Part of the Pass the Mic funded project
Pass the mic: Researching women of colour in Scottish news
As part of our work to amplify the expertise of women of colour in Scotland, we work with academics and researchers to monitor media at key news moment (e.g elections). We count the number of women of colour heard from on TV news as commentators, presenters and experts, as well as who gets to write in our newspapers. All of this influences public opinion, so women of colour should be represented fairly within it.
Below are blog posts with the latest data and methodology:
2024 General Election – What we measured
During the election we worked with researchers at the University of Strathclyde to conduct media monitoring to assess where women of colour were in the news. Read more.
2024 General Election – What we found
In this blog we provide details of the key findings, including: Women of colour were less likely than other groups to be quoted and more likely to be photographed. Read more.
2024 General Election – Mansplaining the election in Scotland?
In this blog researchers explain how over-represented men are in political newss. Just 19.6% of politicians in election stories were women. 1% were women of colour. Read more.
Pass the Mic: What we studied and why
Our study focused on Scottish news media over seven days from Monday 9th November 2020 and included television, newspapers, web news and twitter. Read in full.
A week in Scotland’s news
As in any news monitoring study, it’s useful to preface our findings by reflecting on the biggest stories of the week in question (9 – 15 November 2020) as they may produce distinctive patterns in findings. Read in full.
Where are the women of colour in Scottish news?
This blog presents some initial findings from our Pass the Mic research focusing on women of colour in the Scottish news media. As detailed in our previous blog… Read in full.
Where is Diwali in the Scottish news?
This weekend, many people will be celebrating Easter, along with some much-needed time off after passing the grim milestone of one-year in lockdown in the UK. We have become accustomed to pared-back holidays and, with that, the near constant stream of news about how restrictions might impact our celebrations. Read in full
Women of colour in news in and about Scotland – where are they?
In our first period of media monitoring for Pass the Mic – from 9-15 November 2020 – we focused on where women of colour appeared across all categories of news in Scotland. In our initial report, we noted that the majority of women of colour who appeared in our news media appeared in stories which were not about Scotland. Read in full.
Women of Colour – 2021 election coverage background
In this blog we outline the second stage of our media monitoring work. We analysed stories online, on TV and in newspapers during the week of the Scottish Parliment to investigate how many women of colour were making and participating in the news. This blog outlines how we did it and the overall influencing stories of the week. Read in full.
Women of Colour – still missing in election coverage
This blog presents some initial findings based on an analysis of 3843 stories across seven Scottish papers, twitter accounts and websites, and three television shows, during a nine-day period spanning the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary elections (1st-9th May). From it we see, women of colour remain under-represented and their expertise remain missing for critical election coverage. Read in full.
Symbols or agents? Women of colour in Scottish election coverage
The Scottish Parliamentary election in May 2021 saw more people of colour candidates than any previous Scottish election. It led tothe election of the highest proportion of people of colour in the Parliament’s 22-year history – but where were the women of colour candidates and elected MSPs in coverage and where was their agency to voice their own views? Read blog in full.
Refocusing the picture, and passing the mic: Analysing stories about the Delta Variant
ln this blog we analyse how the Delta variant has been covered across Scotland’s media; who was asked for their input, the prejudiced language often used and the images used to enage an audience. Dr Agomoni Ganguli-Mitra tell us about her experiences with media and why COVID19 coverage illustrates the importance of Pass the Mic. Read in full.