Who were the expert voices during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Male scientists were the dominant expert voices in the media during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa in 2020. Women professors accounted for only 30% of those quoted.

This is according to a study titled, ‘Expert voices in South African mass media during the COVID-19 pandemic’. It was undertaken by Dr Marina Joubert, a senior researcher in the field of science communication at the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) at Stellenbosch University; Professor Lars Guenther, Extraordinary Professor at CREST; and Lili Rademan, a doctoral candidate at CREST. It was published in the May-June edition of The South African Journal of Science.

The researchers indicate that scientists tend to recognise that media visibility allows them to gain influence in the public and policy landscape. “However, some scientists shy away from publicity and journalists are purposefully selective when they seek out experts to interview. This may result in a skewed representation of scientists in the mass media,” they point out.

They explain that, during a public health crisis, experts are needed to explain complex topics and contextualise news for the public. Such experts are typically highly accomplished and hold prestigious positions in the scientific world. For this reason, journalists rely on experts to add insight, credibility and news value to science-related mass media coverage.

The study by Joubert, Guenther and Rademan was the first of its kind to identify the most visible science experts in the mass media in South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. They used Pear Africa, a media monitoring company, to identify and download all stories containing the keywords ‘Corona’ and-or ‘COVID’. This was for the period from 7 January 2020 to 6 July 2020.

The study was conducted across nine major newspapers and five online news sites. The print publications were Business Day, City Press, Daily Sun, Engineering News and Mining Weekly, Financial Mail, Mail & Guardian, The Star, Sunday Times and You magazine. Online news organisation included Eyewitness News (EWN), Independent Online (IOL), Daily Maverick, News24 and TimesLIVE.

“This resulted in a data set of 14,991 print articles and 29,335 online articles related to COVID-19, adding up to a total of 44,326 articles.”

What did the study find?

In their analysis of the stories, they found 1,458 distinct voices of professors, representing 430 individuals. Most of the voices were counted from online (1,098) as compared with print news media (360). The majority of the distinct voices (professors quoted) were male (1,024.7), while female professors accounted for only 434 (30%).

Male scientists dominated print media, whereas female professors featured more in online media. Professor Salim Abdool Karim, the director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa, was quoted most often (11%); followed by Professor Shabir Madhi (6%), the dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand and Professor Glenda Gray (3%), the president and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council.

The other experts were from health sciences and medicine, economics and in one instance from the humanities. They were: Professor Cheryl Cohen (epidemiology) from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Professor Alex van den Heever (economics) (Wits), Professor Marc Mendelson (infectious diseases) from the University of Cape Town (UCT), Dr Charles Parry (psychology) of the Medical Research Council, the late Professor Lungile Pepeta (paediatrics) of Nelson Mandela University, Professor Francois Venter (virology) of Wits and Professor Raymond Parsons (economics) of the North-West University School of Business and Governance.

The researchers say: “Our study confirms the existence of gender and field imbalances regarding experts who were quoted in the South African mass media during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In terms of the field of expertise, they showed that voices from health sciences and medicine were present in 51% of the media content they analysed.

However, “We found that expertise from the social sciences was present in about one-fifth of the articles (21%) and this was not completely sidelined.” They point to scholars who assert that COVID-19 is a social emergency as much as a medical one, and that social science expertise is needed to ensure sufficient attention is directed to social issues, and to identify gaps in policy.

Academic workforce composition

They argue that the gender imbalance should be viewed in the context of the composition of the South African academic workforce.

Data from the South African Higher Education Management System for 2019 shows that, across the higher education sector in South Africa, 48% of all staff responsible for instruction and research were women.

Furthermore, 2020 data from the South African Knowledge base shows that female professors produced 40% of the publication outputs in 2020. These figures already point towards an under-representation of women in the academic environment, especially when considering academic outputs by professors.

“Our findings show that this under-representation (only 30% female voices among professors quoted) is further exacerbated in the mass media,” according to Joubert, Guenther and Rademan.

For the researchers, “This implies that gender and field disparities among media-visible scientists could lead to a skewed representation of expert opinion and power imbalances among scientists.”

In pursuit of an equal split

They refer to past research which indicates that female experts experience prejudices when they appear in media interviews, including the perception that they are judged on their appearance, rather than their expertise.

Research also reveals how the under-representation of female experts limits their power and influence and affects public perceptions. More negative consequences of excluding or downplaying female expertise in mass media coverage includes perpetuating “the notion that men are the only experts worth listening to and dampens the professional aspirations of girls and young women regarding careers in science”.

Previous research also shows that female scientists are frequently portrayed as tokens – as being unusual within competitive research environments, while male scientists are represented as belonging in their professional positions.

To add fuel to the fire, male scientists are in higher demand as expert media sources. A study in South Africa by Joubert and Guenther in 2017, revealed that 63% of visible scientists in South Africa – as identified by journalists – were men.

The researchers assert that it is, therefore, imperative to consider ways to address these gender and field disparities.

“We have ample evidence that media organisations and individual science journalists are keen and willing to help remedy gender imbalances in media coverage.”

What is clear, is that the problem cannot be solved by researchers or journalists on their own. “This issue needs to be addressed jointly by research institutions (and their public relations departments) along with researchers, journalists and media editors,” explain Joubert, Guenther and Rademan.

In the long term, initiatives working towards gender equity in academic leadership positions will increase the presence of female voices in the mass media. However, in the shorter term, institutions could make a difference by supporting and incentivising female experts for their media engagement work, and by profiling female experts.

As far as editors and journalists are concerned, it could help to make them more aware of the existence and effects of gender disparities in media coverage and help them to diversify their sources.

The researchers’ findings highlight the need to ensure that women in science are equipped with the confidence and skills to engage proactively and reactively with the mass media, and that they have the opportunities and support to do so. Nonetheless, there is corrective action needed for this challenge.

They refer to major publishers and science communication initiatives that are rolling out remedial initiatives around the world. A case in point is the BBC announcing that they were joining other media organisations to achieve a target of equal gender representation across all of the BBC’s programmes and sites.

This includes an equal split in how many men and women are interviewed on camera and quoted in stories. In South Africa, non-profit company, Quote This Woman+, is growing a database of female experts to promote the inclusion of women’s voices in the mass media, including female experts to appear on media panels, explain the researchers.

However, relationships between journalists and scientists are reciprocal. Being visible in the media helps scientists become influential in public and policy arenas. It also helps them attract research funding, assert the researchers.

They point out that scientists’ media visibility is influenced by their ability and willingness to take on the role of public expert and this has to tally with journalists’ selection criteria when identifying experts to interview.

From the perspective of journalists, the best sources are experts who are already visibly associated with a prestigious institution. Joubert, Guenther and Rademan refer to research that indicates that these experts “are also accessible, able to provide relatable and relevant comments, and cooperative in terms of media demands”.