Using Statistics
to Analyze Images in the Media
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By Oana Sacalus
"Duiliu Zamfirescu" School, Focsani,
Romania
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 |
The pupils of our class worked at
a statistics during December 1999, its subject being the personalities
who appeared on the front page of four papers, 3 of them national and a
local one. |
|
| The activity took place on a partnership,
together with Lavinia School Barcelona, Spain. There were 27 students
involved divided in 7 workshops. The first stage of the activity was collecting
the information from the newspapers. We used the nationals "The Event of
the Day", "The National Journal", "The Trough" and the local paper "Vrancea
Monitor". The data were organized and centralized in a chart. The third
stage meant the elaboration of the graphics and the interpretation of the
information. The fourth and last stage meant the final report and the information
exchange with the partner school from Spain.
We took into account 6 domains: Policy,
Economy, Sports, Society, Spectacles and others. The basic data were grouped
depending on sexes and there were registered by counting the personalities
that appeared on the first page either in photographs or in articles. Each
workshop organized the data in charts. The interpretation and comparing
of the data took place in the classroom, depending on the level of understanding
of our age. |
| Week |
First
Week |
Second
Week |
Third
Week |
Fourth
Week |
| Sex |
M |
W |
B |
M |
W |
B |
M |
W |
B |
M |
W |
B |
| News |
| Policy |
12 |
4 |
16 |
7 |
2 |
9 |
8 |
1 |
9 |
7 |
2 |
9 |
| Economy |
9 |
5 |
14 |
6 |
3 |
9 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
| Sports |
3 |
6 |
9 |
4 |
1 |
5 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| Society |
1 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
6 |
4 |
10 |
3 |
2 |
5 |
| Spectacles |
2 |
7 |
9 |
3 |
6 |
9 |
7 |
10 |
17 |
4 |
7 |
11 |
| Other |
14 |
9 |
21 |
18 |
11 |
29 |
21 |
16 |
37 |
11 |
14 |
25 |
| TOTAL |
41 |
33 |
74 |
40 |
26 |
66 |
45 |
31 |
46 |
27 |
26 |
53 |
|
| It was registered a number of 269
persons, 116 women and 153 men. The maximum number of women was registered
in the first week (33) and the minimum number in the second week and fourth
week (26). The maximum number of women was registered in the domain entitled
"Others" in the third week (16). |
| Days |
December
1- 31 |
| Sex |
Women |
Men |
Both |
| News |
|
| Policy |
9 |
34 |
43 |
| Economy |
8 |
19 |
27 |
| Sports |
8 |
8 |
16 |
| Society |
11 |
12 |
23 |
| Spectacles |
30 |
16 |
46 |
| Other |
50 |
64 |
114 |
| TOTAL |
116 |
153 |
269 |
|
| The domain entitled "Policy" was
a preoccupation to the media in the period of time that was mentioned because
the government was reshuffled and a woman was appointed the minister of
the social protection. |
 |
| The maximum number of men was registered
in the third week (45), and the minimum number in the second week (26).
In the respect of the activity domains, the maximum number was registered
in the domain named "Other" (21) and the minimum number at "Sports in the
fourth week.
It was noticed that in the last week
(the 20-26 December) the papers gave attention to other domains. This may
be due to the beginning of the winter festivals.
The maximum number of men and women
was registered at the "Others" category maybe because the diversity of
subjects, other than the first 5 proposed by us: |
Women’s
classification:
1. Others
(50)
2. Spectacles
(30)
3. Society
(11)
4. Policy
(9)
5. Economy
(8)
6. Sports
(8) |
Men’s
classification:
1. Other (64)
2. Policy
(34)
3. Economy
(19)
4. Spectacles
(16)
5. Society
(2)
6. Sports
(8) |
General
classification:
1. Other (114)
2. Spectacles
(46)
3. Policy
(43)
4. Economy
(27)
5. Society
(23)
6. Sports
(16) |
|
| It has been noticed the difference
between the preferences of the 2 sexes. Excepting the first place, women
prefer working on spectacles while men prefer policy, maybe?
We think that spectacles are not
the women's preferences or choice than the more serious politics or economy.
Our society creates different kinds of opportunity for women and man.
In our life there are many forces
that keep girls from having the same opportunities as boys while in our
school more girls than boys won a lot of prices in school subjects competitions.
This phenomenon can be explained by the opportunities offered by our society.
Young girls are not discouraged when
they look in the media and primarily see women in the less important roles.
They are convinced that they will be able to graduate the best schools
in Romania while they cannot anticipate the opportunities offered by life
itself.
This activity was helpful because
it connected us to the political, economical, social and cultural realities
of our country. In this way we were familiarized to collect, to assembly,
to classify and to explain significant information about this subject. |
