Portrayal of Russian women in American network news

Date

1997-08

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Journal ISSN

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Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

A content analysis was conducted in order to determine current Russian/Soviet women portrayals in American network TV news and find out whether the change in these portrayals has occurred since the end of the Cold War. There were two specific periods measured in this study: Cold War (1968-1991) and post-Cold War (1992-1997).

The results suggested that evening network TV portrayal of Russian/Soviet women, the roles they play in the society, topic coverage and tone of the stories in which they were depicted, has changed since the Cold War ended.

It was hypothesized that Russian/Soviet women would be portrayed more in occupational roles in the post-Cold War period then in Cold War period. Additionally, there would be higher percentage of neutral stories, content of which is balanced and betrays no controversial intention, portraying Russian/Soviet women in the post-Cold War period than in the Cold War period. Finally, there would be higher percentage of human-interest stories, which include stories related to culture, marriage and family, health, environment, tourism, sports, and fashion and style, in the post-Cold War period than in the Cold War period.

The results showed that Russian/Soviet women were indeed portrayed more in occupational roles in the post-Cold War period than in the Cold War period. All three networks considered, 44.3% of Russian/Soviet women were depicted in occupational roles during the post-Cold War period, while only 32.4% of women were shown in occupational categories during the Cold War period.

There was a higher percentage of neutral (balanced) stories portraying Russian/Soviet women during the post-Cold War period than during the Cold War period. Fifty-five and four-tenths percent of the stories depicting Russian/Soviet women were neutral during the post-Cold War period while, during the Cold War period, only 24.1% of the stories were neutral.

It was hypothesized that there would be a higher percentage of human-interest stories (culture, marriage and family, health, environment, tourism, sports, and fashion and style) during the post-Cold War period than during the Cold War period. The results supported this assumption: 27% of these stories were shown during the post-Cold War period as compared to 20.5% during the Cold War period. However, the increase in human-interest stories during the Cold War period was not as much as expected.

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