Thematic Network: The Social Problem and Societal Problematisation of Men and
Masculinities
IRELAND NATIONAL REPORT ON NEWSPAPER REPRESENTATIONS ON
MEN AND MEN’S PRACTICES
WORKPACKAGE 26 , November 2001
Harry Ferguson, with the assistance of Claire Mackinnon
Key points from Irish report
1. The Irish like their daily newspaper and they tend to prefer the better quality, serious
media as opposed to the tabloid press. I chose for this study the Irish Times (the
quality broadsheet par excellence, the national ‘paper of record’), Irish Independent
(largest daily sale) and Irish Examiner (the most populist/tabloidy of Irish produced
papers), which are all broadsheet newspapers. There are no Irish produced daily
tabloid newspapers, although there are Irish editions of UK tabloids, like the Sun,
Daily Mirror and Daily Star. It was not appropriate to include any of the latter as
their Irish content is minimal (no more than c10-20%), which would effectively have
meant including a paper that had mostly UK content and production values.
2. The relatively non-tabloid nature of the Irish press is partly reducible to the strict
nature of the libel laws which restrict aggressive investigative journalism, the
‘naming and shaming’ of gay men, politicians, child sex abusers and so on as occurs
in the UK, for instance. A second influence is the traditional power of the catholic
church which, since the formation of the Irish state in 1922, heavily regulated
discourses and images surrounding socio-moral issues. Irish men have traditionally
been represented in de-sexualised ways, as the exemplar of traditional hegemonic
masculinity has been the celibate priest. The disclosure in the 1990s of significant
amounts of child sexual abuse by priests and the systematic cover-up of that abuse by
the church has been crucial to weakening the church’s hegemony. The ‘paedophile
priest’ has become a key symbol of danger to children, a social construction which is
entirely a media event implying clear links between celibacy and child sexual abuse.
Significantly, while there are many more convicted sex offenders who are married
heterosexual men, malestream heterosexual masculinity within and without the Irish
family has not been problematised. This reveals the press’s role in broadly supporting
and reproducing normative assumptions about men and gender relations.
3. In the two week period under review, the overall quantity of articles relating to the
specific themes were relatively very low. The majority of articles about men come
under the ‘other’ category, accounting for 19.27% of the overall newspaper coverage.
Most of these are about men in sport, ie their personal achievements, disappointments
and so on, while others are to do with entertainment, featuring well known musicians,
actors etc. and politics.
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4. The largest coverage within the four categories only - ie when all other coverage is
excluded - concerned social Exclusion at 48%, violences was next at 30%, Home and
Work 18%, with health 3.5%.
National media and press background: The Irish context
The Irish like their daily newspaper. And they tend to prefer the better quality, serious
media as opposed to the tabloid press. This is reflected in the three papers I have chosen
for this study are the Irish Times, Irish Independent and Irish Examiner, which are all
broadsheet newspapers. I have included all broadsheets because there are no Irish
produced tabloid newspapers, although there are Irish editions of UK tabloids, like the
Sun, Daily Mirror and Daily Star. It was not appropriate to include any of the latter as
their Irish content is minimal (no more than c10-20%), which would effectively have
meant including a paper that had mostly UK content and production values.
All three chosen papers would claim to be ‘serious’ or ‘quality’ broadsheets, yet some are
undoubtedly more populist than others. The Irish Times is the Irish quality broadshhet
par excellence, widely recognised as the national ‘paper of record’. Its daily sales are in
the region of 110,000 per day, its highest circulation ever. By far its biggest sale is in the
greater Dublin area, reflecting its appeal to an urban professional readership. The Irish
Independent is, however, the largest selling national daily with a circulation of in the
region of 155,000 copies per day. While it has general appeal across social groups, it has
a large rural audience and is more populist and somewhat less analytical than the Irish
Times. The Irish Examiner sells in the region of 65,000 copies per day. Prior to the late1990s, it was not a national newspaper as such, being the Cork Examiner, serving a daily
readership in the Munster (ie, Southern) region of the country. Since going national it has
made only modest gains, with an increase of only some 5,000 sales per day. On going
national, its editorial policy became more populist, with lighter more tabloidese content although this stops short of portrayals of naked women. This makes it the closest in the
sample to a tabloid, although elements of ‘serious’ comment remain in its values and
coverage.
The production values of the Irish press are heavily influenced by two processes. Firstly,
the relative absence of a tabloid media or style is partly reducible to the strict nature of
the libel laws. These are such that the aggressive investigative journalism, the ‘naming
and shaming’ of gay men, politicians, child sex abusers and so on is just not possible in
the way that it is in the UK, for instance. The political and public service culture in
Ireland is such that resignations for being ‘outed’, or as having failed in one’s public duty
are very rare indeed. Politicians are simply not held to account in the same manner as in
the UK, or at least they do not take the ultimate step/sanction of resigning; nor are they
sacked. Secondly, the traditional power of the catholic church was such that since the
formation of the Irish state in 1922, discourses and images surrounding socio-moral
issues have been heavily regulated. Until quite recently, censorship has played a powerful
role in stopping more explicit sexualised discourses reaching the public domain. This has
influenced the construction of gender in a variety of ways. Irish men have traditionally
been represented in de-sexualised ways, as the exemplar of traditional hegemonic
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masculinity has been the celibate priest. Against this background, the disclosure in the
1990s of significant amounts of child sexual abuse by priests and the systematic cover-up
of that abuse by the church has been crucial to weakening the church’s hegemony. The
‘paedophile priest’ has become a key symbol of danger to children, a social construction
which is entirely a media event in both discursive terms and through dramatic
photographic imagery (Ferguson, 1995). This was exemplified in 1998 when an Irish
Independent photo of the most notorious clerical child abuser of all, Father Brendan
Smyth, being taken into court won the Irish media’s photograph of the year award. Many
articles since the nid-1990s have attempted to explore links between celibacy and child
sexual abuse, or simply assumed such connections to be apparent. Significantly, while
there are many more convicted sex offenders who are married heterosexual men, and
while there have been some press photographs of convicted offenders from such
backgrounds, there has been no corresponding construction of ‘paedophile fathers’,
businessmen, farmers and so on. In effect, malestream heterosexual masculinity within
and without the Irish family has not been problematised. This reveals the press’s role in
broadly supporting and reproducing normative assumptions about men and gender
relations. The assumption is that men’s sexuality is predatory and needs and requires
‘satisfaction’ from an other, that men must have sex and it they do not they will
‘inevitably’ explode and visit their desires on even the most vulnerable members of
society.
General treatments and representations of men in Irish newspapers
On the other hand, media interest in men as a distinct area of discourse, as a ‘problem’,
has increased significantly in recent years. For the past decade or so the trend has been
for ‘crisis of masculinity’ articles to periodically appear, covering such issues as
increases in male suicide; problems in male (non-)expressivity leading to relationship and
marriage breakdowns; men abused by their wives/partners; separated fathers; men and
deaths on the roads. In general, many of these stories are driven by the emergence of
single issue groups, such as Amen, an organisation representing ‘male victims of
domestic violence’ who have been very adept at using the media to publicise the issue
and their work. There has been a certain ‘Man bites dog’ quality to this interest in the
apparently novel problems of men which has to be seen in the context of media fatigue
with women’s issues. This has gone hand-in-hand with the anti-feminist journalism,
most notably by campaigning columnists like John Waters of the Irish Times who in the
past seven years or so has written many explicitly anti-feminist and aggressive articles
about ‘feminazis’ and the ‘domestic violence industry’ in attempts to undermine the
efforts of women’s groups. His main targets are promoting fathers rights in the context of
an allegedly anti-father family law system and the cause of abused men through
arguments about 50-50 gender symmetry in domestic violence. This is having a distinct
effect on gender politics in Ireland. While it has helped the problematisation of men and
masculinities in public discourse, this has been at the cost of it appearing to be coming
more difficult for stories about violence against women, and women’s issues in general to
be a legitimate focus of comment in their own right. Defeating feminism appears to be
more important than promoting men’s welfare.
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Quantitative analysis of press coverage May 2001
________________________________________________________________________
Average total number of pages per day of each paper, including supplements, during the
2 week period
Irish Independent
Irish Examiner
Irish Times
42
44
55
Average total square centimetres per day of the whole paper, including supplements,
during the 2 week period
Irish Independent
Irish Examiner
Irish Times
49,213
41,546
55,042
Average number of pages per day of each paper, including supplements, devoted to
advertising during the 2 week period
Irish Independent
Irish Examiner
Irish Times
16.2
11
16.6
Average total square centimetres per day of the whole paper, including supplements,
devoted to advertising during the 2 week period
Irish Independent
Irish Examiner
Irish Times
25,958
24,752
23,110
For each paper for each day number of articles addressing men in relation to the 4
themes
Overall percentages of each theme covered in the specific coverage of men in the
entire papers
Other 19.27%
Home and Work 0.94%
Social Exclusion 2.5%
Violences 1.56%
Health 0.02%
Overall percentages of each theme covered in the specific coverage of men only (ie
excluding non-men specific coverage)
Other 79%
Home and Work 4%
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Social Exclusion 10%
Violences 6%
Health 0.7%
Overall percentages of each theme covered in the specific coverage of men only
excluding ‘other’
Home and Work 18%
Social Exclusion 48%
Violences 30%
Health 3.5%
The overall quantity of articles relating to the specific themes were relatively very low.
The majority of articles about men come under the ‘other’ category, accounting for
19.27% of the overall newspaper coverage. Most of these are about men in sport, ie their
personal achievements, disappointments and so on, while others are to do with
entertainment featuring well known musicians, actors etc. Included here are some
articles about men in politics, but only those that referred to men in particular rather than
political parties or policies, which sometimes referred to male politicians but which were
not about them. Similarly, articles about football clubs are not included, but only those
concerning specific players etc. A few articles in the ‘other’ category concerned men’s
accidents. These are often culturally specific, concerning men in agriculture for instance,
the traditional mainstay of Irish economic and social life. This category also includes
motor accidents, which arguably should be included under health.
Home and Work
Just 0.94% of the entire newspaper coverage concerned this theme. Articles in this
category were mainly of a business nature, featuring one man, as company director and
his background achievements and business plans and ambitions. The business
supplements are utterly dominated by photographs as well as articles about men.
However, this is very much about the ‘public man’, the man ‘at work’ as at best only
fleeting reference is made to his domestic life, typically in a profile referring in a single
sentence to the existence of a wife and children. The man ‘at home’ is completely
relegated to insignificance. One weekend supplement did feature an article about fathers,
which was conspicuous by its presence in relation to the ‘home work’ theme.
Social Exclusion
2.5% of the entire newspaper coverage was devoted specifically to men and social
exclusion. These were most commonly about convictions resulting in a prison sentence for non-violent crimes (violent crimes are included under the violences category). They
tended to be short factual reports and on the whole were clumped together on particular
days in court reportage. There was reportage of other excluded persons, such as evidence
of racism towards asylum seekers and refugees, but which was not gender specific.
Violences
1.56% of the entire newspaper coverage was devoted specifically to men and violences.
Similar patterns to blocks of reportage of court cases on particular days. In addition there
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were reports of fresh violent crimes committed by men, including rape, crimes which had
not yet been ‘solved’ or a perpetrator apprehended. The most prominent case of all, and
the event/incident which received the single most prominent reporting of men’s issues of
all the categories, concerned the dismissal of the Managing Director of the national
airline, Aer Lingus, for sexual harassment. The rights and wrongs of the action were
hotly debated, with many commentators questioning the motives of the women who
made the complaint and whether men can ever properly prove themselves innocent of
such charges. The texture of this commentary fits with a sense that is growing in the Irish
media that feminism has gone too far and men are being unfairly discriminated against
and always losing.
Health
This barely featured at all, amounting to just 0.02% of the entire newspaper coverage.
This may reflect the bias and selectivity of the 2 week period considered, but which is
more likely to reflect the the general failure of the media to problematise men’s lives. It
may also be a symptom of how the papers now have dedicated ‘health’ coverage (the
Irish Times on its features pages on a Monday, for instance), some of which is opening up
men’s health issues, but which is commonly non-gender specific.
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