Abstract:

Resulting from some held assumptions that gender role plays out in workplace and as such some
roles are either gender-specific or gender-preserved, this study investigated gender equity and
representation in broadcast organizations in Owerri in this era of digital broadcasting. The study
was guided by research questions in the following areas: whether or not male and female staff of
the broadcast organizations are given equal opportunity to take up any role based on their
qualifications; the roles in the organizations that are mostly played by male or female gender; the
unit in the organizations which has more male or more female gender; number of male and female
genders who hold managerial positions in the organizations; units in the organizations headed by
female gender; roles preserved by the stations for specific gender. Sandra Harding Standpoint
theory was adopted to back up the study. Survey was used as the design for the study while
questionnaire was the study instrument. The population for the study comprised the workforce in
all the radio and television stations in Owerri. Since broadcast media are not too many in Owerri,
the study used census of four station radio and two television station workforce instead of creating
a sample from the population for the study. Findings show that both male and female genders are
fairly represented in all other departments except in Engineering/Works which was 77% t0 23%
in favour of male. Although female gender has had slight lower representation in many areas of
workplace activities, there is a significant extent to which equity in gender representation in the
roles played by both genders among broadcast media in Owerri, Imo State is observed