Current Event 2

 Summary

              Women are less likely to be in media everywhere in the world which reinforces harmful gender stereotypes. BBC has tried to have positive gender representation by taking more consideration about who they are putting in front of the camera and are trying to get to 50:50 gender representation. There are three ways that managers can help improve equality in representation: start with yourself, follow the data, and believe in other people’s ability to change.

Women represented in the media

            Women are only represented in the television, radio, and print news a quarter of what men are. A 2015 report showed that only 19% of experts in news stories were women and 37% were women reporters globally. Behavioral scientists study women’s underrepresentation in the workplace and have noticed that it reinforces harmful gender stereotypes.

BBC’s efforts to close this gender gap of representation in the media

             BBC has tried to have positive gender representation by considering who they are putting in front of the camera and are trying to get to 50:50 gender representation. BBC has 500 shows that have joined the 50:50 project. Surprisingly this project was started by a British white man, which caused some skepticism. Ros Atkins started this movement and in 4 months took the women on air to 50%. To understand the effects Harvard Business Review has “conducted over 35 hours of interviews with more than 25 journalists, producers, presenters, and top leaders at the BBC. We’ve found three key lessons that are relevant for any manager or leader aiming to shake up the status quo and improve diversity, equality, and inclusion in their organization.”

The 3 ways to increase diversity, equality, and inclusion in your organization

             The first way is to start with yourself. Ros Atkins and his colleagues believed that women should be represented equally in journalism, but they also realized that it was not possible. This is a very common problem in every organization because people might want to make the change, but they never really commit and make the change concrete. Ros Atkins believes that asking yourself “what can I do different” is the key to change. He talks about how psychologically the difference between bystanders and confronters. Bystanders usually don’t act because they are unsure of many things, such as, if they are the right person, if it is the right time, or if someone else will act. Confronter will act and make the needed changes. Ros Atkins was able to shift his team from bystanders into confronters. The newsmakers don’t have a lot of control over who is featured in stories; however, they do have a lot of control over the contributors, experts, and reporters. Atkins made his team focus on keeping track of the contributors and if they were meeting their goals. The main rule was to put the best person on the air regardless of gender, so they focus on women who were the best in their field.

             The second way is to follow the data. Atkins did not tell anyone about the project until his team proved it could be accomplished. This allowed any excuse to be dismissed because there was proof that it could be done relatively easily. Collecting data allows the team to see with real results how good of a job they are doing in regard to equal representation. Since the 50:50 data collection method is simple and does not take a lot of time, it is easy to implement.

             The third way is to believe in others' ability to change their behavior. BBC said they are not trying to change anyone but to encourage people to change themselves. It is their belief that people can change if they have the opportunity, tools, and support. It was not mandatory for teams to join the project, and nobody was rewarded or punished for joining or not joining. However, since top leadership supported this challenge many of the teams joined in.

             Conclusively this article has shown that it is possible and easy to include more women representation in media. This will allow the negative stereotypes to slowly disappear as more people see the positive and that lots of women hold the same roles as men are just as knowledgeable.

Reference

Rattan, A., Chilazi, S., Georgeac, O., & Bohnet, I. (2019, July 8). Tackling the underrepresentation of women in media. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved March 30, 2022, from https://hbr.org/2019/06/tackling-the-underrepresentation-of-women-in-media

 Link: 

https://hbr.org/2019/06/tackling-the-underrepresentation-of-women-in-media