'Gender divides in transition?' A study on the impact of the changing working conditions in journalism on the barriers for female journalists

This paper sets out to examine recent changes in the journalistic profession from a gender perspective. In the last decades, rapid technological innovations and changes in economic circumstances stimulated profound transitions in the media industry. In terms of working conditions, ample studies have documented that journalists need to produce more content in less time. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the intensified work regime, combined with the arrival of digital technologies, results in an increased demand for multi-skilled journalists. However, even though scholars agree that men and women have different working experiences in this profession, the impact of the changing journalistic work setting is rarely studied from a gender perspective. To date, research on gender inequality in journalism has uncovered several barriers for women, but few of these studies have adopted a longitudinal perspective with respect to the changing media ecology. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap by examining the possible gendered dimensions of the changing working conditions in journalism. The study explores whether these changes have influenced existing gender-related barriers or whether they have created new gender divides. We developed a longitudinal study of working conditions in Flemish newsrooms from a gender perspective based on three surveys with a five year interval (2003-2008-2013). All professional journalists were invited to participate. The findings are mixed. On the one hand, the data show that traditional barriers for women are slowly breaking down. The analysis reveals that women are entering journalism in increasing numbers and that they are making progress in gaining decision-making positions. On the other hand, the findings suggest that the increasing workload is a big burden on the work-life balance of women. Moreover, our findings point out that new technologies create new (digital) gender divides in journalism. Women are under-represented in online and multimedia journalism