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A broken mirror?
From representation to presentation of
gender in Scandinavian news media
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN,I LINE SCHMELTZ,I & JACOB V. SIMONSENII
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abstract
Across Scandinavia, one can witness a situation where gender equality has previously
been at the forefront of the political and societal agenda, but where progress now seems
to be slowing down. The news media is a domain where this negative development is
particularly pronounced, and several studies have established that the Scandinavian
news media display a more unequal gender representation than the society they
supposedly mirror. In this article, we report on an ongoing cross-Scandinavian research
project on news media content, where we explore not only the traditional metrics of
how many men and women are in the news, but also, more importantly, how women
and men are portrayed in news media content. The study demonstrates significant
gender discrepancies, echoing findings from previous studies on the quantitative
representation of women and men, and, more importantly, it introduces presentation
as an additional qualitative metric. Consequently, we contribute with an analytical
framework involving a range of qualitative parameters through which the news media
industry can comprehensively evaluate gender equality within their content.
k e y w o r d s : gender representation, gender equality, journalism, news media,
qualitative gender presentation
Kjeldsen, A. K., Schmeltz, L., & Simonsen, J. V. (2024). A broken mirror? From representation to
presentation of gender in Scandinavian news media. Nordic Journal of Media Studies, 6(1), 81–109.
https://doi.org/10.2478/njms-2024-0005
Nordic Journal of
MEDIA STUDIES
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN82
Introduction
The interest in the representation of women and men in the news is not new,
especially not in a Scandinavian context. Over the years, numerous studies and
reports have disclosed how equal representation between genders in the news has
not yet been achieved (Asr et al., 2021; GMMP, 2020; Kassova, 2020; Manilla,
2017; Niemi & Pitkänen, 2017; Rao & Taboada, 2021; Shor et al., 2015;
Sjøvaag & Pedersen, 2019), and some have shown that in some instances, we
are even moving backwards (Djerf-Pierre & Edström, 2020a; Jørndrup, 2021).
Simultaneously, the discussion of why we see such an imbalanced portrayal
of the world in the news often revolves around the so-called reflecting-reality
argument (Gill, 2008), that is, the question of whether the news simply mirror
society’s structural imbalances, or whether the imbalances are a result of the
process and culture in which journalists and newsrooms operate. As the amount
of research on this topic progresses, we seem to find growing evidence for the
latter of the two arguments (Djerf-Pierre, 2020; Jørndrup, 2021; Sjøvaag &
Pedersen, 2019), and especially in a Scandinavian context, it has become evident
that the portrayal of the world oered by news media is more imbalanced than
the structural gender inequalities in the world they portray. As Djerf-Pierre and
Edström (2020b: 35) put it:
The relative disconnect between media and reality is pervasive […]. The
media world is less gender equal than the “real world”. In this regard, the
news media seem to be more of a break block than a blowtorch for gender
equality in the world.
Further, when considering the latest score of the Nordic countries on the inter-
nationally recognised benchmark of gender equality in the news media, the
GEM-Index (Djerf-Pierre & Edström, 2020c), it oers little support for the often-
forwarded myth that the Nordic countries are leading in their progress towards
reaching gender equality (Diversity Council, 2022). The Nordic countries are, for
instance, on par with, and in some instances even outpaced by, countries such
as Bulgaria, the US, and Puerto Rico. This, we argue, gives us even more reason
to keep focusing on representation of gender in the Scandinavian news media,
but also to consider if measuring the traditional quantitative aspects of gender
representation is sucient to work towards creating a more equal gender bal-
ance in the news. First, however, we briefly outline the potential consequences of
traditional gender misrepresentation as they are presented in existing literature.
Stagnation, potentially even regression, in the development towards gender
equality in representation in the news has serious consequences. From the per-
spective of safeguarding democracy, it is problematic that women and men still
have unequal possibilities to voice their perspectives on the events of society in
this essential arena for public debate and democratic dialogue (Edelmann, 2023;
Padovani et al., 2022). Inequality, in terms of who we see in the role of experts
– and thus who gets to explain, evaluate, and thereby influence societal events
(Niemi & Pitkänen, 2017) – is particularly critical in relation to the fundamental
role of news media as a platform for democratic dialogue.
A BROKEN MIRROR? 83
From a representational perspective, equal presence of women and men in
the news is a prerequisite for a news coverage of society aligned with the actual
nuances and diversity of the world. When predominantly men “make the news”
(GMMP, 2020), we risk missing out on topics and viewpoints that are impor-
tant to, or driven by, women, and thereby our news oer a deficient image of
the world. Furthermore, the news media are also often where we find our role
models, and as such, we need both women and men of dierent ages, colours,
sexuality, beliefs, and so on represented, since “You can’t be what you can’t
see” (Djerf-Pierrre & Edström, 2020c: 60).
From a commercial point of view, it does not seem like a viable, nor very
profitable, strategy either – to only target half of the possible audience. Research
has established that women deselect news outlets exactly because they cannot
see themselves reflected in them (see, e.g., Toft & Palmer, 2019). So, unequal
representation in the news does not support an aim of making news relevant
and accessible to all, nor of having as many consumers as possible.
But perhaps representation in the traditional, quantitative sense is not enough
to counter the imbalance. We may need to develop and include more qualitative
parameters in relation to how genders are included in the news. Because we still
seem to be at a standstill. It is quite peculiar how so little has changed over the
last decades, when we have so many studies pointing out this unfortunate repre-
sentational imbalance. Therefore, with this article, we underline the importance
– as many researchers have before us – of consistently tracking the numbers of
women and men participating in the news. But we also propose, however, a
move beyond the simple counting of heads. Thus, we argue that it is imperative
that we start discussing not only how many women and men are included in
the news, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, how they are included.
We therefore suggest that the quantitative aspects of how many women and
men are represented and where they are represented in the news be supplemented
with the qualitative aspects of how women and men are presented. Attention
to presentation, the way in which women and men are rhetorically and visually
depicted, is, we argue, paramount if we want to profoundly advance the way
we monitor gender equality in the news – and pave the way for a more balanced
and fair portrayal of the genders.
Our main interest is to move beyond the “reflecting reality” argument (see,
e.g., Gill, 2007; Jørndrup, 2021), in which the continuous gender imbalance
in news is considered a result of the media simply reflecting the world and its
structural imbalances. Consequently, the argument suggests that the reason why
women are not used as subjects and sources to the same extent as men is because
they do not hold the same positions of power; for example, that more men than
women are experts (in the academic sense) and more men than women are CEOs.
From a Scandinavian point of view, this argument is somewhat challenged if we
look at, for example, women in politics, where several studies have found the
real-life divide between women and men to be more in balance than the news
portrayal of it (Djerf-Pierre, 2020; Djerf-Pierre & Edström, 2020a). Niemi and
Pitkänen (2017) have also suggested that the imbalance cannot be explained by
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN84
labour market structures alone, but that journalistic practice as well as a tradi-
tion for using male experts also needs to be taken into consideration. Further,
if we look at academic experts, a recent Danish study shows that the female
academic experts from natural science presented in the news accounted for as
little as 12 per cent, while they accounted for 31 per cent within natural science
at Danish universities (Johansen & Johansen, 2022). So, instead of pursuing the
“reflecting reality” argument, we here wish to explore the indicators of gender
(mis)representation that can be said to result from choices made by Scandinavian
newsrooms and journalists, namely how they represent genders. So, what we
seek to explore in this article is how we can add to the traditional quantitative
aspects of gender representation and develop qualitative metrics that can be
systematised, and thus counted, in order to detect the qualitative dierences in
how news media depict and frame women and men in the news.
We first provide a short theoretical and contextual background for the empiri-
cal study of gender representation and presentation in Scandinavian news media.
Contextual and theoretical background
Three indicators of gender representation in news: The GEM-Index
For our purpose of comparing gender representation in news content across
Scandinavia with a goal of developing qualitative metrics, we take our point
of departure in the conceptualisation of gender equality oered by Djerf-Pierre
and Edström (2020c) and the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP, 2020):
the GEM-Index. The index measures the following three indicators of gender
representation in the news:
• Representation: The extent to which both women and men are depicted
in the news, and in the central areas hereof.
• Topics: The extent to which both genders are present in the news topics
that are most critical to society.
• Roles: The extent to which women and men are equally represented
in dierent roles.
The question of representation is perhaps the topic that has been researched and
measured the most, with the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) as a
key contribution. The GMMP was started in 1995 and runs every five years,
with the latest edition published in 2020. One of the worrying conclusions made
in the recent report is that “gender equality in the world depicted in the news
still lags behind gender equality in the physical world” (GMMP, 2020: 5). If we
look at the GMMP results in the Nordic countries, Scandinavia performs slightly
better than the global average of 25 per cent women in the news, with Sweden
performing the best, with 37 per cent of the news participants being women.
Over time, however, the tendency is that the Nordic countries are falling behind.
A BROKEN MIRROR? 85
Representation needs to be nuanced, as some areas of the news are more
important from a representation perspective. Djerf-Pierre and Edström (2020a)
argued that representational equality requires that women and men are equall-
presented in the central areas of the news, that is, the front page, the main story,
and the news content (as opposed to background content, special editions, etc.).
We add to that the visual representation (Jia et al., 2015), that is, an attention
to number and placing of pictures of women and men in the news.
Just having a woman present is not sucient. The topics in which representa-
tion is made are also important to consider (Djerf-Pierre & Edström, 2020a).
The reasoning behind this is quite logical: A 50/50 distribution between male
and female participants in the news does not ensure equal influence, if, for
example, the female participants are mainly found in the lifestyle and celebrity
sections. For this reason, it is suggested that we pay special attention to topics
considered to be critical (and powerful) to society, that is, politics, economics,
society, and business. The latest GMMP report (2020) shows us that on a global
scale, women are underrepresented in all topics measured. The lowest score of
female topical representation is within politics and government (20%) – one of
the most critical topics in society.
Lastly, we have the indicator of roles. Equality here means that both women
and men appear equally in the dierent roles that news media involve (experts,
spokespersons, commentators, sources of experience, etc.), but several studies have
found that women are more often assigned peripheral roles, for example, as experi-
ence sources, while men more often appear as experts (GMMP, 2020; Sjøvaag &
Pedersen, 2019). Especially the role of expert is important, as the experts set the
agenda for, and to a certain extent, construct and drive important societal debates,
and consequently, influence our understanding of the world (Howell & Singer
2017; Niemi & Pitkänen, 2017). Furthermore, we consider the role of expert as
especially interesting, as the journalist can often choose between dierent experts
to include, as opposed to particularly spokespersons and sources of experience,
and consequently they have an opportunity to actively create a more equal rep-
resentation. The latest numbers related to roles illustrate that, globally, women
make up 24 per cent of experts and commentators (GMMP, 2020).
How can we disclose the presentation of gender in the news?
With a point of departure in the three indicators of the GEM-Index, we suggest
a fourth indicator, which addresses the presentation of genders in the news.
Presentation, we argue, can be uncovered in the way news subjects are rhetori-
cally and visually depicted when they do appear in the news. Based partly on
prior research (e.g., Andrich et al., 2023; Asr et al., 2021; Rao & Taboada,
2021; Shor et al., 2019; Vandenberghe, 2019) and partly on our own explora-
tive study, we suggest the following four sub-indicators of gender presentation
that can be disclosed by analysing the language and visual strategies applied to
describe news subjects. These four sub-indicators form the basis of our explora-
tive study of signs of gender (mis)presentation.
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN86
First, formal and informal titles are assigned to subjects. It is relevant to
analyse both the number of formal titles assigned to a news subject, as a sign
of the relative importance they are given, as well as the qualitative character of
the informal titles: Do titles refer to a source’s performance or appearance? It is
generally accepted that using formal titles when describing people is indicative of
power, authority, and social distance (as described in classic work on language
politeness, speech acts, and formality; see, e.g., Austin, 1975; Joos, 1962; Lako,
1973). Further, often the more informal titles describe subjects’ relationships to
others or their personal capabilities (see also Vandenberghe, 2019).
Second, rhetorical strategies are used to describe news subjects. We suggest
an analytical lens taken from classical rhetoric, that is, the traditional forms of
appeal: ethos, logos, and pathos (as originally presented in Aristotle’s seminal
work The Art of Rhetoric). Thus, analysing the text with a focus on direct and
indirect descriptions of subjects, we categorise descriptions as dominated by logos
when neutral and factual language is used to present a subject; as ethos when
the subject’s credibility, power, and importance is boosted; and as pathos when
emotional, relational, and physical traits are attributed to subjects (Jørgensen
& Villadsen, 2023).
Third, rhetorical agency is ascribed to quotations from subjects. We draw
attention to the verbs framing quotes by a subject: citation-verbs. This may
seem less important, but in a presentational perspective, a quote marked with,
for example, “the source claims”, will arguably come across as more convincing
than the same quote marked with “the source says”. For this particular purpose,
a taxonomy of verbs has been elaborated, taking inspiration from, among oth-
ers, Andersen (2018) and Norlyk (2016). Thus, verbs can be indicative of either
expertise or experience, or they can be neutral.
Fourth, visual agency is ascribed to subjects. We suggest that the agency and
strength of a news subject is either enhanced or weakened depending on how
they are visually depicted (Huddy & Gunnthorsdottir, 2000). If a subject is
depicted as active and looking into the camera, they will come across as more
powerful and in charge of the situation than if pictured as passive and, for
example, gazing away from the camera. Our conceptualisation of visual agency
is inspired by research from the fields of art history, literature, and cinemat-
ics, where we find the notion of “the male gaze” (Berger, 2008; Mulvey, 1975)
where the traditional display of the woman is as being passive and looked at.
Further, a person depicted alone will arguably come across as more important
and take more of the viewers’ attention than when pictured as part of a group.
In identifying these qualitative sub-indicators of gender presentation in news
content, we have, in line with the GEM-Index, strived to identify and isolate
elements that are relatively straightforward to analyse and identify, although
working qualitatively will always require more analysis and consideration than
when simply counting heads, topic areas, and so on. The aim still is, however, to
suggest generally applicable indicators that not only experts but also newsrooms
may possibly apply on their own content.
A BROKEN MIRROR? 87
Research design
Datasets, samples, and sequence
We draw on two dierent datasets that have been analysed sequentially. In this
article, however, we focus mainly on the findings from the second dataset, as
the first functions as background and qualifier of our sampling for the second.
The first dataset and analysis provide a snapshot of the overall presence of
men and women across nine Scandinavian newspapers, which we utilise for
two purposes: 1) to compare the status of gender representation in our selected
newspapers with prior studies, and 2) most importantly, to qualify the selection
of newspapers for our second dataset and analysis.
In the first dataset and analysis, we collaborated with Nordic media monitor-
ing and analysis provider Infomedia, who performed an automated analysis of
the percentage split of gender representation in selected newspapers via their
database of all published news content across the Scandinavian countries (see
Appendix 1 for a description of method). This dataset comprises a total of nine
newspapers, three each from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (see Appendix 2).
The sample includes all print content, including news, editorials, letters to the
editor, and comments, but excludes commercial content, in all nine newspapers
over a time span of one week in January 2023.
In each country, we selected three types of newspapers: a tabloid, a broad-
sheet (conservative-liberal), and a specialised-business newspaper, based on the
following sample criteria:
• include dierent newspaper types
• focus on newspapers covering the topic areas related to the GEM-Index
(i.e., business, politics, economy, and society)
• explore what qualitative forms misrepresentation of genders takes
To meet the last criteria, we selected newspapers where we expected to find the
most prominent gender imbalance (i.e., more conservative-liberally oriented media;
see Bankert, 2020). Had we aimed for a more representative sample, we could
have included more socialist, or centre-left newspapers, as research has shown that
attention to gender equality is more prevalent for the centre-left and socialist side
of the political values spectrum (Bankert, 2020), but we chose not to, as our initial
aim was to explore the qualitative character of misrepresentation in the news.
Based on the initial findings from the first dataset, we selected three newspa-
pers for our main analysis following these considerations:
• The Danish newspapers in the first dataset displayed the most signifi-
cant gender imbalance in the sample, so they provide a critical case
(Bryman, 2016) for our study.
• The Swedish newspaper displayed the least significant gender imbal-
ance; they are best-in-class.
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN88
We opted for dierent newspaper types in our second analysis to enable an
exploration of possible media type dierences (see Jia et al., 2015). Here, we
selected the two Danish newspapers with the most substantial misrepresentation,
tabloid Ekstra Bladet and broadsheet Jyllands-Posten, and specialised-business
Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri, thus allowing us to explore aspects of the
significance of newspaper genre more in-depth. We selected two newspapers in
the critical case category, again to make sure that we analyse data where gender
imbalance is indeed present. Furthermore, when we speak of gender equality
in general in the Scandinavian countries, we often turn to Sweden as the role
model, and Denmark is often last-in-class (Manilla, 2017). As such, we wanted to
include one Swedish newspaper in our deep-dive to enable comparison between
extremities in our first dataset.
The second and main analysis samples the same time span as in the first. This
time, however, we coded and analysed the content manually to move our study
beyond the overall representational count of the presence, topics, and roles.
Consequently, the manual coding allowed us to perform a qualitative analysis
of how the genders are presented.
Content, categories, and focus
Our main dataset and analysis provides a deep-dive into the three chosen news-
papers. The coding categories are presented in Table 1. The choice to include
all content, including editorials, comments, letters to the editor, and so on, is
based on the argument that to analyse gender presentation, we need to analyse
the news from the perspective of an average lay reader. Therefore, we chose not
to follow professional journalistic demarcations between, for example, content
fully produced by editorial rooms and journalists and content produced by
other actors such as commentators (e.g., public debaters). The only content we
excluded from the dataset is explicit commercial content (i.e., advertisements).
Apart from the first two (pictures on the front page and in the rest of the
newspaper), all categories are linked to a unique subject. So, all identifiable
individuals mentioned as either subjects (e.g., individuals who are mentioned)
or sources (e.g., experts, individuals who provide first-hand experience, spokes-
persons, and commentators) in each news story, in each newspaper sample, have
been coded according to the following thirteen codes, presented in Table 1.
A BROKEN MIRROR? 89
TABLE 1 Coding categories
Unit Overall code Coding categories (individual
registration = no predened
category)
Representation
Pictures on
front page
Gender Male subject/source / Female
subject/source/ No identiable
person in picture
Pictures in
all content
Gender Male subject/source / Female
subject/source / No identiable
person in picture
Individual
identiable
source
Name Individual registration
Gender Male / Female
Date Individual registration
News genre News / Interview / Background- /
Reportage-feature / Portrait-prole /
Interview / Review / Other
Topic area Politics / Business / Economy /
Society / Climate / Lifestyle / Culture
/ Health / Celebrities / Diversity /
Sports / Criminal
Subject/source type Subject: Mentioned
Source; Expert / Spokesperson /
Experience / Commentator
Number of citations Registered
Type of citations Direct / Indirect / Not cited
Presentation
Individual
identiable
source
Visual presentation
of source, person is
depicted
Alone-active / Alone-passive / In a
group-active / In a group-passive
Assigned formal titles Individual registration
Assigned informal
titles
Individual registration
Assigned agency: the
verb used to frame
a direct or indirect
quote
Individual registration
Ethos / Logos / Pathos Individual registration
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN90
Our main dataset thus allows for cross-analysis both between the three newspa-
pers and between categories. As the aim of this article is to explore the possible
forms that gender misrepresentation and presentation takes, we do not present
a comprehensive analysis of all possible aspects. Instead, we first focus on the
most prominent elements of the quantitative, representational analyses, follow-
ing the lead of the GEM-Index, adding an additional layer where we have found
further signs of misrepresentation. But, as our most important contribution is
the exploration of qualitative, presentational part, we choose to elaborate our
findings from the coding categories in the lower part of Table 1 the most, as
this is both where we find the most novel insights in comparison with previous
studies, but also the empirical grounding of our suggested addition of presenta-
tion to the GEM-Index.
When we move into our five suggested qualitative sub-indicators, we also
move the analysis into less definite and thereby indisputable territory. Though
this is the case for all qualitative studies, we do acknowledge that deciding
whether a citation verb is, for example, framing a source as emotional, is a less
clear-cut analysis than deciding if a story can be categorised in the politics or
lifestyle topic category, and part of that analysis will often also be dependent on
a closer reading of the overall story and context. This is the nature of qualita-
tive research, and therefore we have applied double coding (Bryman, 2016) in
our study, by initially having two coders code the same selection of the overall
sample, following our overall description of the coding categories. Based on a
comparison of this double coding, we have then adjusted the guidelines for the
coding categories, to make the final coding as consistent as possible and thereby
ensuring intercoder reliability (Bryman, 2016). As a result of this qualification of
the coding, we discovered, for example, that whether the use of the first or last
name of a news subject is a sign of either intimacy or power distance is often
dependent of the subject’s overall position.
Analysis of gender representation across nine
Scandinavian newspapers
Our first analysis across nine Scandinavian newspapers gave a rough percentage
split of the representation of gender (see Appendix 3).
It is evident that all newspapers have an unequal distribution of gender, with
all but one found to have less than 30 per cent women represented in their con-
tent – the lowest representation of women is in Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet
(21%) and the highest is in Norwegian broadsheet Aftenposten (31%).
Our findings show an even smaller representation of women than the latest
GMMP study (2020), which found 35 per cent (Denmark), 33 per cent (Norway),
and 38 per cent (Sweden) women represented as sources across all media types,
which may indeed be explained by our sampling of more conservative, liberally
oriented newspapers. But, looking at the result on a national level, we do find
the same inter-relational dierences between the three Scandinavian countries as
A BROKEN MIRROR? 91
the GMMP, with the combined Danish newspapers displaying the most inequal
distribution, and the Swedish the least. So, the first dataset and analysis form a
sound basis for further exploring the qualitative characteristics of gender repre-
sentation in the news media, by both confirming prior studies and by qualifying
our selection of the three newspapers that we perform a deep-dive analysis of.
Analysis of quantitative gender representation in three
Scandinavian newspapers – reiterating the GEM-Index
In our deep-dive into Danish broadsheet Jyllands-Posten and tabloid Ekstra
Bladet and Swedish specialised-business paper Dagens Industri, we first outline
the overall findings related to the established quantitative elements of the GEM-
Index and add to them our additional examples of misrepresentation.
Representation in overall appearance: Who do we meet?
First, we find an overall gender split of the total of represented subjects in the
three newspapers which is in line with the first analysis, but with some varia-
tion (see Figure 1).
FIGURE 1 Gender distribution by media
0
50 0
1, 00 0
1, 50 0
2, 00 0
2, 50 0
3, 00 0
Dagens Industri Ekstra Bladet Jy llands-Posten
M en
Wo men
Men
Women
2,447
(77%)
1,160
(73%)
1,117
(74%)
442
(27%)
393
(26%)
724
(23%)
Dagens Industri Ekstra Bladet Jyllands-Posten
Comments: Jyllands-Posten (n = 3,171), Ekstra Bladet (n = 1,582), and Dagens Industri (n = 1,510):
total (n = 6,263).
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN92
The automated results can be verified by this dataset, as the largest dierence
between the two datasets is 6 percentage points (in the Ekstra Bladet sample)
and the smallest only 1 percentage point (in the Jyllands-Posten sample) (see
Appendix 4).
All three newspapers have more than 70 per cent men represented as sub-
jects or sources. For Jyllands-Posten, 3,171 (77%) of the identified individuals
are men, and only 724 are women, and, although the dierence is smaller, the
numerical imbalance is also worth noticing in the two other newspapers.
This discloses a pronounced imbalance in the representation of genders with
the consequence that, with a few exceptions, all other data points in our analysis
in terms of numerical representation are also extremely imbalanced – across all
three newspapers.
Representation in visual appearance: Who do we see?
Looking at the visual representation, that is, who are depicted, all three news-
papers are imbalanced in their visual representation, with Ekstra Bladet the
most imbalanced, with 67 per cent of all pictures showing men and only 23
per cent showing women (the remaining 10% of the pictures show no identifi-
able persons). Dagens Industri is the least imbalanced, with 52 per cent of all
pictures showing men compared with 23 per cent showing women and 25 per
cent with no people.
In addition, it is significant that both Jyllands-Posten and Dagens Industri
have almost as many or more pictures with no people in them (cars, buildings,
etc.) as they do of women. So, even though the percentage of men is lower in
the visual representation, compared with the overall numbers, it does not mean
that we see a more equal gender balance (i.e., a higher percentage of women).
It just means that there are also pictures without people in them.
Pictures on the front page provide an important representational arena because
the centre of attention and highlighted news stories appear there. Again, Jyllands-
Posten stands out compared to the other two newspapers: On the front pages of
Jyllands-Posten, only two women appear during the sampled week, and further,
more than double the number of pictures with no persons (7 in total) than women
are depicted. In that same period, twelve men appear on Jyllands-Posten’s front
pages. In contrast, both Ekstra Bladet and especially Dagens Industri come across
as less imbalanced compared with Jyllands-Posten and compared to their overall
visual representation. Especially Dagens Industri shows a more balanced image,
with 47 per cent of pictures depicting men, 30 per cent depicting women, and
23 per cent depicting no persons.
Representation in share-of-voice: Who do we hear?
In our last point of analysis of quantitative gender representation, we look at
how much each unique subject gets to say when they appear in a story, to take
measuring of representation a step further. We coded all direct and indirect
A BROKEN MIRROR? 93
quotations from all identified subjects. Considering the vast numerical imbalance
that we already uncovered in relation to representation of subjects, it is quite
evident that we find that imbalance reflected in the total number of quotations
per gender. For example, in Jyllands-Posten’s total sample, 513 quotes are from
women, as opposed to 1,727 from men. So, to move the analysis further, we
have analysed how many quotes each unique source gets per story they appear
in, to get an average gender split on what could be called “share-of-voice” for
women and men (Asr et al., 2021).
We do find a small imbalance in share of voice, as women are generally quoted
3.10 times per story, while men are quoted a bit more at 3.45 times. The analysis
is uncertain, though, as the results are not statistically significant in relation to
any of the three newspapers, when analysed with confidence intervals on a 95
per cent level (see Appendix 5).
Representation in news topics: Who talks about what?
According to our theoretical framework, politics, economics, society, and busi-
ness are the most important topic areas in news when we explore representa-
tional gender equality. Figure 2 shows the distribution of genders by news topic
across the three newspapers, where again we see the overall numerical imbalance
reflected, as none of the twelve topic areas coded depict more women than men,
and with sports and business demonstrating the highest numerical imbalance.
Therefore, we have nuanced this imbalance further to explore any additional
signs of misrepresentation when we investigate how much (percentage) each
topic is represented for each gender, that is, when women and men do appear,
what are the topics they appear most and least frequently in.
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN94
Comments: n = 6,263. Numerical distribution shows how many men and women appear in each
topic. Percentage distribution shows that when men and women appear, what topics they appear
in.
FIGURE 2 Gender distribution by topic
0 200 400 600 800 1,000
Sports
Society
Politics
Lifestyle
Health
Economy
Diversity
Culture
Crime
Climate
Celebrities
Business 267 (17%)
173 (11%)
4 (0%)
32 (2%)
148 (10%)
28 (2%)
80 (5%)
74 (5%)
60 (4%)
345 (22%)
250 (16%)
78 (5%)
996 (21%)
375 (8%)
30 (1%)
127 (3%)
272 (6%)
103 (2%)
337 (7%)
122 (3%)
212 (4%)
664 (14%)
566 (12%)
920 (19%)
Men
Women
A BROKEN MIRROR? 95
Here, the results diverge. Overall, when we only look at the topics that women
and men are most likely to appear in when they do appear, women are most
likely to appear in politics, business, society, and celebrity (in that order), while
men are most likely to appear in business, sports, politics, and society.
Focusing on the topic areas most crucial in our representational perspective,
women appear to be proportionally more featured in politics and society (22%
of the times women appear in the news, they appear in the topic of politics),
while men seem to be proportionally more featured in business (21% of the
times men appear in the news, they appear in business), and also, but not as
significantly, in economy (7% of the times).
It is worth noticing that of all topics, only the dierences in diversity, crime,
and lifestyle are found to be not statistically significant when measured by 95
per cent confidence intervals.
Representation in roles: What roles are women and men assigned?
The last of the three GEM-Index indicators is the role women and men play in
the news. Here, the expert is especially important, and once again our findings
support prior studies (Niemi & Pitkänen, 2017). Figure 3 depicts the overall
numerical distribution of gender by subject and source type, and again, men
dominate all subject and source types both in total numbers and in percentages.
996 (21%)
375 (8%)
30 (1%)
127 (3%)
272 (6%)
103 (2%)
337 (7%)
122 (3%)
212 (4%)
664 (14%)
566 (12%)
920 (19%)
Comments: n = 6,263
0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000
42 (29%)
131 (44%)
161 (22%)
370 (28%)
835 (22%)
103 (71%)
164 (56%)
576 (78%)
929 (72%)
2,952 (78%)
Commentator
Experience
Expert
Mentioned
Spokesperson
Men
Women
FIGURE 3 Gender distribution by source type
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN96
Transferred to the readers’ perspective, our study shows that for each female
expert that readers encounter, they will have met more than three male experts, in
concordance with GMMP (2020), where only 25 per cent of the Danish experts
were women. We find even fewer: 22 per cent.
Quantitative representation: Summary
Concluding the representational part of our study, we find significant imbalance
in favour of men in most of the GEM-Index indicators: in identifiable represented
individuals, visual representation, topic areas, and roles. We also find signs of an
additional layer of misrepresentation, particularly in the source type of experts.
Our first reiteration of the GEM-Index cannot explain why the represen-
tational imbalances occur, but we do see misrepresentation in favour of men,
especially in aspects where journalists seemingly have an opportunity to coun-
teract them (i.e., choice of expert sources). This sets the scene for us to dive
even deeper into the parts of the journalistic content that journalists do in fact
control, that is, the qualitative elements of how women and men are portrayed:
the rhetorical and visual presentation of the genders.
Analysis of the presentation of gender in Scandinavian
news media
We now explore our suggested four sub-indicators of gender presentation. Here,
focus is on the qualitative aspects of how subjects and sources are presented
and framed by journalists linguistically and visually. Whether these rhetorical
and visual aspects are the result of conscious decision-making or of unconscious
actions is beyond the scope of our study, but this only makes our exploration
of the indicators more important.
Visual presentation of gender: How do we see women and men?
To operationalise visual presentation, we have coded (see Table 1) the pictures
of identified unique news subject in two categories (four combinations), as
depicted in Figure 4.
The “active” category covers pictures where the subject is depicted, for exam-
ple, as walking, talking, or looking actively into the camera. The “passive”
category entails pictures where subjects stand or sit passively, looking away.
As there are more men than women in the dataset, we find men numerically
outnumbering women in all four categories. Therefore, we have focused on the
proportional distribution, that is, when women and men are pictured, how are
they respectively distributed in our four categories.
A BROKEN MIRROR? 97
Here, we see that both genders are most often pictured active and alone. But
men are more frequently pictured active when alone compared to women, while
women are more frequently passive when alone compared to men, although
the confidence interval indicates that the latter is not statistically significant. In
groups, the confidence intervals indicate no statistical dierence between men
and women portrayed as active in pictures, but women are more often passive
than men. Additional examination of the dierences between the three newspa-
pers reveals no further significant variation. Overall, this means that men are
presented more than women as active, especially when alone, while women are
presented more than men as passive, both when pictured alone and in groups.
Rhetorical presentation of gender: How are women and men described?
In the analysis, we have also explored how women and men are described rhe-
torically by coding all text according to forms of appeal applied. Below we have
exemplified these codings via quotations from our data:
• Logos refers to descriptions where subjects are described via neutral
information, such as age, nationality, or aliation (“twenty-three-year-
old…”, “German…”, “From Tesla”).
• Pathos is coded when the subject’s and source’s relational status to oth-
ers is mentioned (“mother”, “ex-wife”, “married to”, etc.), when the
physical appearance is described (“she adds smilingly”, “sex-symbol”),
FIGURE 4 Distribution of picture category by gender (per cent)
Comments: n = 878
Men
Women
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
45
22
26
7
59
14
23
3
in group, passivein group, activealone, passivealone, active
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN98
when descriptions of the emotional state or reactions of the subject
are included (“he still remembers the smell of...”, “she does not feel
comfortable…”), and also when the subject is called by first name
only (“Mette”, “Pia”, etc.), suggesting a closer relation and thereby
undermining the authority of the subjects.
• Ethos is coded when the descriptions mention the performances of the
subject (“former world champion”, “first/youngest to…”), or stress
the importance and popularity of a subject (“all of Denmark’s’”, “a
big personality”, “charismatic”). Ethos is also noted when the subject
is called by last name only (“Putin”, “Ellemann”), as it boosts ethos
in the form of power-distance. Finally, many of the applied informal
titles (e.g., “super-swimmer”, “top manager”, “boss”, and “talent”)
add ethos to the subject, as does the use of the formal title in singular
form (e.g., “the minister” in place of the subject’s name).
Looking at the total count of ethos, logos, and pathos, considerable imbalance is
evident in all three rhetorical strategies, especially related to ethos (see Figure 5).
FIGURE 5 Gender distribution of ascribed ethos, logos, and pathos in source
descriptions (n)
Comments: n = 2,980
Men
Women
0
300
600
900
1,200
1,500
280
144
337
1,244
429
546
PathosLogosEthos
A BROKEN MIRROR? 99
When we again look at what appeal form is used most and least in the descrip-
tions of the group of represented women as opposed to men, the result is almost
identical: Men are still most often described via ethos, while women are most
often described by use of pathos (both statistically significant), while logos is
evenly distributed.
A closer look at the use of rhetorical strategies applied by the three newspapers
(see Figure 6) reveals dissimilarities. Both Jyllands-Posten and Dagens Industri
apply ethos more often to both men and women compared to Ekstra Bladet – in
Dagens Industri’s case, a lot more. Regarding pathos, Dagens Industri applies it
less than both Jyllands-Posten and Ekstra Bladet, although still markedly more
to women than to men. Jyllands-Posten also applies more pathos to women than
to men, but the dierence between how much pathos the genders get is smaller
compared to Ekstra Bladet. Ekstra Bladet, the tabloid in our sample, shows the
most extreme use of rhetorical forms, as men get assigned significantly more ethos
compared to women, whilst women get significantly more pathos compared to
men, perhaps indicating a genre-specific dierence.
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN100
FIGURE 6 Gender distribution of ascribed ethos, logos, and pathos in Jyllands-
Posten, Ekstra Bladet, and Dagens Industri (per cent)
Men
Women
Comments: Jyllands-Posten (n = 1,506), Dagens Industri (n = 504), and Ekstra Bladet (n = 970).
Jyllands-Posten
Ekstra Bladet
Pathos
Logos
Ethos
Pathos
Logos
Ethos
Pathos
Logos
Ethos
020 40 60 80
020 40 60 80
020 40 60 80
Dagens Industri
70
9
21
53
18
29
53
21
26
54
21
25
28
18
26
36
20
45
53
A BROKEN MIRROR? 101
Rhetorical presentation of gender: What are women and men called?
We have registered every formal and informal title added to the subjects in our
sample. In relation to formal titles, we do not see any significant dierences
between women and men. But that changes for informal titles.
Table 2 lists the ten most frequently assigned informal titles for female and
male subjects, respectively, across the three newspapers, with the individual
frequency in parentheses. Apart from the numbers naturally being lower for
females in all three papers (for Dagens Industri so low that we only have a few
that appear more than once), we find a striking dierence.
TABLE 2 Most frequently ascribed informal titles for women and men in Ekstra
Bladet, Jyllands-Posten, and Dagens Industri
Ekstra Bladet Jyllands-Posten Dagens Industri
Women Men Women Men Women Men
Mor (9)
[Mother]
Søn (11)
[Son]
Hustru (10)
[Wife]
Dansker (21)
[Dane]
Designteam (3)
[Design team]
Grundare (15)
[Founder]
Søster (8)
[Sister]
Boss (6)
[Boss]
Datter (7)
[Daughter]
Topchef (14)
[Top boss]
Tidl. ordförande
(2) [Former politi-
cal spokesperson]
Tidl. vd (5)
[Former CEO]
Hustru (7)
[Wife]
Stjerne (5)
[Star]
Mor (5)
[Mother]
Leder (8)
[Manager]
Tidl. vd (2)
[Former CEO]
Finansmann (3)
[Financier]
Kæreste (3)
[Girlfriend]
Chef (5)
[Executive]
Besætnings-
medlem (3)
[Crew member]
Kendt (6)
[Celebrity]
Designduo (2)
[Design duo]
Tidl. nans
minister (3)
[Former Minister
for Finance]
Datter (3)
[Daughter]
Tennis-
stjerne (4)
[Tennis star]
Søster (3)
[Sister]
Besætnings-
medlem (5)
[Crew member]
Bioaktuel (1)
[Currently featured
in lm]
Pappa (2)
[Father]
Tid. politiker
(2) [Former
politician]
Spiller (3)
[Player]
Tidl. kirkeminis-
ter (3) [Former
Minister of
Ecclesiastical
Affairs]
Far (5) [Father] Mamma (1)
[Mother]
Bror (2)
[Brother]
Stjerne (2)
[Star]
Slutrunde-
debutant (3)
[Finals
débutant]
Kone (3)
[Wife]
Medstifter (5)
Co-founder]
Tidligare FN-
ambassadör (1)
[Former UN
Ambassador]
Son (2)
[Son]
Enke (2)
[Widow]
Dømt (3)
[Convicted]
Kæreste (3)
[Girlfriend]
Ven (5)
[Friend]
Tidligere
språkrör (1)
[Former spokes-
person]
Styrelsesproffs (2)
[Professional
Board Members]
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN102
Løvinde (2)
[Lioness]
Kæreste (3)
[Girlfriend]
Tidligere
minister(2)
[Former
Minister]
Japaner (4)
[Japanese] Kinekännare (1)
[China expert]
Tidligare stats-
sekretare (2)
[Former Secretary
of State]
X-faktor-
værtinde(1)
[X Factor
hostess]
Bank-
boss (3)
[Bank boss]
Kvinde (2)
[Woman]
Tidligere
præsident
(4) [Former
President]
Hedgefond-
investara (1)
[Hedge Fund
Investors]
Expert (2)
[Expert]
The applied informal titles are categorised into three colour-coded categories
in Table 2:
• relational titles (green): The subject’s relation to others (e.g., “mother”,
“sister”, “widow”, “ex-wife”) or the gender (e.g., “businessman”) is
stressed.
• ethos-boosting titles (blue): Subjects are depicted as powerful, compe-
tent, or important (e.g., “boss”, “star”, “famous”).
• neutral titles (white): (“swimmer”, “footballer”).
It is quite evident that in the two Danish newspapers, most significantly Ekstra
Bladet, women are assigned relational informal titles much more often than
men, who on the other hand are assigned ethos-boosting titles more. For Dagens
Industri, this is not the case. Dagens Industri also tends to use the neutral
informal titles the most. So, again an example of dierence in how women and
men are presented can be detected, but only in the Danish newspapers. Whether
this is a result of dierences related to nationality or media type is beyond this
study to determine.
Rhetorical presentation of gender: Focusing on agency
Finally, we look at signs of gender mispresentation in the agency assigned to
women and men when quoted. We categorised all citation-verbs in our dataset
into three overall categories which relate to the strength, trustworthiness, and
role they imply:
• Expertise/power-verbs (e.g, “conclude”, “evaluate”, “recommend”
“explain”, “define”, etc.)
• Experience-verbs (e.g., “remember”, “feel”, “experience”, etc.)
• Neutral verbs (“say”, “write”, “state”, “according to”, etc.)
Figure 7 shows the distribution of women and men in the total sample, accord-
ing to which citation-verb category they are assigned.
A BROKEN MIRROR? 103
Comments: n = 3,357
As already mentioned in the quantitative part of the analysis, our findings show
that men out-quote women significantly. Therefore, they also dominate in all
three citation-verb categories when we investigate the qualitative use of agency
in this part of the analysis.
Women are greatly outnumbered in expert citation-verbs, so, from a reader
perspective, also in terms of agency, men are the experts.
Conclusion
Our study demonstrates that the dierences in how women and men are depicted
in the Scandinavian news are not solely related to the classical quantitative param-
eters of gender equality. Rather, there are also significant qualitative dierences
in the way the genders are presented, meaning that we need to move beyond the
traditional focus on how many and start looking into how women and men appear
in the news. The study thus contributes by oering a fourth indicator in addition
to the three classic indicators of gender representation in the news (representation,
topics, and roles): presentation. This indicator can uncover the way women and
men are rhetorically and visually depicted in the news. More specifically, we have
disclosed gender inequality in several qualitative parameters that we suggest as
indicative of equal presentation. First, men are presented visually as more active
than women when alone in pictures. The power, expertise, and importance of men
is boosted in indirect descriptions (rhetorical strategies) to a much greater extent
FIGURE 7 Gender distribution in citation-verbs
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
208
592
176
682
1,625
70%
30%
74
77%
23%
73%
27%
Men
Women
Neutral
Experience Expertise/Power
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN104
than for women. In the analysis of pathos, we see that women, on the other hand,
are more often described through their emotions and relations to others. Finally,
we find signs of the power-distance and individual importance being emphasised
more for men through the use of last names and formal titles, and oppositely
diminished for women through the use of first names.
The three newspapers show variation in how they represent and present
gender: Overall, we can confirm the Swedish newspaper as the best case in that
they are less imbalanced, in representation, especially in the overall presence
of women, and in the visual balance (front page), but also in the presentation-
indicators, where Dagens Industri oers a more balanced image of the genders,
especially in the less gender-dierentiated use of informal titles, compared with
the two Danish newspapers. Thus, the expectation we had for Sweden to be a
role model is confirmed in this study, albeit Dagens Industri’s representation is
still generally imbalanced in relation to, for example, subject and source type
distribution, and use of ethos-promoting rhetorical strategies.
The tabloid and the specialised-business papers demonstrate how important
it is to take media type into consideration in relation to especially the suggested
fourth indicator of gender equality, presentation, as the tabloid applies more
emotions (i.e., use of pathos, relational informal titles) to especially female sub-
jects and sources. The specialised-business paper does it less, but instead tends
to use more ethos for both genders. Jyllands-Posten stands out among the three
with the most imbalanced results in representation. Both Danish papers are also
the most imbalanced in respect to presentation. It is, however, important to
note that based on our study, we cannot determine whether the dierences are
indicative of national or media-type dierences, or perhaps a mixture of the two.
The impression of the world that readers are left with when reading these
three newspapers – especially the Danish papers – is one of men as the domi-
nating actors in the news, who are boosted through ethos, and women framed
though pathos as peripheral participators, experiencing events: a stereotypical
portrayal (see also Andrich et al., 2023) in which neither men nor women may
find suciently nuanced and broad room for self-reflection.
Based on our study, we suggest theoretical implications, particularly in rela-
tion to presentation. Here, we call for more studies on larger samples of data
to produce a more solid knowledge base for this suggested new indicator of
gender equality, but also studies on specific media types, national contexts,
and contextual aspects. Moreover, it is clearly more time-consuming and thus
resource-intensive to study the suggested qualitative metrics than what is the
case for the quantitative approach. Future studies could include the testing and
development of new automated methods for analysing the qualitative dimen-
sions as well. Further, in terms of the traditional quantitative parameters, we
suggest that share-of-voice be added to the representation indicator, and here,
more research on imbalance in share-of-voice is needed. Finally, an overall dis-
cussion of how we reach equality in gender presentation is also needed: Do we
describe everyone in uniform ways, or do we oer a broader and more nuanced
worldview with regard to all genders?
A BROKEN MIRROR? 105
Discussion and implications
As we set out to move the discussion of equal gender representation past the
recurring discussion about whether gender imbalances come from the surround-
ing society or from within the newsrooms, this study has uncovered misrepre-
sentation of genders that seemingly cannot be justified by referring to external
societal imbalances alone. Thus, in line with many earlier studies, our study
illustrates the necessity of keeping track of all the established indicators of gender
representation in the news media, as a balanced representation of women and
men in the news is still far from being achieved. Thus, continuous awareness
seems indispensable if we are to change the status quo – perhaps more so on a
local and practitioner level than in research.
But what is perhaps most important are the many uncovered instances of
rhetorical and visual mispresentations which point unambiguously towards
choices – albeit not necessarily conscious – made by journalists, editors, and
newsrooms in their depictions of women and men, visually as well as rhetori-
cally. This is where journalists and editors have an opportunity to achieve better
gender equality through both representation and presentation that is more bal-
anced and fair than what we have uncovered. The suggested qualitative aspects
of presentation of women and men, and our findings related to them, thus call
for journalists and newsrooms to broaden and improve their view on what ele-
ments to consider when discussing and working towards a more equal gender
representation in their news production.
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Appendix 1
Description of method for analysis of gender representation performed
by Infomedia
Infomedia analysed the first dataset by means of Named Entity Recognition
(NER) technology, identifying all individuals mentioned in each newspaper sam-
ple by the concurrent occurrence of a first- and surname. This resulted in nine
lists of names, and thus identifiable individuals, who appear in each newspaper
sample, amounting to a total of 15,061 names. These lists were then matched
with name statistics on the most common first names in each country according
to the databases of the three national statistics authorities to ascribe a gender.
This was possible for the majority of the listed names (more than 75% across
the total sample). The remaining names could not be ascribed gender automati-
cally because they were either too unusual in the Nordic context to appear in
the national name statistics, or because they were not names. The final sample
thus amounts to 11,690 gendered names in total. A source of error in the NER
technology that we could not correct is that it does not capture all individuals
who are mentioned in the newspapers, for example, if they only appear by first-
or surname. Finally, we cannot, with this dataset and method of analysis, identify
what role the individuals behind the names have in the stories, so they may also
be, for example, photographers, but since this is the same for all included news-
papers, we find this source of error to be acceptable considering our purpose.
ANNA KARINA KJELDSEN, LINE SCHMELTZ, & JACOB V. SIMONSEN108
Appendix 2
Selected Scandinavian newspapers in rst dataset
Paper type Danish Norwegian Swedish Time period
Tabloid Ekstra Bladet Dagbladet Aftonbladet 7 + 13–19 January
Broadsheet Jyllands-Posten Aftenposten Svenska Dag-
bladet
14–20 January
Specialised Børsen Dagens Næringsliv Dagens ndustri 14–20 January
Appendix 3
Gender split of represented individuals in newspapers, January 2023
(n = 11,690)
Country Newspaper Women (%) Men (%) Difference (%)
Denmark
Ekstra Bladet 21 79 58
Jyllands-Posten 24 76 52
Børsen 24 76 52
Norway
Dagbladet 29 71 42
Aftenposten 31 69 38
Dagens Næringsliv 23 77 54
Sweden
Aftonbladet 28 72 44
Svenska Dagbladet 28 72 44
Dagens Industri 28 72 44
A BROKEN MIRROR? 109
Appendix 4
Proportion of women represented in first and second datasets
Proportion of women
appearing in rst dataset
(automated/Infomedia) (%)
Proportion of women
appearing in second dataset
(manually coded) (%)
Ekstra Bladet (DK) 21 27 (n = 1,582)
Jyllands-Posten (DK) 24 23 (n = 3,171)
Dagens Industri (SV) 28 26 (n = 1,510)
Appendix 5
Share-of-voice, as measured in quotes per appearance total (n = 4,292)
Category Gender Average Lower Bound Upper Bound n
All Men 3.44 2.60 4.29 3,209
Women 3.09 2.54 3.64 1,083
Jyllands-Posten Men 3.45 2.73 4.18 1,727
Women 3.09 2.54 3.64 513
Dagens Industri Men 3.80 3.00 4.61 795
Women 3.19 2.48 3.90 271
Ekstra Bladet Men 3.08 2.65 3.51 687
Women 3.02 2.47 3.57 299
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