Only one in every five materials in Ukrainian mass media is commented by women, topics – show business, sports and international affairs – IMI research

Only one in every five materials (17%) in the national Ukrainian printed and online mass media outlets quotes comments by women; at that, mainly on the topics of show business, sports, and international relations.

These are the results of the monitoring of gender balance in Ukrainian printed and online mass media outlets, conducted by NGO «Institute of Mass Information» in Kyiv and in 10 regions of Ukraine in February of 2016.

Based on IMI’s research, in the national online mass media, women represented as heroes (main characters) of publication comprise 23%, as experts – only 10%.

As to the national printed press, women are heroines of materials in 24%, and in 23% of materials women are in the capacity of experts.

National Ukrainian mass media outlets also demonstrated the lowest number of female experts compared to any of the ten regions covered by the monitoring. For comparison, in Kyiv this indicator was equal to 17%, in Lutsk – 29%, in Kharkiv – 28%, in Poltava – 27%.

The IMI survey showed that women are most represented as heroines in the topic of show business – 28%. In 24% cases, women are presented as heroines in materials in the topic of sports.

A considerable share of publication heroines falls to foreign female politicians – 15%. This is mostly news about German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Ukrainians female politicians receive considerably less attention, only 7%; these were mostly news about Natalia Yaresko’s possible assignment to the position of Prime Minister of Ukraine.

Several news, 3-4% from the total, were dedicated to Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, who is imprisoned by Russia.

There are also separate cases of women mentioned in the topics of health care, politics (Vice-Speaker Oksana Syroyid) or release of hostages and prisoners (Iryna Herashchenko).

As to the situation in the regions, the best indicators of engagement of women as heroines of materials were demonstrated in Kharkiv (31%), Uzhhorod, Vinnytsia, and Kherson (30% in each); women were engaged as experts most often in Vinnytsia (34%), Lutsk (29%), and Kharkiv (28%).

The worst indicators of women as main characters of publications were registered in Odesa (16%), in Lutsk (19%), and in Poltava (21%), and the worst indicators of female experts engaged were in Kyiv (17%), Odesa (21%), Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk (22% each).

The Monitoring was conducted with support of MATRA program of the Embassy of Netherlands in Ukraine during February 2016. The media outlets evaluated were four most popular printed and online mass media outlets in 10 regions of Ukraine (Odesa, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, Uzhhorod, Lutsk, Zaporizhzhya, Chernivtsi, Poltava), and the national mass media listed below:

Printed mass media outlets: «Fokus, «Correspondent», "KP", «Segodnia», «Fakty», «Vesti».

Online media outlets: UNIAN, LIGA, «Obozrevatel», «Ukrainska pravda», LB.ua. 

The methodology of assessment can be found at the link.