Louise North

Gendered Experiences of Industry Change and the Effects of Neoliberalism

In a time of dramatic and rapid change in the global media industry and when technological advances and media concentration are shaping the way news is produced and consumed, little research has focused on how the producers of news are affected by such change. This paper explores narratives of confidence and cynicism as told to me by Australian print news media journalists. I am interested in journalists’ memories and experiences of personal change that arise from an intensified workplace and how neoliberal discourses affect newsroom culture. How do the journalists I interview experience and speak of changes in the newsroom? In what ways is being a journalist different now to when they entered the industry? In effect, how have journalists changed as a result of journalisms changes? The interviews with 17 print media journalists contain rich narratives with which to explore how participants remember and make sense of industry changes. This paper finds that the intensification of work practices, ethical constraints and gender bias, underpinned by neoliberalism, have aided in creating a cynicism among many of the journalists interviewed. Nevertheless, the majority of interviewees suggest that a career in journalism has increased their personal and/or professional confidence. There are, however, gendered differences in this experience.

Rejecting the ‘F-word’ How ‘feminism’ and ‘feminists’ are understood in the newsroom

Feminist media scholarship in the past 30 years has focused on the representation of women in the media while an understanding of those who produce the representations has received little attention. In this article I am concerned with how some Australian journalists understand and experience the social/political movement of feminism and its advocates, feminists, as news sources and colleagues. I particularly focus on fleshing out how female journalists and those who identify as feminist discuss, negotiate, compromise and sometimes ‘survive’ a masculine newsroom culture. Moreover, I ask why it is that male and female journalists in my interviews — feminist-identified or not — resist or reject embracing or using the terms ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’ in the context of the newsroom. A decade ago, Kay Schaffer astutely noted that feminism had become a ‘scare word’ in media discourse. I take this idea a step further by analysing more broadly how some journalists talk about ‘feminism’ and ‘feminists’.

Still a 'Blokes Club': The Motherhood Dilemma in Journalism

The largest survey of female journalists working in the Australian news media was undertaken in 2012 and asked participants to respond to questions about perceived gender discrimination in working conditions. This article focuses on participant responses in relation to promotional opportunities. The keys themes that arose centred on the impact of childcare responsibilities and a masculine newsroom culture that worked to exclude them. A total of 577 female journalists working in broadcast, print and online platforms from all states and territories and in regional/rural, metropolitan and suburban news publications responded to the online survey. Most respondents articulated a perception of gender bias around the issue of promotional opportunities but often blamed themselves and/or their child-rearing responsibilities for their lack of opportunity. The responses indicate an ongoing and systemic gender bias that disadvantages women, particularly mothers, and has been largely left unacknowledged in Australian media debates.

Just a Little Bit of Cheeky Ribaldry?: Newsroom Discourses of Sexually Harassing Behaviour

This paper is concerned with how Australian print news media journalists, male and female, remember, talk about, experience, acknowledge, condemn, and/or deny sexually harassing behaviour in the newsroom. A total of seventeen in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight male and nine female journalists in late 2003 and early 2004. The interviewees ranged in age from 19 to 56 and differed in levels of industry experience. The interviews were not set up to specifically discuss sexually harassing behaviour in the newsroom; however it was a theme that arose in seven of the interviews about newsroom culture, my broader PhD project. The female interviewees make clear their encounters are constant reminders of how their bodies do not “fit” and/or where and how they do fit in this occupation. This is the case, even though some women do not use the term “sexual harassment” to describe the behaviour that clearly constitutes it under Australian government legislation. The two male journalists interviewed who mentioned harassment talk about it in defence of accepted office behaviour, or in passing about procedural business policy. The use of the term “sexual harassment,” or lack of its use, also tells us about the place of feminism and/or feminist inspired government legislation in journalisms occupational culture.

The Currency of Gender: Student and Institutional Responses to the First Gender Unit in an Australian Journalism Program.

This paper reports on the development and implementation of the first unit1 in an Australian university undergraduate journalism program to specifically examine the gendered nature of both news content and production processes. The paper outlines why such a unit is important to addressing entrenched industry bias, the core content, and student and institutional responses. It notes the initial limitations and ongoing impediments to developing similar modules in other journalism programs. While the paper laments the parlous state of critical feminist reflection in Australian journalism education, its main aim is to bear witness to the success of the ground-breaking unit and to encourage journalism educators worldwide to embrace gender (and diversity) education in their curricula.

Damaging and daunting: female journalists’ experiences of sexual harassment in the newsroom

Abstract Female journalists’ experiences of sexual harassment are barely documented in the literature about Australian news journalism despite evidence of its ongoing prevalence. There have been some stories of harassment detailed in autobiographies by female journalists and the occasional article in the mainstream media about individual incidents, but it wasn’t until 1996 that a union survey provided statistical evidence of an industry-wide problem. That Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance survey found that more than half of the 368 female participants had experienced sexual harassment at work. In 2012, I conducted the largest survey of female journalists in Australia finding that there was an increased number of respondents who had experienced sexual harassment in their workplaces. In a bid to better understand female journalists’ experiences of sexual harassment, this paper analyses written comments made by survey participants in relation to key questions about harassment. It finds that most downplay its seriousness and do not make formal reports because they fear victimisation or retaliation. As a consequence, a culture of secrecy hides a major industry problem where many women believe they should work it out themselves and that harassment is the price they have to pay for working in a male-dominated industry.

The Victorian Bushfires and Extreme Weather Events: Media Coverage, Crisis and Communication

The 2009 ‘Black Saturday’ Victorian bushfires claimed the lives of 173 people and have become known as the worst fire event in Australian history. Victoria has been at the centre of two other significant Australian fire disasters – ‘Black Friday’ in 1939 and the 1983 ‘Ash Wednesday’ fires in south-eastern Australia that claimed the lives of 47 people in Victoria. As media scholar and commentator Michael Gawenda has noted, the media not only report an ‘event’ – like the Victorian bushfires or the tsunami in the South Pacific – but in a sense create and define it. Print and electronic media coverage of extreme weather events therefore raises a multitude of issues about the medias role in serving the community before, during and after a crisis, while also trying to produce the best possible reportage in a competitive industry undergoing dramatic change. This issue of MIA provides a venue for critical, empirical engagement with media coverage and representation, and the role of journalism and journalists in reporting national and international bushfires, tsunamis, hurricanes and other extreme weather events, with a special focus on the 2009 Victorian bushfires. Its goal is to address the ramifications of an industry in flux – indeed, some may say crisis – driven by technological advances, staff reductions and media organisations under financial pressure, and to explore the ways in which such extreme weather events have impacted media practices and policy.

Behind the mask: women in television news

The characteristics and lived experiences of women who work in television news in Australia have largely been overlooked in the field of journalism studies. This article, drawing on data from a larger project undertaken in 2012, focuses on 93 female respondents who identified as working in television news. It aims to provide a baseline study for further research by noting the characteristics and experiences of women who work in television news compared and contrasted with those women working in other news media platforms (newspapers, radio, wire services and online). While there are similarities between the cohorts, women in television in Australia are typically younger, earn more money and perceive greater gender equity in their workplaces. They do, however, experience higher levels of sexual harassment in the newsroom, although many appear to be resilient to its personal and professional ramifications.

Review: Interpreting NewsMeikleGraham, Interpreting News, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2009, ISBN 9 7814 0393 3829, x+226 pp., A

Interpreting News is a finely crafted book that seamlessly integrates four areas of study directly linked to understanding media power. It is a testament to Meikle’s willingness and skill that he brings together previously disparate areas of study into one concise volume perfect for undergraduate students in media studies and journalism studies. The book is underpinned by Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic power’, more simply explained as the media’s power to construct reality. The media’s symbolic power lies in its ability to intervene in the course of events, to influence the progress of events and even create events. Meikle identifies four groups or individuals who have the capacity to exercise this power in various unequal ways — media organisations and their owners, journalists, sources and audiences. There are particular media forms that enable the exercise of symbolic power, and the book stays mainly within the delivery platforms of newspapers, TV and the internet within the Western media of the United States, United Kingdom and Australia — although it does, importantly, scope the rise of AlJazeera. Interpreting News is about the social and cultural importance of news, and the book therefore fits well in any journalism studies or media studies course. It is refreshing that Meikle notes one does not need to be a journalist, or to have been a journalist, to talk about the news with authority. This is an oft-used rebuke from some journalism academics with a practice background. The nexus between the two disciplines is well known, but Meikle moves on from this debate and notes that some of the best work in this area is being done at the ‘interstices between humanities and social sciences, between established traditions and new approaches’. The study of media, suggests Meikle, is ‘less a discipline that it is an undiscipline’ — and I’m sure that’s how many journalism scholars would see their industry in its current state of flux. On this note, Chapter 4 — about journalists and their changing status — is particularly useful for both media studies and journalism studies students. Too many books that attempt to understand media content fail to analyse the producers and their impact on news content. This links well with Chapter 6 about the audience — of course, no longer passive recipients of news media but active producers of news. The chapter takes the reader on a historical journey (as do most chapters) from the audience as subject of symbolic power to agent of power. The book concludes with a gaze into the future of media production and consumption. Who will manifest symbolic power in the future? Who will tell the stories? Will we all be hooked into indymedia, alternative media or blogging? If the new journalist is anyone with a computer, what does this mean for the former authority of traditional newsmakers? The answer, as Meikle sees it, is in the plurality of voices in a new media environment. All have valid claims to providing other kinds of knowledge and contributing to a more diverse media environment. Interpreting News is an excellent undergraduate text enhanced by Meikle’s engaging writing style, which provides clarity, flow and good linkages between ideas, case studies and examples. — Louise North, Humanities, Communication and Social Sciences, Monash University