image: The Observatory of Media Content and Platforms of the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló, led by professor Jéssica Izquierdo Castillo, has coordinated a research project that addresses the situation of women in the streaming industry, with an analysis covering the period between 2015 and 2022. The conclusions of this study have confirmed that gender inequalities also exist in the audiovisual market. The study focused on analysing the content available on Netflix, HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video, revealing, among other data, that only 35% of the content available is made up of women, while men occupy approximately two thirds of the space investigated. Likewise, the Observatory has also verified the gender disparity through figures with examples such as 81% of directors in the audiovisual field compared to 19% of women in that role, as well as the modest 7.1% of female directors of photography; the presence in Spain of more female directors (22%) in the fiction genre (19.3%) than in streaming documentaries (18.6%) or that men still account for 68.6% of the total number of workers in the documentary genre.
Credit: Universitat Jaume I of Castellón
The Observatory of Media Content and Platforms of the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló, led by professor Jéssica Izquierdo Castillo, has coordinated a research project that addresses the situation of women in the streaming industry, with an analysis covering the period between 2015 and 2022. The conclusions of this study have confirmed that gender inequalities also exist in the audiovisual market.
The study focused on analysing the content available on Netflix, HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video, revealing, among other data, that only 35% of the content available is made up of women, while men occupy approximately two thirds of the space investigated. Likewise, the Observatory has also verified the gender disparity through figures with examples such as 81% of directors in the audiovisual field compared to 19% of women in that role, as well as the modest 7.1% of female directors of photography; the presence in Spain of more female directors (22%) in the fiction genre (19.3%) than in streaming documentaries (18.6%) or that men still account for 68.6% of the total number of workers in the documentary genre.
Part of these results have been published in the book Mujeres en streaming. Especialización, liderazgo y representación, edited by Jéssica Izquierdo Castillo and co-authored by 15 people from six different universities. The project's web platform has also been launched, offering published articles and interviews with women professionals in the audiovisual sector in various areas of specialisation, along with informative videos presenting key results of the study, such as "The voices of the documentary", "Women's leadership in the industry" and "Opportunities and challenges for women in the audiovisual sector".
The Observatory has recently published the full report with the results of the study.
These activities are linked to the research project "Study of the impact of streaming platforms on the role of women in the Spanish audiovisual industry and its contents" (AICO/2021/168), funded by the Regional Ministry of Innovation, Universities, Science and Digital Society for the period 2021-2023 and integrated by the UJI, as coordinator, and the universities of Vigo, Basque Country-EHU, Complutense de Madrid and University of A Coruña.
The Ministry of Equality has granted the UJI funding for a new project of the Observatory entitled "Women creators in the audiovisual sector: factors of transformation of structures to renew discourses and references", with the participation of six UJI lecturers from different departments (Communication Sciences, Philosophy and Sociology, Translation and Interpreting and Mathematics) and four lecturers from external universities (University of Seville, University of Vigo, University of Alaska Anchorage and University of Girona).