In this paper (presentation) I will focus on how the news is engendered in Norwegian news media. Persons participating in the news stories, the human news sources, play a crucial role in the news stories, giving the news authority, authenticity and in some way or another credibility or “truth”.
My main question: What is the value of male and female voices in Norwegian news production and this specific arena of public speech?
Men are the attractive gender in News (invited to participate by news producers). On average male voices outnumber female voices 2:1. This average does conceal a quite large variation in different news products, between 80 and 60% male domination.
I we go further into this matter, we find that male and female voices participate in the news in quite different manners. While men are at large chosen as news subjects because of their perceived (objective) competence or/and powerful position, women are more likely to be chosen because of their (subjective) experience.
Recent research do not show that parity between male and female news producers and gender equal newsrooms give us more gender equal news products. Surprisingly the opposite pattern has been found, some gender neutral newsrooms may produce and deliver news products in which men outnumber women 4:1.
Different Norwegian and international studies indicate that news products which are more oriented towards “important news”, the elites and agenda-setting, strongly favor men as participants and strengthen the authority and importance of male voices, marginalizing female experts and women in power position.
In more audience-orientated (or commercial) news products, we may find that women to a larger extent are included in the news stories, but in an ambivalent and traditional way.
