A Study on Women’s Voice as News Source in the Mainstream Newspaper of Bangladesh

Abstract

Women are being treated more equally and have more opportunities to explore themselves than ever before in the 21st century. Nevertheless, the scenario is still asymmetric for women in comparison to men, as women are still lagged behind in several aspects. Working on women's empowerment can be considered one of the major responsibilities of mass media. However, the male voice seems to be still in a dominating position when it comes to the discussion of the usage of news sources. This research aims to find out the ratio of men's and women's voices as news sources in Bangladesh's mainstream newspapers. This paper is prepared on the observation of the content of 'The Daily Prothom Alo', 'The Daily Star' and 'The Dailly Samakal'- three of the mainstream newspaper of Bangladesh in five specific areas as follows: Politics, Business, Sports, Health and Fashion. This study was conducted in Content Analysis and In-Depth Interview Methods. Researchers analyzed half-yearly content from January 2021 to June 2021. The paper concludes that all the five beats are heavily male-dominated since females are mostly unavailable in the ‘Sports’ beat and given exposure in the ‘Fashion’ beat.