Diversity

Created in His Own image? Representations of Gender and Ethnicity in Accountancy Magazine

This paper investigates whether the Milburn Report and the Equality Act had a significant impact on the visual representation of ethnic minorities and of women in the ICAEW’s main professional publication, Accountancy magazine. The visual representation includes adverts and content articles. The critical event analysis is restricted to human representations only.The Milburn report was published in July 2009, implying that the period before the event is 2008-Jul-2009, and the period after is August 2009 to September 2011. The critical event in this case is the publication of the report ion 21rst July 2009. In the case of the Equality Act, the critical event occurs on1rst October 2010. Our findings suggest that the editors of Accountancy magazine did react to a certain extent to the publication of the Milburn report and the Equality Act. There were significant changes in the number of images of women and ethnic minorities in position of authority or as accountants. Moreover, there was a statistically significant change in the number of images showing accountants of any sex or ethnicity after the publication of the Milburn Report and the Equality Act. This finding suggests that there was a deliberate intention to reinforce the representation of the core readership in reaction to external initiatives for changes in the profession. However, the overwhelming majority of images published at any time between 2008 and 2011 represent white male accountants or white male individuals in position of authority.

(with Jonathan Ashong-Lamptey, George Kapaya , Orthodoxia Kyriacou and Kate Maguire)