REPRESENTATION MATTERS: A LONGITUDINAL LOOK AT GENDER DEPICTIONS IN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STYLEBOOK
Open Access
- Author:
- Bien-Aime, Steve Lori
- Graduate Program:
- Mass Communications
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 08, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Marie Hardin, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Marie Hardin, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
James Ford Risley, Committee Member
Colleen Connolly-Ahern, Committee Member
Kevin J Hagopian, Outside Member - Keywords:
- Gender
journalism
editing
critical discourse analysis
stylebook
Associated Press - Abstract:
- The Associated Press Stylebook serves as the foundation for many style manuals throughout U.S. newsrooms. Stylebook entries often provide historical facts and data about phenomena, in addition to demonstrating proper usage or explaining grammar rules. The Stylebook also attempts to present itself a journalistically objective book as it seeks to reflect common language usage and societal values. A critical discourse analysis of the entry titles, examples, and explanations in five Stylebooks (1977, 1987, 1997, 2007, and 2014) revealed that the Stylebook mirrors journalistic practices in a few ways. The Stylebook focuses its entries and references primarily on hard news, an area feted within mainstream journalism. Additionally, the Stylebook favors men in terms of language rules. However, this preference and the heavy use of male exemplars could be seen as journalistically objective because they show that common language often defaults toward men and that men dominate in hard news sectors such as politics, business, and the military. The Stylebook also replicates the cultural norm of a gender binary, i.e., there are only men and women. For now, Stylebook rules do not favor gender neutrality in cases where a person’s gender is known. However, the Stylebook rulings and depictions are not static. The Stylebook has been revised many times in the past 37 years. These changes illustrate U.S. society’s shifting viewpoints on gender and sexual orientation. A strength of critical discourse analysis is in its prescriptive nature — in the ways it illuminates the potential for a text to better align with progressive cultural values. The final section notes places for stylistic improvements for both Stylebook editors and journalism as a whole.