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This project employed two methods for data collection: a survey of media personnel, distributed online, and in-depth interviews with media executives conducted online through video calls. The two-method approach was designed to understand patterns of sexual harassment in newsrooms, and guage perceptions from officers with positions of power within media organisations.
The survey responses were anonymous and interview participants were assigned a pseudonym to protect their identity.
Data collection took place in October 2020 to September 2021. Surveys and in-depth interviews were conducted remotely to comply with COVID-19 regulations. All data collection was in local languages. The survey took an average of 19 minutes to complete. Interviewees were identified from media organisations that WAN-IFRA Women In News has engaged in different capacities (either through capacity building or advocacy) and executives from media organisations willing to engage in the discussion on sexual harassment (regardless of an existing relationship or not). The average interview lasted 40 minutes.
WIN is aware that the language around gender and sexuality continues to evolve rapidly, as it did while this report was being written. The refinement of words and their definitions is based on our understanding of how complex constructs related to sexuality and gender evolve.
In the research, participants were invited to select their identity as Woman, Man or Gender Nonconforming. The number of respondents who identified as nonconforming in this survey was small. This small sample should not mean their experiences are diminished. However, from a statistical perspective, it poses a challenge as it is difficult to find significant relationships from the data. Statistical tests typically require a larger sample size to ensure a representative distribution of the population and be considered representative of groups of people to whom results will be generalised or transferred. It was, therefore, essential to consider this. The data, however, shows that experiences of sexual harassment cannot be ignored for any group. Thus, while the numbers are small, we recognise this fact.
WIN acknowledges the profound diversity regarding size, development level, political, legal and economic system, geography, culture, and history within individual countries. This is why we have focused on regional patterns of sexual harassment experiences for this phase of the research.
When both verbal and physical harassment are being calculated for a visulasation, the combined verbal and physical percentages are used to calculate a mean average:
*total is equal to total of those who answered the questions.