A Feminine Footprint: Reconciling Conflicting Evidence in News Media Products

The present article seeks to shed light on one of the most challenging questions in the study of gender and the media: Is the growing entry of women into newsrooms changing the conventional structuring of the media agenda and affecting the patterns of news production and content? For some time now, women’s accelerated entry into journalism has attracted the attention of scholars in examining the diverse aspects of the news production process.

According to some arguments, media and journalistic practice, by its very nature and the nature of the work process, is professional and is non-gender. Others claim that the complex organizational apparatus that is engaged in the selection, production and presentation of the news to the public, precludes the influence of any single individual, however senior his or her position in the organization may be. Yet others believe that the increasing entry of women into journalism will radiate changes in the content of the media and the news agenda.

Publisher: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Sheraton New York, New York City, NY
Year of Publication: 2008