central part in the human relations and can be regarded as an essential tool in interactive
communication as they educate the mass. While educating the mass, they cast a huge
revolution in the domain of society and cultural development. According to Maier et al

7DISSERTATION
(2014), media mostly conveys the message that significantly informs and overall influences
the attitudes and the behavior of the race. The majority of the people, who start their day by
reading the newspapers or watching news in audio-visual media, pay firm attention on what
is presented or written by the media personnel and develop their thought plan accordingly. It
is therefore extremely important to consider what is being presented on media and how it is
being interpreted by the mass.
However, in case of representing African women, media in the majority of the times
plays a biased role. In the majority of the cases, the issues with the African women are
usually not considered as an important topic, making it to the headlines. The women centric
issues in Africa only draw attention when they are objectified as a sexual object,
sensationalized, trivialized or in extreme cases when their images are distorted. Recently in
African, there is an increase in the number of women sportsperson (Trolan 2013). However,
there is zero media coverage on the same and on contrary, they are being objectified for their
skin tone, the kind of costumes they wear or emphasizes on their physical appearance (Gillen
and Lefkowitz 2012). Not only in sports, even in the field of entertainment, African women
are seen playing the roles of slut, slaves or other immigrants who lacks the basic parameters
of civilization (Nelson 2013).
1.3 Rationale of the Study
The issue of this research is to elucidate the impact of the biased coverage of the media
on the lives and the development of the African women. According to the Cacciatore et al
(2012), the media is one of the most influential medium in the domain of socialization in
today’s society. It generates gender values. Indeed, both the print and the visual media play a
crucial role in portraying the information of the gender differences or transmitting an image
of gender inequality among the African sub-continent. Individuals are inundated with the
newspapers and magazines, displaying the photographs and or critical narratives of what it