1. Media and women leaders in
the digital era: Beyond
representation to interaction
2. Our media and cultural
representations of women
have a major impact on
how girls and women are
viewed and view
themselves and on public
attitudes about women
and women’s equality.
3. Women in the news are more likely to be featured in stories
about accidents, natural disasters, or domestic violence than
in stories about their professional abilities or expertise.
6. Hillary’s Hairgate
Washington post in August 2010 featured over 1 000 words
discussing Hillary’s new hair style!
“Clinton's hair, now creeping toward below-the-shoulders
territory, is practically radical for Washington's seasoned
female power elite.”
7. Top Women Athletes
Duncan and Messner study demonstrated that on 3 networks in
LA only 9 percent of airtime was devoted to Women’s sports,
in contrast to the 88 percent dedicated to men.
In Canada, the Canadian Association for the Advancement of
Women, Sport and Physical Activity argues that just 3% of
Canadian sports coverage focuses on Women.
8. Serena Williams
Ranked world no. 1 in
singles on five separate
occasions
27 Grand Slam titles
Ranked ninth on the all-
time best women’s tenis
player list
9. Women Athletes
Commentators (97 per cent of whom are men) use different
language when they talk about female athletes.
Female athletes are increasingly photographed in "hyper-
sexualized poses” (Griffin, 2004)
11. Cristina Kirchner
‘La Revoluciónestética de Cristina Kirchner” (diario la
noticiero)
(the aesthetic revolution of Cristina Kirchner)
12. ‘El lío de los zapatos’ El Pais, Newspaper
September 2011 (Shoegate?)
13. Kirchner takes back media power
New Audiovisual Law put
into place 2009
The interactive presidency:
Twitter and Facebook
allow direct access to the
president
14. Allows for direct Woaww! I’m meeting
interaction with citizens Bono! (post on FB
Allows for the chance to
get an inside look at the
presidency
Helped to transform and
personalize her image
16. Conclusions
Positive representations of women can be valuable in
inspiring people to take roles as leaders themselves
This is a complex and multilayered task that only becomes
easier if, and when, a range of images become more visible
and the ‘burden of representation’ imposed on any single
image becomes less heavy.
17. Conclusions
Social media as a tool for women leaders can be powerful
Instead of being ‘represented’ women can represent
themselves in powerful new ways
Breaking through the filters imposed by traditional media,
women have much greater choice as to how they represent
themselves
Editor's Notes
This keynote address will look at representations of several women leaders. This talk will also consider what this means, and how they have been represented in the media. Leading in a digital world, however, has opened up some interesting possibilities in terms of gender and representation, as women leaders increasingly speak directly with the public and represent themselves through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter more generally for women seeking to improve their visibility in the digital sphere.
Although there has been a steady increase in the number of women professionals over the past 20 years, most mainstream press coverage continues to rely on men as experts in the fields of business, politics and economics.Women in the news are more likely to be featured in stories about accidents, natural disasters, or domestic violence than in stories about their professional abilities or expertise.
he Washington Post devoted over 1,000 words to Hillary Clinton Sunday. While that in of itself is not out of the ordinary, the specific topic discussed in this piece certainly is: her ... hair. Arguing that her current hairstyle serves as “further proof that women do not have to kowtow to expectations, rules of thumb or other quietly bullying cultural assumptions,” the Post examines the recent “fashion statement” the secretary of State has made in growing out her hair, after years and years of maintaining a
Margaret Carlisle Duncan and Michael Messner studied sports coverage on three network affiliates in Los Angeles. They report that only nine per cent of airtime was devoted to women’s sports, in contrast to the 88 per cent devoted to male athletes. Female athletes fared even worse on ESPN’s national sports show Sports Center, where they occupied just over two per cent of airtime. And, according to the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women, Sports and Physical Activity, women athletes receive just three per cent of sports coverage in major Canadian dailies.
Where men are described as "big," "strong," "brilliant," "gutsy" and "aggressive," women are more often referred to as "weary," "fatigued," "frustrated," "panicked,” and "vulnerable”
