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The front page of the Toronto Sun displayed an image of Karla Homolka bruised and battered and read, ‘Bernardo Did This to Karla: Crown’. In 1993, Karla Homolka entered into a plea deal in exchange for the testimony against her then-husband Paul Bernardo. Though Homolka pled guilty to two counts of manslaughter, Canadian media outlets painted Homolka as a subservient and battered woman fearful of the abusive Bernardo's reprisal. Then, during Bernardo's trial, rumoured videotapes finally surfaced that exposed Homolka's seemingly wilful role in the gruesome murders of the young girls Kristen French, Leslie Mahaffy, and her sister Tammy Homolka. Although Tammy Homolka's death had been deemed accidental, her body was exhumed, and autopsy reports found lethal traces of sedative drugs in her system. While sedated, both Bernardo and Homolka raped her as she choked and died on her own vomit. After these videotapes surfaced, media representations shifted drastically – referring to Homolka's plea deal as ‘the deal with the devil’.

This chapter outlines the crimes committed by Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka – also known as the Barbie and Ken Killers. Furthermore, it employs a qualitative literature review to document the evolution in the media representations of Homolka and exposes the media's role in the creation of this ‘monstrous’ woman in Canadian history. As this chapter outlines the representational shift of Homolka in the media, it deconstructs the hegemonic notions of proper femininity that often characterise women as deviant. Moreover, from a social constructivist lens, the brutality of Homolka's crimes are considered and examined in the context of the normative ideologies surrounding ideal womanhood and sexuality. I will argue that by dismantling these socially constructed ideologies, the significance of Homolka's whiteness also becomes apparent. As Homolka seems to deviate from her whiteness, media depictions illustrate an incitement of hysteria. Thus, this article questions the validity of the media representations that once depicted Homolka as ‘the girl next door’ – who was acting in accordance with her whiteness – but also inevitably paint her as the ‘devil’.

This chapter explores how feminist and women-owned media/organisations in Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania navigated the impact of COVID-19. Three debilitating realities contextualise this study. The first is the fact that feminist media find themselves trapped in a global existential struggle following the steady collapse of traditional media’s economic models. Second, women’s owned media by their nature are marginal and undermined by hegemonic patriarchal power structures and third, COVID-19 spared no media. The pandemic devastated the media industry globally especially print, and community-owned media such as women’s owned media. The chapter is informed by political economy of feminist media theories with a main focus on principles of media viability. It draws from interviews with managers and senior reporters at leading feminist and women-owned media/organisations in the three countries. The findings shed light on how operations, human resources, content and financial sustainability were navigated and reshaped in a flawed health, political and socio-cultural systemic context that threatened to annihilate the case media. We highlighted the innovative solutions and resolve indicative of the resilience, determination and agency that these women-owned media/organisations exercised in the face of the crisis at the time, something others can learn from.

Over the past few years, the electronic media, as represented by the internet version of print media and independent blogs of journalists, has become a major player in the coverage of incidents related to violence against women. While this has brought forward issues of violence and specifically rape prominently into the public sphere, the media portrayal of women has often been as victims or victims who are somehow responsible for the violence against them. Such portrayal has been repeatedly challenged by feminists. Using data from 572 national and international English media reports for a six-month period (from December 2012 to April 2013) the coverage of the protests about the 2012 case of gang rape and eventual death of Jyoti Singh Pandey in India’s capital city, New Delhi, is examined in this chapter. Drawing from past research, three main frames are discerned in the portrayal of women in the reports: mainstreaming gender, endangered woman, and the ungendered woman. Media portrayals of these three frames by three broadly categorized actors most prominently covered by the media reports are analyzed: activists, state representatives or political actors, and ordinary citizens. The findings suggest that while some reports allude to women’s agency and rights particularly when they cover feminist activists, women’s agency is marginalized in the debates around safety and protection for women when other actors (such as state representatives or political actors, and ordinary citizens) are considered. Indian women’s rights have been reduced to passive messages negating the broader politics of the contemporary women’s movement.

This paper examines the treatment of women in Caribbean news media, their visibility in relation to men, the news topics covered and the issues that influence the inclusion or exclusion of women in the news.

The work is based on a quantitative content analysis. Data and analyses focus on the 2015 findings of a regional and global longitudinal study entitled ‘Who Makes the News’, conducted every 5 years since 1995 by the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), with active Caribbean participation. It is mainly the results of the 2015 Caribbean content analysis that is presented and considered here against the background of the prior data gathering cycles. On a single day, March 25, 2015, 120 newspapers, radio and television stations, internet and twitter news sites across the Caribbean region and globally were monitored for content and treatment by gender, across seven news topic categories.

The study found a continuing under-representation of women in news coverage, but on a differentiated basis by topic category, among others. Overall, there was a regional average of 28% of women in the news compared with 72% of men. However, while this confirmed a consistent gender disparity throughout the 20-year lifespan of the study, the 2015 results for the Caribbean reflected a three percentage points narrowing of the gap in favour of women when compared to 2010.

The empirical study on which the paper is based is only a snapshot in time and may not reflect the nuances that a broader data gathering timeframe and additional data gathering could provide. It also does not offer qualitative data on the definitive reasons for the results, leaving a basis for informed but nevertheless only conjectural author analyses as to reasons. At the same time, the longitudinal nature of the study allows for well-founded inferences associated with past findings and now predictable trends.

The findings and analyses in this paper disclose a continuing disparity that invites practical measures at the level of news organizations and journalists to redress the imbalance.

The results and analysis lend support to advocacy for greater gender balance in news coverage, more respect for female newsmakers and better newsroom coverage planning and inclusive policy-making.

The study shines a light on an important area of disparity in public life, but does so with the support of multi-country statistical and multi-year longitudinal data. It provides a yardstick by which changes in media overage can be measured and monitored over time.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the representation of women in Canadian broadcast news coverage, exploring the notion of substantive representation as it relates to gender, leadership and framing.

Using computer-aided text analysis software, the authors analyzed the frequency of women appearing in on-air roles, the way in which they are framed, as well as technical and expressive details, such as how they are featured. In total, the authors analyzed representation of 2,031 individuals in the four suppertime local news broadcasts from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Framed in an ecological model of complex social change, this paper focuses on understanding how women are presented in Canadian broadcast media.

This study finds that women are under-represented in Canadian broadcast media. Furthermore, it finds that women are less likely to be framed as leaders or experts and are less likely to hold news host or anchor positions. For all major news broadcasters analyzed, women are less likely to be portrayed positively or in leadership/expert positions and are more often represented as victims. They are less likely to appear on screen and are more likely to be referred to off-screen, paraphrased and cited rather than speaking for themselves.

By framing this study in an (critical) ecological, this study moved beyond required descriptive benchmarking to examine the degree of substantive representation of women. However, the sample of the study is only a snapshot of Canada’s largest city, and, therefore, more research involving further a comparative analysis of cities, a variety of print sources and online media outlets is needed. Future research might include more qualitative analysis of the representation, the type of representation and the factors affecting levels of representation. For example, such research might explore the practices in broadcast organizations, the way in which stories are framed and how guests selected. Also of interest is the relationship between women’s representation at the decision-making table, as an input, and the representation of women in on-air roles, as an outcome.

The implications of this article are important for understanding the complex factors affecting female leadership across sectors, particularly, the Canadian broadcast industry, the barriers they face and the strategies that may lead to their advancement.

This study moved beyond descriptive benchmarking to examine the degree of substantive representation of women by coding the frames, roles and means of quotation experienced by women on broadcast news.

This paper aims to analyze the research in this field on the portrayal of women and the effect this has on boards and corporate image, as well as to propose a theoretical framework for further research on the effects of media stereotypes. The theoretical model aims to analyze the media’s effect on female board members, and how this helps in the process of changing stereotypes or whether it consolidates existing preconceptions.

This paper reviews the existing literature on the subject and proposes a theoretical model for future research, contributing thus in opening a new line of research in the field of the roles of women on boards.

The conclusions reached will have important consequences for the future of women on boards in relation to three fundamental issues: the types of women that join boards of directors, the type of female profile companies search for and the roles women are expected to play on those boards.

The theoretical framework developed encourages corporate governance agents, business leaders and institution to reflect on potential gender biases.

The theoretical framework developed encourages corporate governance agents, business leaders and institutions and media agents to reflect on potential gender biases.

An important body of literature already exists showing how the portrayal of women can reinforce or eliminate barriers to access membership of a board of directors. There is also a solid body of literature showing the media’s effect on transmitting or changing preconceived ideas about women in business, as well as the potential impact of appointing them – through the influence of different stakeholders – on a company’s image. However, there has been little substantial research carried out on the media’s effect on gender diversity on boards.

Writings in the media have the potential to influence our standpoint and, thereby, our actions. In this paper, the authors analyze how women in family business are represented in media to understand the frames set by this discourse in terms of women owning and leading family businesses. The aim of the paper is to explore how the counterposed roles of business person and mother are presented in media and what implications this might have for role enactment.

The paper opted for an exploratory study of 308 articles about women in family business over a 15‐year period. In the interpretative, qualitative analysis of media texts, the discursive construction of the mother role and the business role are explored.

The paper provides empirical insights into how the mother role is taken for granted while the business role is approached as problematic in portrayals of women in family business. The authors discuss whether the media discourse reinforces traditional roles or stimulates role innovation.

Understanding role as something separate from the individual provides a means to critically review expectations of women in business and how these expectations hinder business activities.

The study examines data over a 15‐year period in the Swedish media setting and describes changes in attitudes about women's roles in family business. Regarding the family business as an arena for performative acts provides a perspective that can highlight the intertwinement of the private and professional arenas in family business.

The 2019 FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) Women's World Cup in France saw unprecedented levels of success for women's football. FIFA estimates that, for the first time, total global viewership of the tournament reached 1bn. During the tournament, the eventual champions – the United States – saw their midfield veteran, Megan Rapinoe, win the golden boot (top goal scorer) and the golden ball award (most valuable player). In addition to her exploits on the pitch, Rapinoe, one of numerous ‘out’ lesbian athletes competing at the Women's World Cup, also received an unprecedented amount of media coverage. In this chapter, we analyse British print media coverage of Rapinoe during the one-month period of the Women's World Cup (7th June–7th July) and the week after the tournament concluded. Our findings indicate that although Rapinoe is a polarising character, media coverage of her throughout the tournament was generally positive. We show this through Rapinoe as a ‘personality’, Rapinoe as ‘outspoken’ and Rapinoe as a role model.