Women and Hijras in Bangladesh News Media

"Women, people of non-binary gender identities, and other diversity groups who face discrimination, tend to be excluded from news."

This news content study, published by the Media Resources Development Initiative (MRDI), seeks to shed new light on how Bangladeshi media are dealing with diversity and gender equity. In particular, it looks into issues of representation of women and people of non-binary genders, especially hijra (a transgender and intersex community recognised by the state of Bangladesh), and the integration of their concerns and perspectives in news content and coverage practices. The research is designed to be a baseline study to inform the Improving Quality Journalism in Bangladesh Project implemented by MRDI in partnership with Fojo Media Institute, Sweden.

To offer some context, the report explains that "In terms of presence in newsrooms and coverage in contents, women's space in Bangladeshi news media is very limited, and is often ignored. It is difficult even to get accurate statistics on women's presence in the male-dominated newsrooms. The people of non-binary genders are almost nowhere in the scene - neither in the newsrooms, nor in news contents." The focus on gender is considered important, as "Equal representation in media fosters recognition of equal rights of men, women and people of non-binary genders, and their equal contributions to social development and changes. Fair and inclusive media coverage, mainstreaming of the genders and diverse identities who face discrimination, and plurality are essential for fair and ethical journalism."

The study has the following objectives:

1. To set up a baseline for similar content monitoring and analysis.
2. To feed into a gender guide on desired practices and trends in news coverage, which individual news outlets could follow in order to address gender and diversity concerns.
3. To help foster gender equality and gender sensitivity as an integral part of ethical journalism.
4. To help develop a gender advocacy strategy for MRDI through all its current and future partnerships and other work with news outlets and relevant stakeholders.

Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were applied in conducting the study. In total, 4,530 news and regular feature stories published in 15 mainstream news media (newspapers, television bulletins, and online news portals) were thematically selected and analysed through a gender-equality and gender-sensitivity lens. The samples were checked against extensive sets of indicators to generate data for quantitative analysis. Selected stories from the same samples were reviewed in-depth for qualitative analysis. A review of existing literature was also conducted, and an overview of the main research findings is covered in one of the chapters of this report.

The report shares the findings according to the following analysis categories: share and nature of the samples, categories and topics of stories, importance given to the sampled stories, gender sensitivity and journalistic quality, people in the story, bylines and story credits, and the nature of visuals.

The key findings highlighted in the report are as follows:

• Proportions of the thematically selected samples and their analysis find absence or omission to be the first and foremost concern regarding the representation of women and non-binary genders in news content.
• The people of non-binary genders were almost invisible, even in the thematically favourable samples. The sampled stories had a fairly good representation of women, who, however, mostly came as subjects or narrators of personal accounts. Moreover, among the people featured in the stories, men greatly outnumbered women. Not all stories featured people, though. The gender of content creators could only be discerned for byline credits, i.e., those that provided names. In all three types of media, no item could be credited to a person of non-binary gender. Besides, men greatly outnumbered women - even in TV stories, where women's share in named credits was comparatively better.
• In-depth stories had small or very small shares across all three types of media, indicating a lack of planned and thorough coverage.
• Other concerns were much less present, at least statistically, as analysis of the data on all indicators showed across the three types of media covered in this analysis. There were some variations, especially between television and the other two types of media: newspapers and online news portals.
• Though statistically not very significant, the presence of gender insensitivity and perpetuation of inequality, discrimination, or stereotyping in content is still a harmful trend for major mainstream news outlets. This finding was mostly revealed in the qualitative study of cases.
• Earlier studies have indicated that there could be a link between gender equality or diversity in newsrooms and the generation of gender-sensitive content. The presence of some sort of ethical guidelines - written, followed, and monitored - was also seen to have similar positive impacts.

In conclusion, the study offers a few recommendations on how MRDI can utilise the findings generated from the analysis and also suggests follow-up actions, including carrying out a more in-depth and detailed qualitative analysis of small samples of stories on gender-based issues, which would provide deeper insight. In addition, issues concerning the representation of non-binary genders in news outlets should be explored in a more detailed study based on a qualitative study of contents, as well as focus group discussions and formal and informal consultations and interviews. It also recommends using the findings as evidential basis to facilitate individual media houses to formulate and implement ethical guidelines for news coverage, which would include a focus on gender equality and gender sensitivity.