News values and feminisms: a campaign for gender equality in Irish higher education

  • Elza Aparecida de Oliveira Filha Universidade Federal Tecnológica do Paraná
  • Lennita Oliveira Ruggi Universidade Federal do Paraná
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/cgen.67502
Keywords: género y periodismo, valores noticia, memoria feminista, igualdad de género en la enseñanza superior, media irlandesa, NUI Galway

Abstract

Since at least 2014, a feminist campaign is challenging gender inequality in Irish universities. Seven legal complaints initiated by female lecturers against the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI Galway) successfully placed the issue in the spotlight and culminated in the transformation of the national higher education policy. This article considers the news value mobilized in reporting the campaign. The aim is to investigate how the stories were picked and framed by newspapers, asking how feminisms are portraited and potentially co-opted by mainstream media. Data was gathered by searching the name of the litigants in digital archives from the two largest national daily newspapers (the Irish Independent and The Irish Times), as well as a local weekly publication (the Connacht Tribune). A sample of 111 texts is analysed based on Gislaine Silva’s news value typology. The results indicate the news value with greater incidence were conflict, collectivity and celebrity, revealing media events as crucial to disrupt the exclusion or dismissal of feminisms from journalistic discourse. The empirical research offers a fertile terrain to reflect on media depictions of contemporary feminisms as well as the politics of memory related to the suffragette movement.

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Published
2020-01-30
How to Cite
de Oliveira Filha E. A. y Oliveira Ruggi L. (2020). News values and feminisms: a campaign for gender equality in Irish higher education. Comunicación y Género [Communication and Gender], 3(1), 47-60. https://doi.org/10.5209/cgen.67502
Issue
Vol. 3 No. 1 (2020)
Section
Artículos

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