Over the last decade, Indian television news has come to be associated with a lot of noise. News bulletins, panels, and talk shows all feature frenzied discussions, sensationalism, and verbal aggression. A new analysis discovered a gendered pattern in the inherent anger and sexism in these news shows. The report based on this analysis shows that more than half of all news shows studied contained some sort of aggressiveness, and male anchors were more likely than female anchors to engage in "aggressive masculinist" behaviours, such as disparaging their panellists.
The Network of Women in Media released a paper titled Staging Aggressive Masculinity earlier this week. To determine how masculinity is portrayed on Indian television, the researchers watched 185 news and chat shows across 31 stations in 12 languages. ABP Ananda, WION, CNN-News18, News 18 Bangla, NDTV Hindi, Republic, Saam TV, Odisha TV, Times Now, Kanak TV, and others are among these channels. The researchers backed up their findings with an examination of what happens on social media, specifically how toxic masculinity manifests itself in online debate.
Using violence (tone of voice, sound and visual effects) instead of facts, dominance (caste-based, religion-based, gender), and sexism in speech and behaviour are three typical motifs by which this masculinity thrives.
The report highlights these trends you must know about. When a male anchor moderated a news panel, aggressive masculinity was on exhibit in more than half of the cases — things like yelling over the panellist, body language, and even more shouting over one another.
“It was also observed that the anchor sometimes tried to exert dominance over the panellist’s viewpoints by paraphrasing their comments and interpreting different conclusions,” the report found. Only 15 per cent of panels moderated by women, on the other hand, showed similar displays.
The tendency appears to be more pronounced on talk shows, which are less format-constrained. Almost 85 per cent of the talk programmes studied showed signs of toxic masculinity, whether it was controlling others, employing an aggressive tone, or contemptuous language (all of which were indicators of "overt sexism"). When it comes to gender-sensitive terminology, female anchors were found to be more aware than their male counterparts, with 41.57 per cent versus 35.42 per cent.
Surprisingly, masculinist practises were common among both male and female journalists on panels. So, whereas 78.13 per cent of male anchors polled employed an aggressive tone while speaking, the number for female anchors was only slightly lower, at 75.28 per cent.
The report highlights how the media industry is established on certain fundamentals, one of which is that, despite rising female presence in journalism, it remains male-dominated. This has an impact on what becomes news and how it is presented. However, the data shows how journalists might be complicit in putting on a "masculinist" show. Through this journalistic performance, purported "masculine traits" such as "valour, strength, honour, and courage" are naturalised as "basically male."
The report suggests that this is not a critique of male journalists, “…but of the hegemonic and toxic associations of masculinity with aggression, dominance, misogyny and, ultimately, violence,” notes the report. Televised journalism has normalised aggressiveness and masculinity by praising bluster. It comes at a price. For one thing, it reaffirms the notion that "masculinity" and "power/dominance" are necessary components of "excellent" journalism.
This conduct, the report explains, inevitably leads to decreased diversity and representation in the television news industry as a whole. Onscreen toxic masculinity is, arguably, just the top of the iceberg. Gender-based oppression manifests itself in more poisonous and deeply embedded ways throughout the media production process. But, as the report suggests, acknowledging the problem is the first step toward really doing something about it.
One of the ideas NWMI makes is for all news channels to create an "Ethical Editorial Handbook," which might include a checklist "to grade journalistic performance and programming on a toxic masculinity scale." The report also calls for news outlets to have more diverse panels on talk shows. "It's critical to have a wider range of guests on panels and chat shows. Members of historically marginalised groups, such as those who have been marginalised because of their gender, caste, creed, and other identities, class, occupation, geography, handicap, sexual orientation, and so on, must be included."