West Visayas State University

College of Mass Communications

Iloilo City

AVAILABILITY OF GENDER-BIASED TOPICS IN THE FEATURE SECTION OF

THE PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER

Marianne Lin D. Pillado

Geline Joy D. Samillano

Chapter 1

The Problem

Chapter one has five parts, namely: (1) Background

and Theoretical Framework of the Study, (2) Statement of the
Problem and the Hypotheses, (3) Significance of the Study, (4)
Definition of Terms, and (5) Delimitation of the Study

Part One, Background and Theoretical Framework of

the Study, provides the background of study and the rationale for
the choice of the problem and presents the theory and the
operational framework of the study.
Part Two, Statement of the Problem and the
Hypotheses, presents the general and specific problems of the
study
Part Three, Significance of the Study, discusses
the benefits that may be derived from the results of the study.
Part Four, Definition of Terms, deals with the
conceptual and operational definitions of certain important terms
used in the study.

Part Five, Delimitation of the Study, gives the

scope and coverage of the study.

Background and Theoretical Framework of the Study

Gender has pervasive and fundamental consequences in all aspect
of life. In every society, males and females are different not
only in basic anatomy but in elusive qualities of spirit, soul
and ability. They differ in what they do, the way they think and
in the dreams they have. Around the world, gender is assumed to
reflect not only in anatomy, but in competence as well. It
indicates the paycheck, occupational opportunity and social
status (Bosow, 1992 in Cabarles and Palomar, 2007).
It is a growing cultural analytic concept of research today that
helps in the process of assessing the implications for women and
men of any planned action and promotes equality concerning it.
Learning, on the other hand, is fundamental to the development of
a person. It affects how a person socializes and interacts in the
natural environment for growing into maleness and femaleness.
Education has never been as essential as it is now that we are
moving into the 21st centurya world of increasing complexity and
variety of rapid and prodigious change. To fit in that world and
live completely, an individual has to build up ones coping
ability, to update and reinforce ones survival kit. But the full
flowering of ones potential and personality can be realized only

under certain conditions that make an equitable social order. One

vital condition is education. The lack of education shrinks an
individuals

horizons,

throws

roadblocks

to

ones

growth

and

closes doors to a person (Bragado, 1995 in Adorador & Delgado,

2007).
Through educating ones self, a person could
determine the difference between generating gender biases and
empowering gender equality. The first defines the unfair
differences in the treatment of men or women because of their
sex; the latter refers to the equal rights, responsibilities and
opportunities of women and men and girls and boys (United
Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs).
All psychological concepts of how gender roles are formed come
from what people learn; people acquire such concepts materials
that they watch or read.
The newspaper is a source of information in which people may also
learn from. Newspapers can influence what people may think.
Various questions have been raised in terms of reading materials
in the newspaper which influence gender determination,
discriminatory practices for or against a specific gender and
over-all gender role expectations.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) also known as Inquirer, is
the most widely read broadsheet newspaper in the Philippines,

with a daily circulation of 260,000 copies (Retrieved April 13,

2009 from Inquirer.net).
Through the years, PDI was able to maintain its image such that
reflected in the institutions slogan: Balanced News, Fearless
Views. Adhering to these principles, PDI has stretched its arms
to leading the AGB Nielsens recent survey of the most widelyread newspaper in the Philippines (Retrieved April 13, 2009 from
agbnielsen.net) and has become a member of one of the reputable
news wire in Asia, the Asia News Network (ANN).
However, in spite of its efforts in remaining to be balanced and
fearless in reporting the news, PDI was entangled with words
bias, malice, and fabrication by former Philippine
president Joseph Erap Ejercito Estrada (Retrieved April 13,
2009 from http://www.newsflash.org/ 1999/07/pe/pe000828.html).
The former executive accused PDI with such because of the
misuse of press freedom and the exercise of power without
responsibility (Retrieved April 13, 2009 from
http://www.newsflash.org/1999/07/pe/pe000828. html).
The issue being linked to PDI by deposed president Estrada is
among the many issues coined in the media.
Gender disparities in media, for instance, have received much
attention among others. The issue includes inequities in the
topics of articles and in the news treatment.

According to Lucinda Marshall, a female gender bias peace

advocate, the media continues an unfortunate scene with all the
prevalence of gender bias in reporting.
She added that such gender disparities in media correspondence
can only damage and form misogynist implications.
Gender-biased materials can impart values that can influence the
readers. In addition to stereotypic presentations of men and
women, bias can be conveyed in the frequencies that men and women
are portrayed in case scenarios or as models, or in the amount of
attention directed to situations more common to men vs. women.
In a survey conducted by Columbia Universitys Women, Men, and
Media (CUWMM) in 1994, women reporters wrote only 33% of the
front-page newspaper stories about male biases and appeared in
the same percentage of front-page pictures. Just 21% of network
news was reported by the same women, and only 24% of those
interviewed for nightly news shows the same.
Nevertheless, according to Adam Jones (2006), biases in media
reporting depend on individual biases (Retrieved April 13, 2009
from http://mysite.verizon.net/jackkammer /nieman. html). Such
biases in reporters are also effects of discrimination in various
other fields, politics, for example.
In eliminating such disparities in reporting and to insure more
balanced coverage on the specific social issue, Jack Krammer
(2006) states such solutions, journalisms professional

conventions should include workshops and presentations that

recognize gender bias against men. Journalism schools and
associations should educate their students and members to be as
aware of anti-male bias as they are of any other kind.
Armin Brott (2006) explains that: all of us in the media need to
recognize the inconsistency and bias inherent in giving women
surplus visibility in areas where they have been victims or
historically silenced, but limiting men to proportional
coverage in areas when they are victims or where they have
historically been silenced.
The most important, according to the director of Mens Rights
Inc. Frederic Hayward (2005), writers and editors need to
remember the incredible power of their pens.
Every society, I now realize, has its tabooseven those that
seem as permissive as Americas, writes The New Republic editor
Andrew Sullivan (2006). Journalists are actually the guardians
of many taboos. They determine what is said and how; they frame
the parameters of public debate. They help sustain the fact that
debate in a democracy tends to be less about truth than about the
appearance of truth; not about arguing, but about posturing.
This study will be anchored on the Agenda-Setting Theory of Mass
Communications.

Agenda-setting theory states that the mass-news

media have a large influence on the audience by their choice of
what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and
space to give to them. Agenda-setting is the creation of public
awareness and concern of salient issues by the news media and the
ability of the mass media to transfer importance of items on
their mass agenda to the public agenda.
Furthermore, this theory by McCombs and Shaw (1972)
explains the correlation between the rate at which media will
cover a story and the extent that the people think that this
story is important. This correlation has repeatedly shown to
occur (Maxwell & Shaw, 1999). Although different people may feed
differently by about the issue at hand, most people feel the
issue is important.
The agenda-setting theory will be applied in this
study through the emphasis that will reflect by the given medium
on certain issues or topics in order to form strong inputs on
readers minds.

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to find out the availability of
gender-biased topics in the feature section of the Philippine
Daily Inquirer.

Specifically, the answer to the following questions

will be sought:
(1) What is the extent of the availability of gender-biased
topics in the feature section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer?
(2) What are the representations of males and females in the
feature section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer?
(a) Are the males and females equally represented?
(b) What percentage of feature articles is devoted to males and
females?
(c) Do articles considered gender appropriate receive more
coverage than those which are not?
(3) How males and females are described in the article in terms
of description?
(a) Do articles comment on females appearance more
than the males?
(b) Do articles comment on females emotional
responses more than the males?
(c) Are the females personalities framed
differently than males?
(d) Do articles and photos depict females as active
rather than passive?
(e) Are males and females depicted engaging in the
same kinds of activities?
(4) How is gender-bias reflected in terms of reporting?

(a) Are female reports assigned to cover womens

events more than mens?
(b) Does the gender of the reporter correlate to
the incidence of gender bias in reporting?
(c) Does article placement and visual prominence
trivialize females?

Significance of the Study

Through the findings of this study, certain group
of people may benefit in terms of the following contexts:
The readers. They will be made to know the
availability of gender-biased topics in the feature section of
the Philippine Daily Inquirer. This study will also be helpful in
giving them an overview regarding the existence of gender-biased
topics, as a human rights violation, to be able to give them an
idea on the extent of availability, the Philippine Daily
Inquirer, are publishing on their feature section.
The media practitioners. They will be able to curb
the promotion and further publication of gender-biased topics in
their write-ups and coverage.
The students. They will be aware regarding the
availability of gender-biased topics in the print media like the
Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The future researchers. They study will serve as

reference for future researches.

Definition of Terms
For the purpose of clarity and precision, the
following terms are conceptually and operationally defined:
Availability--a condition of being present and
ready to use, especially of being easily accessible or
obtainable.
In this study availability refers to the content
(whether a targeted message or other information) that is
delivered or placed where the audience can access it or the hand
facts and details of the subject of the study.
Feature Section--a part of a newspaper, which may
be any story that is most varied in scope, treatment, and
purpose; it may supplement the news, entertain, explain, invoke
sympathy and may inform.
In this study feature section refers to the section
of the Philippine Daily Inquirer to be analyzed for gender-biased
topics are being written and are attributed.
Gender-biased topics--a subject or theme which revolves on
attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of
social roles based on gender.

In this study gender-biased topics refers to

feature articles that have topics that glorify one gender only.
Philippine Daily Inquirer--the most widely read
broadsheet newspaper in the Philippines, with a daily circulation
of 260,000 copies.
In this study Philippine Daily Inquirer refers to the medium
where articles containing available gender-biased topics can be
found.

Delimitation of the Study

This study aims to find out the availability of
gender-biased topics in the feature section of the Philippine
Daily Inquirer.
This study will use the descriptive method of research using
content analysis to investigate the availability of gender-biased
topics in the feature section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
This study will be conducted on the semester of
Academic Year 2009-2010, in Iloilo City.
The researchers will use articles, which will be
printed in the daily broadsheet, the Philippine Daily Inquirer,
to gather the data needed for the study. The researchers will
analyze the extent of availability of gender-biased topics in the
feature section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. In addition,
the researchers will note down the scopes or themes of the

article as well as the treatment of the writer to the different

information published in the feature section of the said
broadsheet.
The subject of this study will be the content
(whether a targeted message or other information) on genderbiased topics that are present in the feature section of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer.
A tally sheet will be used to gather data.
For statistics, frequency, percentage and ranks will also be used
in this study.

Chapter 2

Review of Related Literature

Chapter two has 2 parts: (1) Related Studies on Gender-bias and

(2) Related Studies on Media as Enforcer of Gender-bias.

Part one, Related Studies on Gender-bias, refers to

the literature related to gender bias.
Part two, Review of Related Studies on Media as
Enforcer of Gender-bias, covers results on studies related of
media as enforcer of gender bias.

Related Studies on Gender-bias

Sex stereotyping, possibly the most effective propaganda
instrument of the status quo, is among the most firmly entrenched
obstacle to the elimination of discrimination and is largely
responsible for the demigration of the role and potential of
women in society. Traditional male or female roles have been
deeply ingrained and glorified in the language, education, mass
media, advertising and the arts (United Nations Department of
Public Information, 1991 in Adorador & Delgado, 2007).
The negative stereo-types have been identified as (1) womans
place is in the home, (2) the most important and valuable asset
is physical beauty, (3) a womans energies and intellect must be
directed to finding the right man and in keeping him, (4) women

are dependent, coy and submissive. They are masochistic in their

response to indignities on them, (5) the good woman is a
traditional housewife, (6) women are womens worst enemies
(Adorador & Delgado, 2007).
In the content analysis study of textbooks by Blumberg et.al
(2008), it indicated that studies from the full gamut of
developing and developed countries find that females tend to be
greatly underrepresented and both males and females depicted in
such gender-stereotyped ways, that girls and boys visions of
who they are and what they can become are constrained. In the
textbooks analyzed, whether measured in lines of text, proportion
of named characters (human or animal), mentions in titles,
citations in indexes, and so forth, females were
underrepresented. Moreover, both genders were shown in highly
gender-stereotyped ways in the household as well as in the
occupational division of labor, and in the actions, attitudes and
traits portrayed. (To wit: women were accommodating, nurturing
drudges; girls passive conformists, and boys and men did almost
all the impressive, noble, exciting and fun things and almost
none of the caring, or feminine acts or jobs.)
Blumberg concluded that gender bias in textbooks is hidden in
plain sight. And that the stereotypes of males and females are
camouflaged by the taken-for-granted system of gender
stratification and roles. Gender bias in textbooks proves to be

more widespread geographically than the remaining gender gap in

parity.
In the study of Leo and Cartagena (1999), they
found that despite efforts to draw attention to the need for more
gender-equitable educational materials and journal articles in
the late 1980s and early 1990s, several of the texts reviewed
analyzing their study, although published between 1994 and 1995,
continue to display gender bias. The trends observed in the study
are not unique to psychiatry and may reflect broader social
biases.
In the related study by Kian (2004), findings
from previous media content analyses indicated articles would be
more likely to describe female athletes with descriptors on their
physical appearances/attire, family roles/personal relationships,
athletic weaknesses/limitations, negative skill level/failures,
psychological/emotional weakness or through the use of humor. In
contrast, based on previous research, assumptions were made that
articles would be more likely to describe male athletes with
descriptions of their athletic prowess/strengths, positive skill
level/accomplishments and psychological/emotional strengths (Kian
et.al, 2008).

Related Studies on Media as Enforcer of Gender-bias

In a democratic society such as ours, the press plays the role

of a watchdog. It is called the fourth estate, with the function
of fiscalizing the three co-equal branches in a republican form
of government; namely, the executive, the legislative and the
judiciary.

Because

of

this

function,

the

press

has

to

be

adversarial in nature. It has to report, without fear or favor,

the shenanigans in government; abuses or mal practices of public
officials and how funds are being spent (Malinao, 2003).
The power of the press has long been recognized, accepted and
supported.

Thomas

politician,

Babington

noted

that

Macaulay,

the

Engligh

galleries

in

historian

parliament

and

where

reporters sit have become the fourth estate of the realm. In

1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote: The basis of our government being
the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to the
right, and where it left to me to decide whether we should have a
government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I
should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. Aware of the
possible abuse by those in power, the framers of US Constitution
provided

complex

system

of

checks

and

balances:

Congress

watches the President; the Supreme Court watches both; and the
press exposes all their discoverable secrets (Panganiban, 1998
in Baculina & Alcantara, 2008).
The

global

mass

media

as

well

as

the

technological

infrastructure, which underline their operations, are instruments

of

power.

This

power

dimensions,

as

markets

governments

are

has

economic,

are

installed

political

penetrated,

or

and

destabilized,

and

culture

controlled,
and

as

as

consumer

conditioned and homogenized to suit the end of global monopolies.

This power in awesome, given the increasing concentration and
conglomerization

of

corporate

interests

involved

not

only

in

media but also in microelectronics, arms many manufacturer, and

other

strategic

economic

sectors.

In

computer

age,

the

communications revolution is upon us, but it is the information

rich

and

the

informationpoor

internationally

and

rationally

(Braid, 1991 in Baculina & Alcantara, 2008).

A fairly substantial literature suggests that
news media cover the campaigns of men and women candidates
differently.
Changes in the type of newspaper content provided
by influential national publications such as The New York Times
may affect the type of coverage given to similar content by many
other newspapers.
A number of women politicians are very reluctant to admit
that they have been voted in position largely because their
family wield either political or economic or both, and because
they have been chosen to carry on the role of their male kin
(Gumba, 2000).

In Kians study examining stereotypes in two

national newspapers (The New York Times and USA Today), most of
the related studies found on broadcast commentary of the event
(March Madness), the study was based, exhibited gender bias and
reinforced gender-specific stereotypes. Generally, male athletes
were praised for their athleticism. In contrast, broadcasters
often devalued the accomplishments and skill-level of female
athletes. Several studies found similar results when examining
newspaper coverage of female athletes in sports historically
construed as more masculine in nature.
There are two major themes in research on media
coverage given to female sports: exclusion and trivialization.
Sport media exclude female athletes by rarely covering womens
sports. In addition, when sport media members do cover womens
sports, they often trivialize the female athletes by comparing
their abilities to men, minimizing their accomplishments or
describing them as sex objects. Sport media members are also more
likely to elaborate on the personal lives and use humor when
describing female athletes.
Women in sports receive more coverage in select
individual sports thought by some to emphasize more traditional
feminine qualities, such as grace, balance and beauty. In
contrast, male athletes receive a particularly higher percentage
of coverage in sports like American football and basketball that

are thought to emphasize more traditional masculine qualities,

such as strength, speed and endurance. The most interesting
finding was that reporters from both The New York Times and USA
Today were more likely to use descriptors on physical appearances/attire and personal relationships/family roles when
writing about mens basketball. This contradicted previous studies, the vast majority of which found descriptors on physical
appearances or personal lives used more often in media commentary
on women in sport.
Most analyses of newspaper sports coverage have
shown significant gender differences in content. A seminal
article by Duncan, Messner and Williams studied the amount of
coverage given to female and male athletes by four U.S.
newspapers. Duncan et al. found stories on mens sports outnumbered those pertaining to womens sports by a ratio of 23 to 1.
A pair of research studies have been published
that specifically examined coverage of mens and womens sports
in both The New York Times and USA Today. In their examination of
the coverage of a variety of sports at different levels, Eastman
and Billings found mens sports received almost five times more
space than womens sports in USA Today and 10 times more space
than was allotted to womens sports in The New York Times.
Descriptions of female athletes from the Olympic Games reinforced
dominant ideologies about gender in society. (The authors found

media content often deemphasized task-relevant aspects of maleappropriate sports, including basketball, when writing about
female athletes performance.) Instead, the content focused more
on aspects that have no effect on performance, such as physical
appearances. Eastman and Billings examined a sample from all
sports content in The New York Times and USA Today, while Jones
et al. specifically looked at content on four womens sports
(Kian et.al, 2008).
In a related study conducted by Atkeson et.al,
they extended existing research on the difference in the news
media coverage on the campaign of men and women mayoral
candidates. They analyzed the contents of newspaper coverage of
recent mayoral elections in Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Dallas
and Seattle. The study suggested that press coverage is less
biased at the local level. They also found that the presence of a
woman on the ballot expands the range of issues discussed in
local campaigns in ways favorable to perceived strengths of
female candidates (Atkeson, 2004).

Chapter 3

Research Design and Methodology

Chapter 3 has five parts: (1) Purpose of the Study and Research
Design, (2) Subject, (3) Data-gathering Instruments, (4)
Procedure and (5) Statistical Data Analysis.

Part One, Purpose of the Study and Research Design, describes the
research employed and the variables considered in the
investigation period.
Part Two, Subject, describes the respondents, or subject/s of the
study.
Part Three, Data-gathering Instruments, describes the datagathering instrument utilized to gather the data for the study.
Part Four, Procedure, elucidates on the procedure observed in the
conduct of the investigation of the study.

Part Five, Statistical Data Analysis, specifies the statistical

tools used to analyzed and utilized to gather and obtain data for
the study.

Purpose of the Study and Research Design

This study aims to determine the availability of
gender-biased topics in the feature section of the Philippine
Daily Inquirer.

The descriptive method of research using content

analysis will be employed in the study.
Content Analysis is a research method conveying
less problems of inference since the research question can be
answered directly from the manifest description of communication
content, the validity does not require comparison with the data
outside those under analysis (Mayning, 2000). Content Analysis
could be a more suggestive research method because it is
motivated by the search for technique to infer from symbolic data
that would be either too costly or too obtrusive by the use of
other techniques (Stemler, 2001). It is a systematic technique
for analyzing message content and message handling. It is a
research tool for observing and analyzing the overt communication
behavior of a certain communication (Bautista et al., 1998).
To be described/analyzed in this study will be the articles that
will be printed in the feature section of the Philippine Daily
Inquirer that will contain information on gender-biased topics.
A tally sheet will be use in gathering the data that will be
derive from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a national daily
broadsheet.

Subject

The researchers will gather data on the

availability of gender-biased topics in the feature section of
the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The primary subject of this study will be the article printed on
the Philippine Daily Inquirer that has available information on
gender-biased topics. The Philippine Daily Inquirer will be the
main source of information of the data that will be use in this
study.

Data-gathering Instrument
To aid in determining the extent by which available
gender-biased topics are present in the feature section of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer, a tally sheet will be prepared to
record the phenomenon under investigation.

Procedure
After the researchers have identified the newspaper
as their subject, they will subscribe to the daily issues of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer to obtain the data needed for the
study. All copies of the said newspaper will be filed and
analyzed.

Data Analysis

The data that will be obtained from this study is subject to the
statistical tools, which will be use, such as: frequency counts,
ranks and percentage.
Frequency counts. Frequency counts will be use in
this study to determine the number of articles touching on the
available gender-biased topics that will appear on the feature
section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Ranks. Ranks will be use in the study to find out the order of
the available gender-biased topics in the feature section of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Percentage. Percentage will be use in this study to know the
extent of availability of gender-biased topics in the feature
section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.