The FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand came to an end not long ago. Over recent years, women’s soccer has gained in popularity, and consequently in media coverage. Diverse, comprehensive reporting results in greater attention – and that applies whether women or men are the focal point. During the women’s soccer World Cup, the Blick Group published 236 articles, which attracted an impressive total of 7.4 million page views. With much of the reporting on the World Cup appearing in the second half of the year, this will only be included in the full-year EqualVoice Factor review.
EqualVoice – from Swiss initiative to international movement
The media houses that participate in the EqualVoice initiative have a similar interest in achieving a balanced representation of women and men. The EqualVoice Factor now encompasses 32 titles with a combined reach of 50 million readers in seven countries, including Switzerland, Germany, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. Using a semantic algorithm, the EqualVoice Factor calculates the ratio of men and women in images, headlines and videos within the articles of participating media brands.
EqualPYXX
The EqualPYXX Photo Challenge was launched a few weeks ago, in collaboration with Keystone SDA and womenbiz ag. The EqualPYXX Photo Challenge calls on photographers to use their images to examine gender stereotypes and thus challenge traditional gender roles. The project aims for photos that show women and men in authentic everyday situations – a step in the direction of greater realism and diversity in the images circulating in Switzerland. The first entries are promising.
Development of the EqualVoice Factor in the first half of 2023
In the first half of 2023, the print editions of Beobachter, Bilanz, Blick, Handelszeitung, Schweizer Illustrierte, TELE and GlücksPost were joined in the study by LandLiebe, L’illustré and SonntagsBlick. It is to be said that the Body Score – which measures mentions of women and men in the body of articles – rose at all Ringier and Ringier Axel Springer Schweiz publications , which were measured for the second time. The greatest increase in the Body Score – 2.6 percentage points – came with Schweizer Illustrierte. Overall, the publications L’illustré, LandLiebe, Beobachter, Schweizer Illustrierte, TELE and GlücksPost boasted an impressively balanced ratio of representation between men and women, with Body Scores between 44.8 and 53.9 percent.
The Teaser Score online
Online, all titles improved their Teaser Score – which maps the visibility of women in images, headlines and titles – with the exception of the German-language edition of GaultMillau. Business and finance portal cash boasted the strongest increase, with 10.4 percentage points. Beobachter reached the highest Teaser Score, with a significantly higher focus on women – 60.2 percent – than men. The titles L’illustré and the French-language edition of GaultMillau were included for the first time.
Video Score at Blick
The Video Score has only been used on one medium to date: Blick. Encouragingly, the first survey showed near-balanced representation of women and men in videos, with 43.4 percent.
Teaser Score in Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia
For the first time, the Equal Voice Factor was calculated for Ringier titles in Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia. The Teaser Score – which measures the visibility of women in images, headlines and titles – was highest among lifestyle media Glamour.hu, Egeszsegkalauz, Kiskegyed and Ruzs, with values between 51.8 and 75.8 percent. The platform for young people Noizz also achieved a solid 42.9 percent. The daily newspaper Blikk, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary, achieved a score of 36.8 percent. Similar results were recorded in Serbia. The lifestyle portals Puls Online and Zena Plus reached high Teaser Scores of 63.6 and 65.5 percent respectively, while the news portal Blic scored 40.6 percent. Zive in Slovakia reached 20.4 percent.
Outlook
In November, the new EqualVoice magazine comes out. As a highlight before Christmas, the EqualVoice book Das EqualVoice Mindset – Wie man jede Stimme hört (The EqualVoice Mindset – How to Hear Every Voice) will be published as a practical guide to dealing with the gender visibility gap with tips for editorial teams of all sizes. The book will include examples from real-life situations, exclusive insights from industry experts, academics and practitioners in the field, and a deep dive into the issue of stereotypes in AI.
Ringier AG, Corporate Communications
About EqualVoice
The initiative was launched in November 2019 by CFO Annabella Bassler and is chaired by publisher Michael Ringier and CEO Marc Walder. The aim of the initiative is to promote gender equality and make women more visible in the media. Central to this is the EqualVoice Factor survey. Other EqualVoice projects include the Expert List, Ringier’s internal research tool for finding female experts, the EqualPyxx photo challenge, which aims to generate images with more diversity, and the “Fit4Media” workshop for female experts, which supports women in expressing their expertise even better. www.equalvoice.ch
About Ringier
Ringier is a Swiss media and technology company. The Group comprises around 140 companies in 19 countries, which operate a range of leading media brands, digital platforms, and marketplaces. Almost 80 percent of the operating profit comes from the digital business. This makes Ringier one of the leading media companies in Europe. The family business has been based on entrepreneurship, cooperation, innovation, trust and courage for 190 years. www.ringier.com