Karen Boyle, Michael Higgins, Melody House, Fiona McKay
Key findings:
* Women of colour remain under represented relative to the population.
* Two-thirds of people in news stories with a Scottish angle were men.
* Women of colour were less likely than other groups to be quoted and more likely to be photographed.
* Only 1% of people quoted in newspapers were women of colour and the majority of WOC quoted were not based in Scotland.
* Women of colour were more likely to occupy the functions of personal experience and popular opinion than other groups.
* 80.9% of all people of colour in news stories with a Scottish angle were men.
In this first blog presenting the findings from the Pass the Mic General Election study, we focus on all the stories we coded within the study. If you haven’t yet read our blog about what we coded and why you can do so here.
Across the 7836 stories coded, white men continued to dominate the Scottish news media landscape.
In terms of who reportedthe news, men were 56.2% of all anchors, journalists and reporters in Scottish media stories, with women at 29.3% and for 14.5% gender was unknown (e.g. credited only as a Daily Mail Reporter). When we removed the stories authored by anchors, journalists or reporters whose gender or race was unknown, white men made up 64.5% of all recognisable individuals. Women of colour remained a marginal presence, making up only 1.1% of all recognisable anchors, journalists and reporters in our sample.
Of 317 newspaper commentary and opinion articles coded, 11 (3.5%) were written by women of colour. These numbers are too small to enable meaningful analysis, however, it is worth noting that six of these articles were from recurring columnists (four by Zara Janjua in the Scottish Sun on Sunday, two by Jean Johansson in Sunday Mail). Of the five remaining opinion pieces, two were in direct partnership with Pass the Mic – GP and Medical Educator Dr Sigi Joseph’s column for Scotland on Sunday and Ellie Koepplinger’s piece on the apathy of young voters for the Herald. A third, on the role of education in tackling the far-right for the Sunday National, was by primary teacher and lecturer Nuzhat Uthmani, who was in the Pass the Mic Writers Group in 2021.The remaining two opinion pieces were by Dr Idil Akinci-Perez from the University of Edinburgh (who is on the Pass the Mic database) and Myrtle Dawes, Chief Executive of the Net Zero Technology Centre.
Looking at who appeared in the news, men continued to significantly outnumber women: 66.7% of all people in our sample were men,[1] 29.4% were women and just 22 people (0.1% of all people in the news) were explicitly identified as trans, non-binary or in another way. White men again dominated, making up 61.4% of all people who could be categorised in relation to gender and race, whilst women of colour made up only 1.9% and men of colour 8.4%.[2]
The proportion of men of colour can largely be accounted for by the high profile accorded to just two men – Rishi Sunak and Anas Sarwar – in the election coverage.
The three media platforms we examined varied slightly. The most equal gender split was on television where 55.3% of anchors, journalists and reporters were men and 44.7% were women. Men of colour made up 1.9% of anchors, journalists and reporters and women of colour 3.0%. It is worth noting here that journalists and anchors have a far more prominent and visible role on television than in other media and broadcasters are far more attuned to gender equality in these roles. This suggests that broadcasters are making some progress towards their stated goals for gender parity, but there is still work to do. Indeed, when we looked at people in the news the picture was less encouraging with men at 65.3% of those whose gender was known and women 34.2%. Women of colour were 2.4% of those in the news in our sample; whilst white men made up 57.8%.
Stories on X and in print had broadly similar gender profiles: where gender could be determined, 70.4% of people in stories on X and 69.7% of people in stories in print were men. The proportion of women of colour in both media was also similar: X at 1.7%, print at 1.9%.
When we looked at who was quoted in election stories (focusing specifically on print news), the marginalisation of women of colour was even more marked. Just over 1% of all people quoted in our sample were women of colour – that’s just 61 women of colour in 3376 newspaper stories.[3] The woman of colour most often quoted in our sample was the English Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch (quoted in eight stories). Indeed, the majority of women of colour quoted were not themselves based in Scotland (only 25/61 were), despite the fact that we only coded stories with a Scottish angle. Interestingly, women of colour were concentrated in stories with multiple sources: in only 11 stories (0.3% of all stories) were women of colour the only source.
In our previous study, we found that women of colour were more likely to be seen than heard from in Scottish news. This pattern persisted in our Westminster election study (Figure 1).
Figure 1: percentage of people quoted and photographed by race and gender
Returning to the entire sample, we also looked at the function people play in news stories (Figure 2). Expertise is the most sharply gendered of all the functions we looked at, with men making up 71.9% of experts whose gender was identifiable. This is consistent with previous studies, including our own, though the male dominance here is more marked than in our previous work. Although experts were a relatively small proportion of those appearing in the news stories in our sample (just 3.2%), their views are often given particular weight and this is a key area in which Pass the Mic has sought to intervene with its database of women of colour experts. This database now has 263 women of colour whose expertise spans everything from museums to bioethics, violence against women and girls to Gaelic. Depressingly, however, there were only five women of colour used as experts in the entire sample (that’s just 1% of all experts) : two on TV (Professor Sudipta Roy from the University of Strathclyde and Talat Yaqoob from Women 50/50), one on X (also Prof Roy), and two in newspapers (Tessa Khan of advocacy group Uplift;Violetta Njunina, client director of CGA).
Personal experience and popular opinion are also categories over which media organisations exert considerable control. There were more people sharing personal experience (n=1514, 8.4% of all people in the news) and popular opinion (n=1309, 7.3% of all people in the news) in this dataset than in our previous study. This was partly a result of the extensive coverage of three topics – the election, Taylor Swift and Euros – which all generated numerous stories drawing heavily on the experiences or opinions of members of the public. Despite the relatively extensive coverage of Swift’s Edinburgh concerts where the audience skewed female, these categories remained male-dominated: 59% of those giving personal experience for whom gender was known, and 64.7% of those sharing popular opinion, were men. Thirty-two women of colour gave their personal experience (2.1% of all personal experience; 2.8% of those for whom gender and race were known) and 30women of colour gave popular opinion (2.3% of all popular opinion; 3.4% for whom gender and race were known). When we look at the proportion of different groups fulfilling these functions, it is striking that women of colour are more likely to occupy the functions of personal experience and popular opinion than any other group.
Figure 2: percentage of function of people in news by race and gender
To situate these findings, we can compare people in the news with census data to explore the extent to which the news reflects the population. The 2021 census found that 92.86% of Scotland’s population, and 81.7% of the population in England and Wales, identified as white. The overall proportion of people of colour in our dataset was marginally higher than in the Scottish population (at 8.9% of those whose gender and race are known), however, men of colour were disproportionately represented within that (80.9% of all people of colour) although – as we will see in a later blog – this can largely be accounted for by two men: Rishi Sunak and Anas Sarwar. This also clearly shows that women of colour remain under-represented relative to the Scottish population.
It is also worth noting here that whilst we focused on stories with a Scottish angle, this does not mean that stories were necessarily dominated by people based in Scotland. Notably, other studies of UK-wide news coverage in this period identified four people of colour – two men (Sunak and James Cleverly) and two women (Diane Abbott and Kemi Badenoch) – among the 20 most prominent people in the media election campaign. With all of this in mind, we might expect that a representative picture would be somewhere between the proportion of people of colour in the population of Scotland and that of England and Wales.
So, whilst our data also shows some evidence that Pass the Mic campaigners and writers are achieving a degree of visibility, these figures are a sobering reminder of the distance we have still to travel.
[1] For 681 people (3.8% of all people in the news) we could not identify gender: this was typically unnamed individuals who were identified by gender-neutral terms (e.g. a fan, a neighbour, a spokesperson).
[2] Race could not be determined for 2581 people (14.4% of people in the total sample): this was typically unnamed individuals, but the numbers here are higher than those for whom gender could not be identified because of the use of gendered terms such as spokesman.
[3] There were 5829 people quoted. For 1273 of those race and/or gender could not be determined (e.g. someone labelled only as a fan or social media user). Women of colour made up 1.3% of all sources whose race and gender was known.
[4] For 681 people (3.8% of all people in the news) we could not identify gender: this was typically unnamed individuals who were identified by gender-neutral terms (e.g. a fan, a neighbour, a spokesperson).
[5] Race could not be determined for 2581 people (14.4% of people in the total sample): this was typically unnamed individuals, but the numbers here are higher than those for whom gender could not be identified because of the use of gendered terms such as spokesman. [1] There were 5829 people quoted. For 1273 of those race and/or gender could not be determined (e.g. someone labelled only as a fan or social media user). Women of colour made up 1.3% of all sources whose race and gender was known.