Assessing the influence of business media in St. Petersburg on public perception of gender relations in the context of legal values

Chernova Anastasia Nikolaevna ORCID: 0009-0003-1058-6295 Postgraduate student; Institute 'Higher School of Journalism and Mass Communications'; St. Petersburg State University 199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7/9 anastasiamurzinaa@gmail.com

Kulakova Darina Vladlenovna Postgraduate student; Institute 'Higher School of Journalism and Mass Communications'; St. Petersburg State University 199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7/9 darina.kulakova@yandex.com

Introduction

Modern scientific research in the field of gender issues is based on the concept of social construction of gender, interpreting it not as a biological, but as a "social gender" ^{[11, p.31]}. The legal culture of modern Russia is characterized by a transitional state, which causes internal inconsistency and a combination of multidirectional trends. Against the background of the continued dependence of citizens on the state system, there is an increase in legal literacy of the population and the active development of new means of protecting their rights. At the same time, rigid gender stereotypes that prescribe certain social roles for each gender are still being steadily reproduced in Russian society.

Gender equality issues have recently been brought to the public level of discussion in all spheres of public life. The need to overcome gender discrimination in professional, social and political activities is now a universally recognized fact. At the same time, the problem of gender asymmetry in language continues to exist, so far known only to a narrow circle of specialists ^{[1, pp.19-20]}. In the Russian context, the issue of gender expertise of texts of various genres and political correctness of speech behavior, especially in public space, is just beginning to rise. Business publications that broadcast and shape the mood in the business community set value guidelines for their audience.

These circumstances determine the relevance of a comprehensive study of legal culture and gender issues in business media. This is of particular importance in the light of the rapid development of gender studies, which originated in the 70s of the XX century, and today are an integral and promising area of modern science ^{[6, p.12]}. The purpose of this study is to use the materials of a regional business publication to identify which value meanings and guidelines are broadcast in the public space, influencing public perception of gender relations in the context of legal values.

Literature review

The theoretical basis of the research is the concepts of gender theory (S. Boehm ^[13], P. Bourdieu ^[15], D. Myers ^[10], S. N. Kostina ^[8]), legal culture (V. N. Zhukov ^[7], I. A. Orlova ^[11]), as well as works on the influence of Mass media and gender on public consciousness (I. A. Bykov ^[14], U. E. Loginovskikh ^[9]). Special attention is paid to the study of the peculiarities of the representation of gender issues in law, language and the press (E. G. Abramenko ^[4], E. A. Babenkova ^[1], N. V. Burenina ^[1], G. A. Yelnikova ^[6], S. Zherebkin ^[2]).

Within the framework of modern concepts, gender is a multifaceted social construct closely related to biological sex, but not reducible to it. According to R. Stoller's concept, gender is a socio-sexual attribute of self-awareness associated with the biological sex of an individual^[16]. S. Boehm defines gender as a system of socio-cultural norms prescribed to people depending on gender^[13]. P. Bourdieu considers gender as an unconscious scheme of perception of reality ^[15]. D. Myers understands gender as a structure, including gender, stereotypes, norms and identity^[10]. K. West and D. Zimmerman interpret gender as an activity for constructing differences between men and women that enhance masculinity and femininity^[12].

Materials and methods of research

An integrated approach, including both quantitative and qualitative methods, is used as the methodological basis of the study. At the first stage, a content analysis of publications is carried out in order to identify the specifics of the coverage of gender issues in the business publication of St. Petersburg. Then, a discourse analysis of the texts is carried out to study the language tools used, value attitudes.

Delovoy Peterburg is the main business publication of the northern capital of Russia and the key media for our work, based on the materials of which the research is conducted. Delovoy Peterburg has been published for 31 years and, according to information on the official website of the media: "Throughout its existence, the publication retains leadership in terms of readership. Delovoy Peterburg today is a newspaper of the same name, a portal DP.RU , social media pages, television projects, expert events, as well as 6 glossy magazines and a number of analytical special projects in print and on the Internet. All projects are closely integrated with the business community of the city."

On the website DP.ru you can familiarize yourself with the editorial policy ^[5] and the values of this media outlet. The main values of the publication include: responsibility, freedom of speech, innovation and positivity. The same page contains statistical data with key information about the publication. Our attention was attracted by the description of the audience of "Business Petersburg" (see Fig.1).

Figure 1. Description of the audience of the Delovoy Peterburg media

The image of the average reader: this is a young wealthy man with higher education who is interested in business and finance. If we pay attention to the left edge of the infographic, we see that only 50% of male readers, the remaining 50%, presumably, are women. Why, then, if there is no quantitative imbalance, do the editors of the site note, if not emphasize, that the audience of "Business Petersburg" is men? Where do women belong in a business publication? The answer can still be found there: links to special projects are posted below on the Internet page, among which the second is the Influential Women project ^[3]), which is an annual awarding of the winners of the Influential Women of St. Petersburg award according to the publication. In feminist studies, the question often arises whether gender discrimination can be considered equality, even if it makes positive sense: why is there a special project "Influential women" and there is no special project "Influential men".

At the time of writing this article (September 2024), more than 6,000 issues of the Delovoy Peterburg newspaper have been published. The print version of the largest business media in the Northwest is published 3 days a week on weekdays. In order to collect the most up-to-date data, we turned to the newspaper's archive for the year: from October 2023 to September 2024. Using a random number generator randomus.ru A representative sample of 12 numbers (one number per calendar month) was compiled, which included №113(5885), №129(5901), №140(5912), №10(5925), №12(5927), №30(5945), №39(5954), №51(5966), №57(5972), №74(5989), №82(5997), №104(6019).

The main results of the study

A content analysis was carried out, the number of articles by male and female authors was revealed, expert opinions of men and women were counted, articles on gender and legal topics were highlighted, and the values that the authors appeal to in these articles were determined. The results of the study are presented below.

A total of 252 articles were printed in 12 issues from the sample: in the framework of this study, an article is a full-fledged text material prepared by a specific journalist and released with the indication of the author. A striking observation during the content analysis was that from issue to issue, the number of articles written by women and men remained almost equal. 135 authorships of women and 133 authorships of men are indicated. From this pattern, it can be concluded that there is a certain gender policy within the publication, that materials from journalists and female journalists should be published equally. But such a commitment to gender equality does not become a universal rule of publication. So, if we count the number of female and male experts whose photos and comments are posted on the pages of Delovoy Peterburg in the Direct Speech section, a significant quantitative gap between the former and the latter will be revealed. The numbers included in the sample contain 72 comments from men and 22 from women. Is this difference more than 3 times an indicator that women have less expertise, or do men's experts inspire more trust in the audience? In any case, this "imbalance" of male and female expert opinion reinforces gender stereotypes that have developed in society, limiting women's opportunities for career self-realization.

Of the 252 articles in the current sample, 29 articles on legal topics and 4 on gender are presented. It follows that 11.6% of the materials in the newspaper Delovoy Peterburg relate to the topic of law, and only 1.6% of the total number of articles relate to the topic of gender. That is, the editorial board agrees that the problem of gender inequality exists in society, but does not take measures to eliminate gender stereotypes. It is the business media that have sufficient authority to launch the process of forming a public understanding of gender relations in the context of legal values, and to constructively influence the system of gender literacy education. The creation of a legal culture focused on gender equality is a necessity that Russian science stated 20 years ago: "In Russia, gender literacy is becoming one of the necessary conditions for the professionalism of not only participants in social movements and journalists, but also representatives of legislative and executive authorities"^{[1, pp.19-20]}.

Gender is reflected in stereotypes fixed in language, as well as in the speech behavior of people who are aware of themselves as representatives of a certain gender. Gender stereotypes are a type of stereotypes, possessing their characteristic properties: stability, categoricity, simplification, accessibility, selectivity, generality, emotionality, etc. Gender stereotypes are understood as stable ideas about the qualities, attributes and norms of behavior peculiar to representatives of different sexes in a particular social group. Gender stereotyping can be traced at all levels of language and is closely related to the forms of expression of evaluation. In the context of the analysis of newspaper materials, the characteristic features that form the image of a female specialist can be identified. The headlines of articles on gender can be called telling and even emphasizing gender inequality: "Girls for candy", "Unequal reward", "Women's business" and the most neutral headline "Re-entry". The presence of such materials in the media already contributes to the achievement of gender equality, but this is not enough. It is necessary to attract attention and support from legal institutions to gender issues.

In the issues included in the sample, the authorship of articles on legal topics is almost 2 times more likely to belong to men than women. Analyzing these materials, you can see that the theme of justice runs through them like a red thread. This category is revealed by the authors as a measure of the distribution of benefits and responsibilities in society, as a ratio of equality and inequality, as well as as a principle of retribution for committed acts. The issue of fair retribution for illegal acts is one of the key aspects considered in the business media of St. Petersburg. We conducted a value analysis of articles with news from the field of law, according to the results of which the authors of articles most often appeal to the values of intellectual property and property, fair wages, the value of time, the value of peaceful settlement of conflicts, the legitimate use of designations (trademark and image insignia), the value of fulfilling contractual obligations and the value of paying taxes. Such a financial and information direction in the coverage of legal issues becomes a mirror of modern reality, in which speed and information are of paramount importance.

Since gender equality issues occupy a relatively small place on the information agenda of business publications, very few publications on gender topics were included in the sample numbers, the following values were highlighted in them: the value of generational continuity, the value of equality of working conditions and pay, the value of higher education, the value of female leadership, the value of communication skills, the value of stress tolerance quality. All these values are also consistent with the trend of reflecting a rapidly changing modern world in which the majority strives for justice and conflict resolution.

Conclusion

Publications on gender issues are of particular interest for the study of the influence of business media on public perception of gender relations in the context of legal values. Within the framework of this study, it was possible to identify priority semantic accents formed by regional business media. Purposeful activities aimed at broadcasting the values of gender equality in the media can set a vector in the transformation of mass legal awareness.

The content analysis of the publications of the business publication Delovoy Peterburg showed that the number of articles written by women and men is balanced. This may indicate the existence of a certain internal gender policy of the publication aimed at ensuring authorship parity. However, the analysis of expert opinions presented in publications showed a significant preponderance of comments from men over women (72 vs. 22). This "imbalance" of expert opinions can contribute to the preservation of gender stereotypes and limit women's career opportunities. An analysis of the headlines of articles on gender issues revealed the presence of certain gender stereotypes and the emphasis on gender inequality, which hinders the formation of a culture of gender literacy.

Business media, which form the value orientations of the business community, are becoming an important object of research on legal culture and gender relations, given their impact on public perceptions. The results of the study indicate the need for more active coverage of gender equality issues by the business media of St. Petersburg. Increasing the sensitivity of journalists to gender issues, as well as integrating the principles of equality into editorial policy, can contribute to the transformation of public perception of gender relations in accordance with key legal values. Further research on this topic will make it possible to develop recommendations for business media to improve the coverage of gender issues.