The Ghana Women Expert Project’s latest survey has raised alarm bells, revealing a significant decline in the representation of women as experts in the Ghanaian media.
The study, conducted between February and May 2023, exposed a worrying trend in the country’s media landscape underscoring the low attention given to women experts in the media with only 12% of experts interviewed being women. This figure marks a 6.6% decline compared to the previous report on women’s representation in radio programs.
The study was conducted by freelance journalists Nana Ama Agyemang Asante and Betty Kamkam-Boadu, with support and funding from the City University of London’s Journalism Department focusing on four media outlets, Citi FM, Peace FM, Joy FM, and Starr FM over a four-month period.
The survey presents a depressing image of the underrepresentation of women in the field of expertise with a male-to-female expert ratio of nine to one.
Intriguingly, the total count of female experts across all shows was found to be lower than the count of male experts on a single show.
While the overall situation is dire, one of the positive findings was the Morning Starr show allocating the most airtime to female experts, with an impressive total of 3 hours, 12 minutes, and 25 seconds.
However, the survey found that out of 936 experts interviewed, only 113 were women, revealing a significant gender disparity issue. Female experts received just 116 minutes of airtime per week across all shows, limiting diverse perspectives. Additionally, women were often interviewed on gender-related topics, restricting their representation in other fields of expertise.
Researchers advised media organisations to take proactive measures to include more female experts and diversify their perspectives across all topics, set clear goals for gender equality to make it easier to monitor progress and hold media outlets accountable and create a publicly available pool of female specialists from diverse industries to encourage inclusivity and a diversity of expertise.
Aside from addressing prejudices and stereotypes, it was also suggested that training programs for journalists would help them interview female experts effectively as the programs along with the creation and implementation of inclusive policies within media organizations and policymaking circles, would help to ensure fair gender representation and promote diversity and equality.