Women, stereotypes and representations in communication. Gender roles in prime time news programmes in Cuba, Portugal and Spain

Abstract

This article summarises the main results of a research study on the role of women and the gender stereotypes present in the audiovisual communication panorama of Cuba, Portugal and Spain, represented in the prime time news programmes of the public television channels of these countries. An analysis is carried out both of the place played by women as communication professionals and, therefore, as message senders, and of their representation as image, from the study of the roles in which they are shown and the stereotypes manifested in the discourses transmitted. It is based on a bibliographic-documentary research that allows for the conceptualization of the main theoretical underpinnings of the subject, the definition of categories and the generation of an analysis guide that is applied to each broadcast. Two prime time broadcasts of the news programmes Noticiero Nacional de Televisión, Telejornal and Telediario, belonging to the public channels Televisión Cubana, Radio y Televisión de Portugal and Televisión Española, respectively, are taken as a study sample. On the basis of constant triangulation, the findings are contrasted and complemented with the characteristics of each country and the initial theory. It is concluded that in the news programmes analyzed, women have a significant presence as communicators and that there are representations of gender stereotypes; however, these are not the programmes where it is most recurrent.