Bridging the gap of representation of women in the Media – A conversation with Dr Yemisi Akinbobola on ”TVC Breakfast”

Recently, women in the media have begun to push the boundaries of representation across print, radio, and television. But there is still a significant gender gap in terms of the positions held by women and the beats they are allowed to cover.

As a guest on Television Continental’s (TVC) Breakfast Show, Dr Yemisi Akinbobola, a Senior Lecturer at Birmingham City University, Co-Founder of African Women in Media (AWiM), and an award-winning journalist, discussed these gaps and the immense  work done by AWiM in amplifying the voices of Women in the media. Explaining  AWiM’s role in bridging this gap, Dr Akinbobola said: “My organization looks at women in the media from two perspectives. One is the role they perform, including the opportunities they have to progress and their experiences with sources and audiences. The other is the perspective of African women as media content: the stories they cover and who is being presented as expert sources.”

Dr Akinbobola was  joined  by another quintessential broadcast journalist Anikeade Funke Treasure, the Creative Director of Yellow Bloom Consulting. a writer,  and a media trainer who is also championing the cause of  closing the gap in women representation in the media. She ascribed part of the problems of under-representation to the “ Male Gaze theory”  which explains that visual media is essentially created from a heterosexual male’s point of view by portraying women as objects and rarely from the position of power.

Catch up with the rest of this amazing conversation in this video.