Gender and the Media: Assessing the Visibility of Women in the Nigerian Press from Five Widely Circulated National Dailies

The mass media have been accused of inequality in gender representations from the continuous decline of female reporters to the stereotyping of women in news reportage and the exclusion of women in news source selection. The visibility of women in the Nigerian press was assessed by analysing the manifest content of an edition each of five widely circulated national dailies namely: Vanguard, The Guardian, Daily Sun, New Telegraph and The Nation, published in August, 2020. The purpose was to find out if the various accusations are justified. The study was hinged on the muted group theory which stated that women belong to the minority group in environments where men control power. The visibility of women in the Nigerian press was examined by checking the representations of women against their male counterparts through the by-lines, newsmakers, contributors, photographs, portrayal, beats, prominence and senior staff positions which made up the content categories where the units of analysis were drawn. Data collected were statistically presented in tables and graphs. The findings show that the male gender dominated with over 80% in every content category examined in each of the newspapers. The study concluded that there still remains an overwhelming gender gap in favour of the men in the Nigerian press. The women are the muted group and are almost invisible the print media. Therefore, the study recommended that the media should consider gender reforms and avoid the exclusion of women.