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RÄTT
VISA
REN!
Results
Method and selection
The analyzed material consists of 2400 news articles
from the following twelve
major Swedish news sites:
- Aftonbladet
- Dagens Industri
- Dagens Nyheter
- Expressen
- Göteborgs Posten
- Helsingborgs Dagblad
- Nerikes Allehanda
- sr.se
- Svenska Dagbladet
- svt.se/nyheter
- Sydsvenskan
- Uppsala Nya Tidning.
200 news articles were randomly selected and analyzed
from each news site during
the period of January 1st –
June 30th, 2015. The random selection was made by
Retriver, a media analysis
company. Only news articles
with news subjects were analyzed in the report.
A news subject was defined
as a person who is either
the main subject of a news
article (explicitly in focus,
mentioned in the preamble
or the title) or quoted (direct or indirect quote). The
analysis was conducted using
a media-analysis tool developed by Rättviseförmedlingen within a project partly
funded by Vinnova – Sweden’s Innovation Agency.
To determine a person’s
gender and background, an
assumption has been made
of what a media consumer might perceive from the
following:
1. Information in the news
article (for instance pronouns
or information about a persons country of origin)
2. Known information of
a person who is generally
recognized as a public figure
(from Wikipedia).
3. The name of the person. In
cases where no information
other than the name is available, the person has been assigned a gender based on the
person’s first name. A background has been assigned
based on where the name is
most frequent: in Nordic or
non-Nordic countries. We’ve
tried to follow the definition for Nordic/non-Nordic
background set by Statistics
Sweden.
When the gender or background is unclear the option
“unknown” is consequently
chosen. Completely anonymous people (e.g. “ the
tenant”) have not been encoded. Nordic / non-Nordic
background is only encoded for people who seem to
have a Swedish connection
(since the purpose is to see
how the Swedish population
sented in Swedish news media today. In total 3969 news
subjects (persons participating) in online news articles
have been encoded. The
imbalances are more obvious
among experts and spokespersons than for civilians.
The overall results reveal
that women and individuals
of non-Nordic background
are significantly underrepre-
is portrayed in the media).
Age has only been encoded
when an age is stated in the
news article or in a person’s
Wikipedia page. Images have
not been analyzed in order to
determine a person’s gender,
background or age. No personal data has been saved.
Men
Women
Unkown
Nordic background
non-Nordic background
Unknown background
Age 0-25
Age 26-65
Age 66+
3,9%
9,1%
0,2%
27,5%
11,6% 12,7%
All the news subjects have
been assigned one of the
following functions:
72,3%
Expert
Independent commentator,
not personally involved in
the events of the news article.
Spokesperson
Participates, in their professional role, as an official
spokesperson or the representative of a company, an
organization, a sports team
etc.
Professional
Participates in their professional role, but not as a
spokesperson or an expert.
87%
75,7%
Gender
Background
Age
The representation of women in the
media has not improved since year
2000, when a global survey showed
that 68 percent of news subjects in
Swedish media were men.1
By 31st December 2014, 18 percent
of Sweden’s population were of
non-Nordic origin according to
Statistics Sweden, a Swedish
adminstrative agency.
Youth and seniors are underrepresented. When present, they
are often civilians.2 Individuals
under the age of 25 are also often
visible as athletes.
1800
Number of persons encoded
1653
1500
1388
1200
Citizen
Represents only their own,
individual opinion or experience as a citizen.
900
For a more detailed description of the method, see page
30.
300
743
600
563
546
321
208
67
0
262
184
0
Expert
17 11
5
75 58
Spokesperson
3
91
Professional
156
23
102
1
51
9
Civil
http://www.alltarmojligt.se/images/aam/publikationer/raknamedkvinnor10.pdf.
Since there was no information about age available for more than half of the persons encoded, the result for age is less certain
then the results for gender and background.
1
2
About the project
This report is part of a threeyear project partly funded
by Vinnova – Sweden’s
Innovation Agency. It is
part of the programme
“Gender and Diversity for
Innovation”, which aims to
develop and enhance gender
equality research based on
norm-critical perspectives.
Within the project, a digital
tool has been developed
that facilitates the process
of creating accessible
statistics of representation
in news media. With the
help of this tool – produced
in cooperation with the
Digital Production Studio
Department - Equalisters has
collected all the data for this
report. During the project,
our organization will work
together with representatives
of newsrooms, in order
to broaden the range of
voices and representations
in Swedish news media.
For example, Equalisters
will offer editors a custom
made media analysis of
their content together with
lectures and workshops on
media representation.
info@rattviseformedlingen.se
About Rättviseförmedlingen
Equalisters is a diversity
project aimed at correcting
the imbalances of
representation in media,
culture, business and
other contexts. We believe
that when it comes to
including competent women
and people from other
underrepresented groups,
excuses such as claiming that
“there just weren’t any”, are
no longer good enough.
To prove our point and contribute to a more equal society, we provide a service that
generates positive, proactive,
and concrete recommendations, compiled in long lists
of people who can balance
up inequalities of representation in any given context.
Using extended social networks, Equalisters enables
organizations, companies,
and journalists to find alternative voices to contribute to
a more equal representation
when looking for experts,
lecturers, directors, comedians, DJs, helicopter pilots,
clowns, or any other areas
– obscure or mainstream – of
expertise.
Equalisters is a social service, which utilizes the
powerful dynamics of
crowdsourcing (or group
powering) to contribute to
a more democratic, fair, and
equal society. Our vision is a
society where people are not
defined nor constrained by
their gender, origin, ethnicity,
physical ability, age or any
other category that tends to
wrongly define who we are
and what we may to take
part of in society.
Equalisters was started by
Lina Thomsgård in March
2010 in Sweden, and has
enjoyed great success, growing into a movement of
more than 90 000 people.
The non-profit initiative has
accumulated experiences,
best practices and tools that
are now available to people
around the world who want
to make their society more
equal and who are open to
alternatives to the dominant
norms in representation and
participation.