Despite decades of commitments to gender equality, women remain marginalized in news media. According to the latest report of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) - the largest research study on gender equality in the media - women constitute only 26 per cent of news subjects and sources.
Authors
- Tuğçe Ellialtı-Köse
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Guelph
- Sami Falkenstein
Research Assistant, Sociology, University of Guelph
This imbalance is especially concerning in Canada where local news outlets are increasingly shuttered and national newsrooms continue to shrink . As such, whose voices make it into the headlines matters now more than ever.
The problem, however, is not only underrepresentation but also misrepresentation . The GMMP report notes news stories that challenge simplistic, widely held beliefs about women and men are rare, indicating that gender stereotyping in news coverage is more pronounced than at any point in the past 30 years.
Equally alarming is the finding that stories of gender-based violence seldom make the news. In fact, fewer than two out of every 100 news articles, and only a third of these, focus on sexual assault and harassment against women.
These findings challenge the myth of post-feminism in 21st-century media and raise important questions such as:
How do journalists cover cases of sexual violence?
Whose views and voices are heard?
And what has changed, if anything, since the #MeToo movement , which sparked an outpouring of stories of sexual assault , increased reporting and heightened public dialogue on the issue?
Our research explored these questions.
Examining sexual assault reporting after 2017
We analyzed news articles published after the viral spread of the #MeToo hashtag in 2017 . We examined how Canadian news media report, portray and comment on sexual violence, primarily its causes, contexts and consequences.
The results are mixed.
On the one hand, there has been increased recognition of sexual violence as a widespread social problem .
On the other hand, news coverage remains fraught with sympathetic portrayals of perpetrators, skepticism toward victims/survivors and a reluctance to contextualize sexual violence within broader gender norms and inequities.
This creates a paradoxical picture, where the integration of feminist ideas and the much-discussed "narrative shift" - a transformation in how the public perceives and discusses sexual violence that moves from silence and stigma to validation and demands for accountability - that remains inconsistent.
Subtle language choices reinforce old myths
Our key finding is that news coverage still reinforces false, stereotypical beliefs about rape, rape victims and rapists that minimize, deny or justify sexual violence, often shifting blame from the perpetrator to the survivor.
Although victim-blaming and "overt sexism" seem to finally be diminishing in prevalence, news articles continue to cast doubt on the credibility of victims'/survivors' accounts. This helps sustain the myth of false allegations and of the lying (female) victim .
In our study, the term "allege" and its derivatives appeared 525 times across 106 out of 162 articles, and words like "accuse" and its variations were used 240 times across 72 articles. While such language reflects legitimate legal precautions, its repeated and unexamined use in sexual violence reporting can shift attention away from victims' experiences.
We also found that news coverage often casts perpetrators in a positive light, underscoring, for example, their social status even when it adds little to the case.
Across our pool of samples, accused perpetrators were described in flattering ways including "a top pain specialist during his four decades at Toronto Mount Sinai Hospital ," "the biggest stars of the Canadian entertainment industry" and "one of the wealthiest and most famous soccer players in the world ." These portrayals feature successful careers and draw attention to credentials and accomplishments.
Given the incorrect societal perception that high-status individuals are less likely to commit sexual assault , this complimentary language is problematic.
The consequences of selective storytellling
Our research shows that news articles tend to give the most attention to high-profile cases involving popular figures or celebrities.
While this selective focus often reflects the media outlets' strategies to boost readership , it has real consequences. It shapes which stories get told and which do not, leaving many ordinary yet equally important cases without coverage.
This unequal attention can make sexual violence seem like an issue confined to a few "high-profile" settings such as film sets, business corporations or professional sports.
In doing so, it risks overlooking the fact that sexual victimization affects people across all backgrounds , with low-income, Indigenous and racialized women being at higher risk . It also echoes long-standing critiques of #MeToo for centring the experiences of white , affluent , young and able-bodied women, and lacking an intersectional perspective .
This can be mitigated through small but intentional efforts such as explicitly addressing known inequities in reporting.
Toward more responsible journalism
Prior research noted that news coverage relied heavily on political and criminal justice officials when relaying crime stories , including gender-based violence . Our research shows this is starting to change.
Notably, we are starting to hear from the victims/survivors, who have largely been left out from media accounts for being " unreliable narrators and testifiers ." This is significant as it sheds light on the firsthand experiences of the victims/survivors .
Our work , however, suggests that reporting on sexual violence remains inconsistent.
One significant observation is that even the articles that recognize the lasting impact that sexual violence has on victims/survivors tend to fail to provide support-service information. Only 10 out of the 162 articles in our study included such information. This is concerning given the significant positive impact that victim services have for victims/survivors and the media's role in raising awareness on this topic.
It is timely to call for more news coverage that is not only accurate and reliable but also socially conscious and gender-equitable .
Editorial guidelines , for example, recommend using specific language that reflects the violating nature of sexual assault and avoids euphemisms like "inappropriate behaviour," "sex scandal" or "sexual incident" to describe it.
This work is particularly important as the news remains the place Canadians turn to for information that they trust the most .
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
