Gender Differences in Reporting:
How Does the Gender of Journalists Influence Their
News Coverage in Chinese Commercial Media?
Master’s Thesis
--Erasmus Mundus
Journalism, Media and Globalization
Graduate School of Communication
Supervisor: Sabine Geers
Student name: Qi Teng
Abstract
This study investigated the news articles written by Chinese male and female journalists in the year of 2018 to figure out whether the reporter gender would lead to differences in news reporting in the aspects of source selection, story tone, and the use of gender stereotypes. The researcher performed a manual quantitative content analysis of articles from 2018 in five prestigious Chinese commercial news outlets (Inewsweek,
The Paper, Ifengnews, Infzm, Lifeweeknews). The findings revealed that Chinese female
journalists paid more attention to female sources and used fewer gender stereotypes in their reporting compared to Chinese male journalists. However, the analysis results also indicated that there was no significant difference between Chinese male and female journalists in terms of the story tone. All these findings showed that in the context of today’s Chinese commercial media, gender impacts do exist in some dimensions of news content.
Keywords: Gender influence; Female journalists; Chinese commercial media; News
reporting; Source selection; Story tone; Gender stereotype
1. Introduction
Over the past two decades, the number of female journalists has increased massively all over the world, which is considered to be a crucial factor for diversifying media content and promoting gender equity in news (The Global Media Monitoring Project, 2015). In accordance with the world trend, China has also experienced a significant growth in women’s employment in the news profession (Wang, 2016).
According to the report of State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People's Republic of China (SAPPRFT), as of 2017, the number of female journalists has exceeded 110,000, accounting for 48.23% of the total journalists’ number in China (Xinhua, 2017).
Although there were more and more women participating in the journalistic profession, it is undeniable that gender imparity still existed in newsrooms in many aspects. Numerous studies have focused on the problems of male-dominated news industry and female journalists’ working obstacles worldwide (Ross & Carter, 2011; Reich, 2013; North, 2014; Wang, 2016; Paromita, 2017), but they have not concerned enough about the special influence that female journalists can bring to the news coverage, especially for the case of China. As Reese and Shoemaker (2016) explained in their theoretical framework of “The Hierarchy of Influences Model”, on the individual level, gender is one of the most important factors which could make huge impacts on media coverage (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016). Nevertheless, in current studies, there is little empirical research concentrating on the gender influence on Chinese news content.
Under such a circumstance, this study aims to fill the gap mentioned above and figure out how the gender of journalists affects the news coverage in Chinese commercial media in the aspects of source selection, story tone, and the use of gender stereotypes. The structure of this paper is as follows: First of all, the theoretical framework of “gender model” from the socialization theory will be expounded, and three hypotheses about the gender influence on source selection, story tone, and gender
stereotype will be proposed. After this, the sample collection process and the coding criterions of variables of this manual quantitative content analysis will be detailed explained in the method section. And then, the analysis results of three hypotheses will be presented and illustrated respectively. In the end, an explicit discussion of the limitations of this research and some suggestions for future studies will be offered, followed by the final conclusion.
2. Theoretical Framework
Based on the socialization theory, men and women behave differently in all aspects of life because they hold different values, interests, and viewpoints (Shelly & Esther, 2003). By putting forward a vital concept called “gender model”, Shelly and Esther (2003) emphasized that male and female experienced a gender-based socialization process from the moment they were born. That’s why even in the same work environment, doing the same job, men and women would still show many differences (Shelly & Esther, 2003). In the news profession, female journalists were also expected to bring distinct perspectives, attitudes, and concerns that would “affect the manner in which news stories are researched, framed, and written” (Shelly & Esther, 2003, p.660). For example, some prior studies suggested that female journalists brought more humanistic care, empathy, and cooperation in newsrooms (Eric & Frederick, 2005; Meeks, 2013).
There is a consensus among previous researchers that the gender difference is an important factor in diversifying media content (Armstrong, 2004; Franklin &
Carlson, 2010; Zoch & Turk, 1998). Van Zoonen (1998) mentioned in his research that the gender of journalists would bring gendered nature to journalism: the news reporting from male journalists had more masculine characteristics such as the emphasis on logical thinking, factual angles, and male sources; whereas the news reporting from female journalists had more feminine characteristics such as the emphasis on perceptual thinking, interdependent angles, female sources, etc. (van Zoonen, 1998). However, as the newsrooms worldwide were most male-dominated, the media contents were also occupied by men. For quite a long time, women were ignored and underrepresented in media coverage, which led to some social problems (Devitt, 2002; Linda, 2012; Vu, Lee, Duong & Barnett, 2018). For example, readers’ impressions towards gender would be more biased, stereotyped, and misunderstood after reading the news, and the contradictions between men and women would be more intensified (Vu et al., 2018). Linda (2012) found in her study that these biased news content even had an effect on women’s behavior that women might underestimate themselves about what they can do and achieve in life (Linda, 2012).
Therefore, as the number of female journalists has increased a lot worldwide, numerous studies have attempted to figure out the influences of journalist’s gender on news coverage from a variety of aspects. So far, however, there has been little research about the gender impact on reporting in China’s media context. That’s why this study aims to investigate the effects of reporter gender on Chinese news content on a comprehensive level, but not only focusing on a specific aspect. According to previous literature, the following three dimensions: source selection, story tone, and the use of
gender stereotypes are salient aspects in media coverage, which might be affected by reporter gender.
2.1 Sources Selection
First of all, the gender of journalists might influence the choice of news sources. News sources are essential as they provide useful and timely information for journalists to make factual and reliable news for the public. It is undeniable that journalists should look for credible sources as facts, on the other hand, the selection of news sources also indicated the importance of different social powers (Berkowitz, 2009). Zoch and Turk (1998) mentioned that “the reporter’s use of sources …… is a representation of power and authority within the society” (Zoch & Turk, 1998, p.765). Previous studies found that in news coverage, male sources were always highly concerned, especially as experts and professional sources, whereas female were underrepresented and relatively absent most of the time (Armstrong, 2004; Cann & Mohr, 2001; Carol & Susan, 1997; Desmond & Danilewicz, 2010; Franklin & Carlson, 2010; Geri & Frederick, 2005; Zoch & Turk, 1998). In the light of Armstrong (2004), most reporters would consider “accessibility” and “familiarity” as important indexes when they seek sources, instead of pursuing a more diverse possibility of news sources (Armstrong, 2004). That’s why in male-dominated newsrooms, where the number of male journalists was far higher than female journalists, men were seen to be more “accessible” and “familiar” and had more opportunities to be chosen to share their viewpoints on all kinds of political, economic, and social issues.
In recent years, the increasing number of female journalists has brought some influences on mentioning and emphasizing female sources in news stories (Eric & Frederick, 2005; Geri & Frederick, 2005; Shelly & Esther, 2003; Shor, Van, Miltsov, Kulkarni & Skiena, 2015; Vu et al., 2018). In the study of Geri and Frederick (2005), they found that female journalists were more willing to give time and attention to women and minority groups compared to male journalists, who paid less attention to female sources (Geri & Frederick, 2005). Eric and Frederick (2005) also highlighted female journalists’ conscious efforts to use more female sources and show their voices in news (Eric & Frederick, 2005). In line with the previous findings, Shor et al. (2015) referred that not only female journalists, but also female editors were more likely to give female sources greater exposure in their sections (Shor et al., 2015). Shelly and Esther (2003) explained the same findings from a gender-based socialization perspective that female journalists made use of a greater diversity of sources because of their virtue of valuing others, especially female sources (Shelly & Esther, 2003). Carol and Susan (1997) suggested that the increasing representation of female sources “heightens the likelihood that women may alter the face of newsgathering” (Carol & Susan, 1997, p.59).
The above findings all indicated that the gender of journalists is an important factor which can influence the source selection process. Based on that, the first hypothesis comes:
H1: Chinese female journalists use more female sources than male journalists in their reporting.
2.2 Story Tone
Another important aspect of reporting is the story tone, which is “an important indicator of how reporters treat their story subjects” (Kim & Yoon, 2009, p.291). Journalists present the internal story tone by showing some external indicators, such as the choice of words, the emotional tendency of statements, the way of narrative techniques. Many researchers have argued that the gender of reporters might affect the use of story tone (Kim & Yoon, 2009; Meeks, 2013; Mulac, Bradac & Gibbons, 2001; Shelly & Esther, 2003; Shor, Van & Miltsov, 2018).
Shelly and Esther (2003) found that when writing news stories, female journalists were more likely to use positive story tones while male journalists were more critical in reporting (Shelly & Esther, 2003). In their main findings, female reporters showed more positive understandings and encouragements towards people and things, whereas male reporters might describe the same objects in negative tones (Shelly & Esther, 2003). Kim and Yoon (2009) had the same findings in the case of South Korea. In addition, they found that even in some situations, “female reporters tended to use a positive tone when a neutral tone might have been expected” (Kim & Yoon, 2009, p.292).
To be more detailed, Meeks (2013) underlined the different focus of male and female journalists in reporting. Male journalists emphasized more on “competition”, “aggressiveness”, “disputes”, etc., which may lead to a more critical and negative story tone; however, female journalists paid more attention to “cooperation”, “congeniality”,
“compassion”, etc., showing a more peaceful and positive story tone (Meeks, 2013). Shor et al. (2018) argued that different story tones showed the gender identity of individual reporters. They also pointed out the preferences of female editors to have more positive stories and give prominence to the positive aspects of news stories (Shor et al., 2018).
The gender differences in story tone can be traced back to the linguistic differences between men and women. Mulac et al. (2001) presented that male and female had different language habits which represented two separate cultures. Women always expressed things indirectly, avoiding conflicts and promoting the establishment of relationships, whereas men used language in a more direct way, showing personal judgments and opinions instead of considering too much about other people (Mulac et al., 2001).
However, it is worth noting that in some specific situations, women would even show a more critical and tougher tone than men. Grabe, Samson, Zelenkauskaite, and Yegiyan (2011) did a study of the news reporting during the period of U.S. presidential elections. American female journalists had intense competitive pressure with their male counterparts when they worked in political beats. But the researchers found that instead of complying with the traditional female gender expectations, these western female journalists would sometimes follow the feminist model, which emphasized on women’s “ambition, single-mindedness, and assertiveness”, with a stronger status than men (Grabe, et al. 2011, p.288). Under the feminist model, these female journalists were more likely to show a stricter tone and be more aggressive in their news reporting, and
“emerged as tougher journalistic watchdogs than men” (Grabe, et al. 2011, p.303). Another vital explanation is about the particularity of western election reporting. One of the journalists in this study underlined political skepticism and the importance of challenging the authority as “core sensibilities for covering presidential candidates” (Grabe, et al. 2011, p.300).
All in all, previous studies highlighted that the gender of reporters might influence the story tone due to the gender differences in reporting focus and linguistic habits. Here comes to the following prediction:
H2: Chinese female journalists are more likely to use a positive story tone than male journalists in their reporting.
2.3 Gender stereotype
Gender stereotypes refer to “preconceived ideas whereby females and males are arbitrarily assigned characteristics and roles determined and limited by their gender.” (Gender Equality Commission of the Council of Europe, 2015) In media coverage, reporters may use gender stereotypes to describe men and women by emphasizing certain gender attributes, such as “traits, physical characteristics, role behaviors, and occupational status” (Armstrong & Nelson, 2005, p.822). News media is one of the main boosters reinforcing gender stereotypes in society.
In male-dominated newsrooms, the gender stereotypes about women in media coverage were much more than male stereotypes (Chen, 2009; Devitt, 2002; Grabe, et al. 2011; Shor et al., 2018; Vu et al., 2018). Although there were also some gender
stereotypes about men existing in news content, very few studies mentioned them. According to previous studies, women, especially professional women, were always trivialized in news media with gender stereotypes, and tightly connected with the family-work balance problem (Grabe, et al. 2011; Vu et al., 2018). It was very common in news coverage that successful women were always asked to share their stories and experiences about how to make a balance between family and work, whereas successful men were rarely asked about these issues (Chen, 2009; Shor et al., 2018). In line with that, Devitt (2002) also found in his research that female candidates were always portrayed by appearance and personality traits while the focus on male candidates was mainly their political initiatives and working performances (Devitt, 2002). What’s more, characteristics like emotional, family-oriented, and weak were much more frequently used in describing women compared to men (Devitt, 2002). Vu et al. (2018) complained that these gender stereotypes “constrained women to the private sphere and excluded them from accessing the public world of policy making, authority, and politics” (Vu et al., 2018, p.571).
Numerous studies found that female journalists used fewer gender stereotypes in news reporting compared to male journalists. Grabe et al. (2011) did a study about gender impact on covering presidential election campaigns in the US. The findings indicated that women reporters used fewer gender stereotypes and employed a more gender-neutral frame when they characterized political candidates, whereas male journalists used gender stereotypes more often and highly correlated to masculine viewpoints (Grabe, et al. 2011). In conformity with that, Kim and Yoon (2009) also
found that when portraying Cabinet members in South Korea, female reporters held a more gender-friendly perspective compared with male reporters (Kim & Yoon, 2009). In the comparative study of Carol and Susan (1997), they mentioned that men always held stronger stereotypes than women, especially when they treated with female sources (Carol & Susan, 1997).
Although most of the previous findings were related to female stereotypes, this study would take both male and female stereotypes into account as the use of gender stereotypes. Based on that, the last hypothesis is formulated:
H3: Chinese female journalists use fewer gender stereotypes than male journalists in their reporting.
3. Methods
In order to answer the research question and verify the hypotheses, this study conducted a quantitative content analysis of a sample of news articles written by female and male reporters in five representative Chinese commercial media outlets (Inewsweek,
The Paper, Ifengnews, Infzm, Lifeweeknews) from the time period of 1st January 2018
to 31th December 2018 (the year of 2018).
3.1 Sample
First of all, this study chose news articles from Chinese commercial media rather than national media mainly because commercial media were less party-oriented and had more diversity and freedom in their news content. As for the Chinese media
system, although it cannot directly adapt to the media system models by Hallin and Mancini (2004) which were mainly made for western countries, many dimensions of this framework could still be used to analyze China’s situation (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). For example, the dimension of “political parallelism” measured “the links between media outlets and political parties”, and the dimension of “role of the state” emphasized on the state intervention and restrictions on media (Brüggemann, Engesser, Büchel, Humprecht & Castro, 2014, p.1040). Applied to the Chinese media, political advocacy was still the major important mission of journalism, especially in national media, which were under heavy propaganda pressure and were highly constrained and censored by the government and the Communist Party. (Zhao, 1998). In contrast, Chinese commercial media have more freedom in diversifying media content to some extent, where the influence of reporter gender could be better compared and analyzed (Chen, 2009; Wang, 2016). That’s why for the data collection, this study used the online databases of five prestigious and representative Chinese commercial media outlets (Inewsweek, The Paper, Ifengnews, Infzm, Lifeweeknews), instead of national media like People's daily.
The five chosen commercial media were all well-known among Chinese citizens and had a really high circulation and click-through rate —— the largest circulation for weekly news journals like Inewsweek, Infzm, Lifeweeknews was over a million per issue; and the highest click-through rate for online (only) news websites like The Paper and Ifengnews exceeded 3 million a day. They were all big news outlets which involved in various types of news and had a large amount of both male and
female journalists. These media also had a certain historical status in Chinese news industry, even the youngest one (The Paper) had a 5 years history, and the oldest (Infzm) has published over 30 years.
In the first phase, a stratified sample collection was conducted among five commercial media outlets. 5 articles were randomly selected for each month of the year, therefore every media outlet had an amount of 60 (5x12) news articles, and a total amount of 300 (60x5) news articles formed the whole sample. Hereafter, a more accurate selection was executed within the sample. As the main focus of this study was on reporting differences owing to reporter gender, this study only considered actual news stories and not photographs, videos, editorials, columns, or letters to readers. To be more explicit, news articles without clear bylines, or co-written by both female and male journalists, or less than five sentences were out of consideration either. After excluding articles which did not meet the requirements, a final sample of 272 news articles was finally produced, with 137 news articles written by male journalists and 135 news articles written by female journalists.
3.2 Coding of variables
The independent variable of this study is the gender of journalists, which was coded in light of the story bylines. The three dependent variables are the choice of sources, the story tone, and the use of gender stereotypes. Firstly, the number of male and female sources used in every news article would be counted separately. Each person was coded only once no matter how many times did he/she show in the news story.
As for the overall story tone in news reporting, this item could be rated on 3-point semantic differential scales: negative, neutral, and positive. 1 represents for negative story tone, 2 for neutral story tone, and 3 for positive story tone. A news article would be coded as “positive” when it (a) showed an optimistic emotional tendency towards an event/character; (b) used a certain amount of positive words in the reporting to describe an event/character; (c) used an affirmative narrative approach (e.g. praise) to define an event/character. For example, if a news article described a new mayor as a strongly qualified person with vision and emphasized the bright side of the future, it should be coded as “positive” and receive 3 points. A news article would be coded as “negative” when it shows the opposite features of the above criteria. For example, if a news article was very critical about a new mayor’s job and paid more attention to the insufficient aspects and defects of him, describing him as an unrealistic dreamer without enough practical experience, it should be coded as “negative” and receive 1 point. If a news article (a) didn’t show any positive or negative emotional tendency; (b) just described the process or situation without any opinion, it would be coded as “neutral” and receive 2 points.
In terms of the extent of gender stereotype using, it could be rated on 3-point semantic differential scales: high, low, and no, assigning 1 to news stories revealing high gender stereotype, 2 to news stories revealing low gender stereotype, and 3 to news stories without any gender stereotype. The overall impression of the coder determined the final decision, but there were some quantitative indicators which could be referenced. For example, if a news article had more than five expressions like “she got
all supports because of her beautiful appearance” and “his aggression is a common characteristic of males”, which revealed a really high degree of gender stereotypes, it would definitely be coded as “high” and receive 1 point. Based on that, a news article would be coded as “low” and receive 2 points when it did not contain too many expressions about gender stereotype but still portrayed men and women with biases to some extent. And for the last case, it would be very clear for the coder to judge when there is no expression related to gender stereotype appearing in the news article. If the news story did not have any sign of gender stereotype, it would be coded as “no” and receive 3 points.
3.3 Inter-coder reliability test
Before the main coding process, an inter-coder reliability test was executed among three independent coders, who were all graduate students and native Chinese speakers, to check the consistency and reliability of this codebook. 30 news articles (around 10% of the sample) were randomly chosen to conduct the reliability test. The Krippendorf’s alpha values of the four major categories were as follows: 0.86 for the number of male sources, 0.81 for the number of female sources, 0.71 for the overall story tone, and 0.83 for the gender stereotype. All the results were above 0.70, and three of them were over 0.80, which means the inter-coder reliability of this research was relatively high.
All three hypotheses of this study would be tested by conducting t-test statistical analysis, with a total of five t-tests. Apart from three main t-tests, one for each aspect (the number of female sources used/ story tone/ gender stereotype) between male and female journalists, another two additional t-tests (the number of male sources used between male and female journalists / the differences in using male and female sources when only considering female journalists) would also be executed for extra evidences of the first hypothesis.
4. Results
Within the whole sample, there were 137 news articles written by male journalists and 135 news articles written by female journalists. Table 1 shows the means and the standard deviations of the four dependent variables. In general, regardless of the reporter gender, the number of male sources (M=2.01, SD=1.65) used in news articles were higher than the number of female sources (M=1.18, SD=1.38).
Table 2 illustrates the amount and percentage of each scale in the category of story tone and gender stereotype. In terms of the overall story tone (M=1.90, SD=0.74), negative story tone (N=91) and neutral story tone (N=119) accounted for a larger proportion, almost 80% in total, compared with positive story tone (N=62). In the coding process, the researcher found that many news articles were concentrated on the controversial topics, such as environmental pollutions, government performances, bribery problems, etc., which automatically led to a critical story tone, no matter the gender of journalists.
Table 1. Means, Standard deviations, and the results of Inter-coder reliability test of the four dependent variables (N=272)
Mean SD
(Standard deviations)
The number of Male source a 2.01 1.65
The number of Female source b 1.18 1.38
Overall story tone c 1.90 .74
Gender stereotype d 2.08 .75
a The number of male source was coded by counting the number of male sources used
in the news article, each person was coded only once.
b The number of female source was coded by counting the number of female sources
used in the news article, each person was coded only once.
c The overall story tone was coded by using a 3-point semantic differential scales,
assigning 1 to negative story tone, 2 to neutral story tone, and 3 to positive story tone.
d The gender stereotype was coded by using a 3-point semantic differential scales,
assigning 1 to news stories revealing high gender stereotype, 2 to news stories revealing low gender stereotype, and 3 to news stories without any gender stereotype.
Table 2. Amount and percentage of each scale in the category of story tone and gender stereotype (N=272)
Amount Percentage
Overall story tone
1- Negative story tone 91 33.5%
2- Neutral story tone 119 43.8%
3- Positive story tone 62 22.7%
Gender stereotype
1- High gender stereotype 67 24.6%
2- Low gender stereotype 117 43.0%
3- No gender stereotype 88 32.4%
As for the use of gender stereotype (M=2.08, SD=0.75), low gender stereotype (N=117) ranked the first in all three scales, with a percentage of 43%, revealing that many journalists did use certain gender stereotype in reporting, but not that much. Moreover, it is noting that the proportion of “no gender stereotype” (N=88, 32.4%) was larger than that of “high gender stereotype” (N=67, 24.6%), which shows a good trend of gender-neutral and gender-balanced news professionalism. During the coding process, there were many cases of the differences in using gender stereotype due to reporter gender. For instance, there were two articles written by a male and a female journalist respectively both mentioning some famous Chinese female entrepreneurs. In the articles written by the male journalist, he focused a lot on how these successful women weigh the relationship between work and family. Here is one sentence in that
article: “When in work, Mingrui Zhang performed strongly like a man, whereas in daily life, she is a beautiful wife and a qualified mother.” By comparison, the female journalist paid more attention to their achievements at work. She wrote more about how these women can gain today’s success with their personal efforts, no difference with male entrepreneurs.
4.1 Sources Selection
The first hypothesis stated that Chinese female journalists would use more female sources than male journalists in their reporting. This hypothesis was tested by conducting a t-test analysis and the results were shown in Table 3 below. According to the data, the average number of female sources used by female journalists (M=1.67,
SD=1.60) was higher than that of male journalists (M=0.69, SD=0.89), with a
statistically significant difference (t = -6.29, p < .001). Therefore, the first hypothesis was supported. Similarly, the average number of male sources used by male journalists (M=2.26, SD=1.84) was higher than that of female journalists (M=1.29, SD=1.01), also with a statistically significant difference (t = 7.75, p < .001). It is worth mentioning that, when only considering female journalists, they also used more female sources (M=1.67,
SD=1.60) than male sources (M=1.29, SD=1.01) in their news articles, with a
statistically significant difference (t = -2.57, p = 0.011), representing that female journalists were more likely to give women chances to show voices and opinions in news. These additional results provided extra evidence to support the first hypothesis about source selection.
Table 3. Independent t-tests for source selection, story tone, and use of gender stereotype by reporter gender (N=272)
Gender of Reporter
Male Female
M(SD) M(SD)
Dependent Variables (N=137) (N=135) t p
The number of Male source 2.26 (1.84) 1.29 (1.01) 7.75 p<0.001
The number of Female source .69 (.89) 1.67 (1.60) -6.29 p<0.001 Overall story tone 1.74 (.69) 2.06 (.76) -3.56 p=0.976 Gender stereotype 1.94 (.83) 2.21 (.64) -3.04 p<0.001
4.2 Story Tone
The second hypothesis predicted that Chinese female journalists would be more likely to use a more positive story tone than male journalists in their news reporting. Table 3 exhibits the result of the independent t-test conducted by the researcher. However, the findings revealed that the average story tone of female journalists (M=2.06, SD=0.76) did not differ significantly from the average story tone of male journalists (M=1.74, SD=0.69), t = -3.56, p = 0.976 (95% confidence interval), which rejected the hypothesis about story tone.
4.3 Gender stereotype
stereotypes than their male counterparts in media coverage. This hypothesis was also tested with an independent t-test analysis. Table 3 indicates that the average level of gender stereotype used by Chinese female journalists (M=2.21, SD=0.64) was lower than that of male journalists (M=1.94, SD=0.83), with a statistically significant difference (t = -3.04, p < .001). The results supported the last hypothesis about gender stereotype.
5. Discussion
This research intended to figure out how the gender of reporters affects their news coverage in Chinese commercial media by conducting a series of quantitative content analysis. Three hypotheses regarding source selection, story tone, and the use of gender stereotype were proposed and tested in the previous part. The overall findings indicated that Chinese female journalists used more female sources and applied fewer gender stereotypes in news reporting compared with their male counterparts. However, the results also illustrated that there was no statistically significant difference between male journalists and female journalists in the category of story tone, which will be further discussed.
In detail, the findings related to source selection serve to support the propositions made by previous studies that female journalists were more likely to mention and emphasize female sources in their news stories and were more willing to spend time on listening to women’s voices and attitudes, compared to male journalists (Armstrong, 2004; Desmond & Danilewicz, 2010; Geri & Frederick, 2005; Shelly &
Esther, 2003; Shor et al, 2015; Vu et al, 2018; Zoch & Turk, 1998). In line with the gender-based socialization theory by Shelly and Esther (2003), just like female journalists from western countries, Chinese female journalists also brought wider interests and concerns in the source selection process (Shelly & Esther, 2003). The research results showed that female journalists gave more opportunities to women in China and even constantly used them as main sources for the whole stories, which revealed their great efforts to integrate women’s perspectives and issues into the historically male-dominated news industry and to change the undervalued situation of female sources in previous journalistic practice (Eric & Frederick, 2005; Geri & Frederick, 2005; Vu et al, 2018).
The findings also provide a support for the argument made by past studies that women reporters were more likely to use fewer gender stereotypes and employ a gender-friendly perspective (Carol & Susan, 1997; Devitt, 2002; Grabe, et al. 2011; Kim & Yoon, 2009; Vu et al., 2018). As previous studies suggest, compared to men, women were more often treated with gender stereotypes in news reporting, such as excessive attention to appearances, inferior positions in work, emotional natures, etc. (Devitt, 2002). According to Chen (2009), under the male-dominated news environment, Chinese women were despised badly and described with gender stereotypes for quite a long time (Chen, 2009). The results indicated that Chinese female journalists brought more balanced viewpoints and gender-neutral perspectives in today’s newsrooms.
The findings of this research demonstrated that the gender of reporters does not affect the tone of news stories. The results revealed that regardless of gender, most journalists preferred a neutral or negative perspective instead of holding a fully affirmative attitude in their reporting. One of the main explanations of this result might be the essential seriousness of news, which actually led to an overall critical story tone for journalism (Franklin & Carlson, 2011). In the light of the socialization theory by Shelly and Esther (2003), not only the “gender model”, which emphasized on the importance of gender influence on news reporting, but also the “job model” mattered in journalists’ working process (Shelly & Esther, 2003). The “job model” underlined that although men and women might have distinct interests, values and viewpoints in journalistic practice, some overall working guidelines and experiences, in this case was the essential seriousness and the general critical story tone of news, “can mediate these gender differences” (Shelly & Esther, 2003, p.661). It is worth noting that Grabe, Samson, Zelenkauskaite and Yegiyan (2011) had an interesting finding in their study about U.S. presidential elections that under the intense competitive pressure in political beats, like reporting presidential elections, female journalists were always as critical as male or even likely to show a stricter and tougher tone in their news stories, representing their professionalism in work. (Grabe, et al. 2011). These findings indicated that in order to deeply investigate the impact of reporter gender on news story tone, it would be better for future studies to combine the “gender model” with “job model”, which means to also take other important elements like news beats, topics, and objects into account. For instance, most of the controversial topics, such as air pollution and bribery
problems, would automatically lead to critical and negative story tones, in such cases
“job model” might be much stronger than “gender model” that gender influences might
not be that obvious. While if studies specifically focus on some topics about gender, such as news related to female politicians or celebrities, male and female journalists might show a huge difference in terms of story tone because of the greater impact of the “gender model”.
It is undeniable that this study has some non-negligible limitations. In the coding category of source selection, the researcher only counted the number of male and female sources used in the news articles, which in fact was not enough to reflect the exact importance of different selections of sources. For example, in one news article the journalist used one female source and one male source, but actually the woman was used as the main source for the whole story and was quoted several times whereas the male source was just cited for additional information. Additionally, as past studies suggest, whether the source was used as an expert or not really revealed how important the source was in news articles (Cann & Mohr, 2001; Zoch & Turk, 1998). The result in Zoch and Turk (1998)’s study indicated that journalists would first consider the attributes of sources, such as celebrities or ordinary people, experts or amateurs, instead of thinking about the gender of sources (Zoch & Turk, 1998). Cann and Mohr (2001) also found in their research that when the news source was not an expert, the use of men and women as non-expert sources was approximately equally in news stories (Cann & Mohr, 2001). For now, the conclusion of this study only mentioned that Chinese female journalists paid more attention to female sources, but did not explain to
what extent did they emphasize on the importance of female sources. Thus, the results would be more comprehensive and detailed if the frequency and occupations (whether be used as experts or not) of male and female sources used in each story could also be coded and analyzed.
In regards to the method used in this study, there were also some strengths and weaknesses coexisting. First of all, this study chose news articles in the year of 2018 from all news sections in five representative Chinese commercial media, which made the sample as generalizable as it could be, but also maybe “too general” to some extent. As different types of news had various focuses, sometimes it was not so suitable to put them all under a uniform standard to make comparisons. Therefore, it would be better for future studies to only concentrate on some specific topics based on the general conclusions made by this study. For example, to figure out how the gender of journalists influences the news coverage about the two-child policy in today’s Chinese aging society, which has been a controversial topic since it released in 2016. Some related news such as the increasing fertility pressure on women, the immature supporting childcare system in China, might show big differences in reporting between female and male journalists. Secondly, the researcher used traditional manual analysis during the coding process. It might have benefited this study to try the automated computational analysis, a more precise way to do content analyses in journalism studies (Boumans & Trilling, 2016). Finally, the study could go even further if it combined quantitative content analysis with qualitative follow-up interviews with some male and female journalists in China to explore their deep motivations of different choices in news
reporting, like their personal stories and preferences of source selection. The findings of qualitative interviews might present various gender-based perspectives and provide additional support for this study.
In future studies, it would also be indispensable to expand the scope a little bit. As Reese and Shoemaker (2016) explained in “The Hierarchy of Influences Model”, other levels such as news routines, organizational factors, and ideology all work efficiently together with the individual level (the reporter gender), having an influence on media coverage (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016). Future studies could take other levels of the influence model into consideration to further investigate the possible relationships between different factors. For instance, the size (large or small) and the structure (the ratio of male and female editors and journalists) of media outlets might mediate or exaggerate the reporting differences between male and female journalists (Shelly & Esther, 2003). By investigating the interaction among different levels, future studies could find a more effective way for diversifying news content based on the gender differences in Chinese news profession. Furthermore, nowadays more and more people get used to reading news through social media platforms, whereas the news content on social media (without a clear headline, lead, etc.) is very different from traditional reporting. It would also be interesting for future studies to dig deeper into the influence of reporter gender on social media content in this ever-changing multimedia era.
In journalistic practice, female reporters undoubtedly brought as many outstanding perspectives and insights as male reporters. This study provided some interesting and supportive findings of the gender impacts on news coverage in the Chinese media context, and contributed to relevant gender media research and the development of gender parity worldwide.
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Appendix 1: The Codebook
The unit of data collection is the article, text part only, other elements such as visuals (videos and photos) and captions are not being coded.
1. Article ID:
Fill in the article’s ID number, as indicated on the article’s ID list. E.g.: “006”
2. News Website:
Fill in the corresponding number of the news website.
(1- Inewsweek, 2- The Paper, 3- Ifengnews, 4- Infzm, 5- Lifeweeknews). E.g.: “2” (represents for “The Paper”)
3. Published Date:
Fill in the published date of the news article in “dd/mm/yyyy” format.
E.g.: “03/11/2018”
4. Reporter Gender:
Fill in the gender of the reporter of the news article (codes: 0-male, 1-female)
E.g.: “1” (represents for female reporter)
5. The Number of Male Sources Used
Count and fill in the number of male sources used in the news article, each
person is coded only once. For example, if Mr. Zhu was quoted twice in the article, he is still counted only once.
E.g.: “6” (represents that there are 6 male sources appeared in the article)
6. The Number of Female Sources Used
Count and fill in the number of female sources used in the news article, each person is coded only once. For example, if Mrs. Wang was quoted twice in the article, she is still counted only once.
E.g.: “2” (represents that there are 2 female sources appeared in the article)
7. Story Tone
Definition: Story tone refers to the internal attitudes the writer shows in
his/her article by some external indicators, such as the choice of words, the emotional tendency of statements, the way of narrative techniques, etc.
Coding instruction: A 3-point semantic differential scales is used for coding
the story tone, assigning 1 to negative story tone, 2 to neutral story tone, and 3 to positive story tone.
1 – negative story tone:
You can judge whether the article has a negative story tone by answering the following questions:
(a) Did the reporter show a pessimistic emotional tendency towards the event/ character in the article?
(b) Did the reporter use a certain amount of negative words in the reporting to describe the event/ character in the article?
(c) Did the reporter use a negative narrative approach (e.g. criticism) to define the event/ character in the article?
E.g.: “The new mayor is an unrealistic dreamer without enough practical experience……”
coding as “1” (represents for negative story tone) and receive 1 point.
2 - neutral story tone:
You can judge whether the article has a neutral story tone by answering the following questions:
(a) Did the reporter show any positive or negative emotional tendency in the article? (If not, it is neutral.)
(b) Did the reporter just describe the process or situation without showing any opinion?
E.g.: “The new mayor has some plans for the next five years, including a new
urban traffic system……”
coding as “2” (represents for neutral story tone) and receive 2 points. 3 - positive story tone:
You can judge whether the article has a positive story tone by answering the following questions:
(a) Did the reporter show an optimistic emotional tendency towards the event/ character in the article?
(b) Did the reporter use a certain amount of positive words in the reporting to describe the event/ character in the article?
(c) Did the reporter use an affirmative narrative approach (e.g. praise) to define the event/ character in the article?
E.g.: “The new mayor is a strongly qualified person with vision……” coding as “3” (represents for positive story tone) and receive 3 points.
8. Gender Stereotype
Definition: Gender stereotypes refers to “preconceived ideas whereby
females and males are arbitrarily assigned characteristics and roles determined and limited by their gender.” (Gender Equality Commission of the Council of Europe, 2015) In media coverage, reporters may use gender stereotypes to describe men and women by emphasizing certain gender attributes, such as “traits, physical characteristics, role behaviors, and occupational status” (Armstrong & Nelson, 2005, p.822).
E.g.: Descriptions like “the new female leader gets all supports because of her
beautiful appearance” and “his aggression is a common character of males” can be seen as expressions about gender stereotype.
The gender stereotype has four main aspects: traits, physical characteristics, role behaviors, and occupational status. For instance, if the reporter takes for
granted that female should be “family-oriented”, “emotional”, “inferior in work compared with male”, and male should be “work-oriented”, “sensible”, “strong”, etc., the content can be seen as gender stereotyped.
Coding instruction: A 3-point semantic differential scales is used for coding the extent of gender stereotype: assigning 1 to news stories revealing high gender stereotype, 2 to news stories revealing low gender stereotype, and 3 to news stories without any gender stereotype. The coder can make the final decision based on his/her overall impression of the article, but there were some indicators (the number of relevant expressions; the degree of gender stereotypes, etc.) which could be referenced in the coding process.
1 – high gender stereotype:
A news article should be coded as “1 (high)” and receive 1 point when the coder has a strong impression about gender stereotype.
E.g.: If a news article had more than five phrases like the examples above and revealed a high degree of gender stereotype, it should be coded as “1” (represents for high gender stereotype) and receive 1 point.
2 – low gender stereotype:
A news article should be coded as “2 (low)” and receive 2 points when the coder has a certain but not that strong impression about gender stereotype.
E.g.: If a news article had two phrases like the examples above and revealed a low degree of gender stereotype, it should be coded as “2” (represents for low gender stereotype) and receive 2 points.
3 – no gender stereotype:
A news article should be coded as “3 (no)” and receive 3 points when the coder can clearly judge that the article does not contain any sign of gender stereotype.
E.g.: If a news article had no phrase like the examples above and showed a completely gender-neutral perspective, it should be coded as “3” (represents for no gender stereotype) and receive 3 points.
