Media gender equality regimes: exploring media organizations’ policy adoption across nations

This chapter contributes to our understanding of gender and media concerns by focusing on an under-researched aspect: the policy dimension. It addresses the nexus between the socioeconomic and cultural environments within which the media operate across the world, and the policies that have been adopted by media organisations to promote gender equality. In so doing, the chapter addresses the following questions: do contextual variables favour or hinder media organisations’ commitment to gender equality through the adoption of specific measures such as gender-sensitive policies? And, is it possible to identify patterns of policy adoption that may indicate different understandings of gender equality and gender mainstreaming, and signal the existence of different gender-equality regimes in the media sector worldwide? Building on previous findings from international studies that have investigated gender-equality policies adopted by media organisations, we then work through data from the Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media (Byerly, 2011) as a starting point for empirical investigation. The analysis focuses on 59 countries – representative of all world regions – and explores, through a cluster analysis, patterns of gender-related policy adoption by media organisations, as well as possible correlations between general socioeconomic, political, and cultural conditions and policy developments.