Visual Representation of Gender in Morocco's Earthquake Coverage in International News Channel

Abstract

This study aimed at identifying the way of Media's framing of gender while covering Twitter official accounts for the international news channels concerning Morocco's earthquake. To achieve the study objectives. The researchers used quantitative and qualitative content-analysis approach by using MAXQDA software. Adopted in Ali (2014), where similar sample-selection way and analysis categories were used. The study’s findings indicate that Al-Jazeera account was the most publishing site to mixed images (males/ females) with a total of 22 images, whereas (CNN) account was the most publishing site to women's images with a total of 17 images. The results of image-analysis, according to the category, revealed that the most common category was “helplessness” with a percentage of 46%. The images of “weakness and sickliness” were identical for the mixed and women's images, whereas only one image was for men. This revealed that women have usually been amongst the weakest categories that were more exposed to risks in case of natural disasters, such as earthquakes and floods. Image analysis revealed that the means of media supports the idea that some housework tasks are exclusive for women, and that those tasks may increase in times of natural disasters. Some images revealed that women remain physically strong and attempt to overcome this disaster, where they could break the stereotypical view implying that women are helpless in times of crises.