Category: Assignments

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Making news by doing gender

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When the news is made it is also a way of doing gender. When journalists work with stories and sources they draw on their schooling, the culture of their workplace and their gut feeling. When looking at the professionalisation of the journalistic profession during the last 30 years it seems odd that many of the representations of gender are still highly gender stereotypical. Also the way men and women in mediaorganisations are regarded and regard each other seems like very difficult to change. Is this a question of the norms and values of journalism? Should we work more with news values and work values when we work with gender equality? And what about the professionalisation, what role does that play in this?

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The questions we ask…

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Where are the women? This is often how questions about gender is spoken about or reflected in both journalism and academia. I want to discuss how the way we frame questions also frames the way we view the world. Therefor we all have a responsibility to be aware how we frame news and stories and research. Not least because by framing the questions snd stories this way we categorise in order to simplify but that simplification contribute to the alienation of the men and women who do not fit into this category. Let me give an example; when we say that 76 percent of all the news is made by male journalists and 24 percent of all the news is made by female journalists it is very easy to understand: many men, not so many women=problem. But. If we turn the lense and look at the norm, something else will be visible, that it is not a problem regarding lack of women, but a problem regarding how a journalist is supposed to work and act (that you have to work in a certain way to do the job right). So the lack of women (and men) is a problem regarding the culture (values and norms) of the profession. I think we have to talk about that are still also many men who quit journalism because they too don’t feel they fit in. Maybe we can do this, if we begin by refraining the questions we ask. What do you think?