Social inclusion in Swedish public service television: The representation of gender, ethnicity and people with disabilities as program leaders for children's programs

Abstract

We studied the inclusion of traditionally underrepresented groups in society,females, persons of non-European ethnic background and people with apparent disabilities.Specifically we addressed their participation as program leaders in children's programs inthe Swedish Public Service Television to see if they corresponded to their relative share ofthe population. Using the official web site of the Swedish Public Service Television, listingall their programs, we found that of 65 program leaders in 41 television programs, 42%were female, 12% of the program leaders were of non-European ethnic background and20% had apparent disabilities. There was a non-significant trend for women to beunderrepresented as program leaders, people of ethnic non-European background hadsignificantly higher representation than their share of the population, and people withapparent disabilities had significantly much higher percentage than their share of theSwedish population as program leaders for children programs. This case study indicatesthat traditionally underrepresented groups such as people of non-ethnic Europeanbackground and people with disabilities do well in the competition for positions as programleaders for television programs that target children. This can be seen as an encouragingstep from the present norm in Swedish society of mainly hiring people that you know.