Whose voices are heard? The byline gender gap on Argentine news sites

Eugenia Mitchelstein; Pablo J. Boczkowski; Victoria Andelsman; Paloma Etenberg; Marina Weinstein; Tomás Bombau

doi:10.1177/1464884919848183

Whose voices are heard? The byline gender gap on Argentine news sites

Eugenia Mitchelstein^*, Pablo J. Boczkowski, Victoria Andelsman, Paloma Etenberg, Marina Weinstein, Tomás Bombau

^*Corresponding author for this work

Communication Studies

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

This article examines patterns of gender discrimination in the authorship of news stories in general, and opinion pieces in particular. Drawing on feminist media scholarship, content analysis of 3013 articles from eight Argentine news sites and their respective social media accounts during 2017 shows that 32.63 percent of the stories with bylines were authored by women; stories about sports, politics, and crime were less likely to have a female byline; there were no significant differences across news sites; and this gap was smaller on the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the news outlets examined than on their home pages. In the case of opinion pieces, the percentage with female bylines dropped to 15 percent, which amounts to a significant difference with other genres even after controlling for other variables, such as topic or news site. On the basis of these findings, we reflect on how factors such as news topics, the format of the news article, and the type of digital source interact with gender as a structuring mechanism of media representations.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	307-326
Number of pages	20
Journal	Journalism
Volume	21
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884919848183
State	Published - Mar 1 2020

Funding

We thank the editor and reviewers for their suggestions and criticisms. Earlier versions of the manuscript were presented at the Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association and the Communications Study Group at Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Argentina). We thank conference and seminar attendees for their most helpful feedback, in particular Natalia Aruguete, Micaela Baldoni, Ariel Goldstein, Philip Kitzberger, Ivan Schuliaquer, Nikki Usher, and Pablo Vommaro. We wholeheartedly thank the research assistants who coded the articles for this project: Silvana Leiva, Jeanette Rodríguez, Mattia Panza, Rodrigo Gil Buetto, Inés Lovisolo, and Camila Giuliano. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Keywords

Bylines
feminist media studies
gender discrimination
journalism
online news
opinion writing
social media

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Communication
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1177/1464884919848183

Cite this

@article{8d373cd7334a47e989b6ab6bd0c1d613,

title = "Whose voices are heard? The byline gender gap on Argentine news sites",

abstract = "This article examines patterns of gender discrimination in the authorship of news stories in general, and opinion pieces in particular. Drawing on feminist media scholarship, content analysis of 3013 articles from eight Argentine news sites and their respective social media accounts during 2017 shows that 32.63 percent of the stories with bylines were authored by women; stories about sports, politics, and crime were less likely to have a female byline; there were no significant differences across news sites; and this gap was smaller on the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the news outlets examined than on their home pages. In the case of opinion pieces, the percentage with female bylines dropped to 15 percent, which amounts to a significant difference with other genres even after controlling for other variables, such as topic or news site. On the basis of these findings, we reflect on how factors such as news topics, the format of the news article, and the type of digital source interact with gender as a structuring mechanism of media representations.",

keywords = "Bylines, feminist media studies, gender discrimination, journalism, online news, opinion writing, social media",

author = "Eugenia Mitchelstein and Boczkowski, {Pablo J.} and Victoria Andelsman and Paloma Etenberg and Marina Weinstein and Tom{\'a}s Bombau",

note = "Funding Information: We thank the editor and reviewers for their suggestions and criticisms. Earlier versions of the manuscript were presented at the Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association and the Communications Study Group at Universidad Nacional de San Mart{\'i}n (Argentina). We thank conference and seminar attendees for their most helpful feedback, in particular Natalia Aruguete, Micaela Baldoni, Ariel Goldstein, Philip Kitzberger, Ivan Schuliaquer, Nikki Usher, and Pablo Vommaro. We wholeheartedly thank the research assistants who coded the articles for this project: Silvana Leiva, Jeanette Rodr{\'i}guez, Mattia Panza, Rodrigo Gil Buetto, In{\'e}s Lovisolo, and Camila Giuliano. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2019.",

year = "2020",

month = mar,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1177/1464884919848183",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "21",

pages = "307--326",

journal = "Journalism",

issn = "1464-8849",

publisher = "SAGE Publications Ltd",

number = "3",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Whose voices are heard? The byline gender gap on Argentine news sites

AU - Mitchelstein, Eugenia

AU - Boczkowski, Pablo J.

AU - Andelsman, Victoria

AU - Etenberg, Paloma

AU - Weinstein, Marina

AU - Bombau, Tomás

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the editor and reviewers for their suggestions and criticisms. Earlier versions of the manuscript were presented at the Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association and the Communications Study Group at Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Argentina). We thank conference and seminar attendees for their most helpful feedback, in particular Natalia Aruguete, Micaela Baldoni, Ariel Goldstein, Philip Kitzberger, Ivan Schuliaquer, Nikki Usher, and Pablo Vommaro. We wholeheartedly thank the research assistants who coded the articles for this project: Silvana Leiva, Jeanette Rodríguez, Mattia Panza, Rodrigo Gil Buetto, Inés Lovisolo, and Camila Giuliano. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2019.

PY - 2020/3/1

Y1 - 2020/3/1

N2 - This article examines patterns of gender discrimination in the authorship of news stories in general, and opinion pieces in particular. Drawing on feminist media scholarship, content analysis of 3013 articles from eight Argentine news sites and their respective social media accounts during 2017 shows that 32.63 percent of the stories with bylines were authored by women; stories about sports, politics, and crime were less likely to have a female byline; there were no significant differences across news sites; and this gap was smaller on the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the news outlets examined than on their home pages. In the case of opinion pieces, the percentage with female bylines dropped to 15 percent, which amounts to a significant difference with other genres even after controlling for other variables, such as topic or news site. On the basis of these findings, we reflect on how factors such as news topics, the format of the news article, and the type of digital source interact with gender as a structuring mechanism of media representations.

AB - This article examines patterns of gender discrimination in the authorship of news stories in general, and opinion pieces in particular. Drawing on feminist media scholarship, content analysis of 3013 articles from eight Argentine news sites and their respective social media accounts during 2017 shows that 32.63 percent of the stories with bylines were authored by women; stories about sports, politics, and crime were less likely to have a female byline; there were no significant differences across news sites; and this gap was smaller on the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the news outlets examined than on their home pages. In the case of opinion pieces, the percentage with female bylines dropped to 15 percent, which amounts to a significant difference with other genres even after controlling for other variables, such as topic or news site. On the basis of these findings, we reflect on how factors such as news topics, the format of the news article, and the type of digital source interact with gender as a structuring mechanism of media representations.

KW - Bylines

KW - feminist media studies

KW - gender discrimination

KW - journalism

KW - online news

KW - opinion writing

KW - social media

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85072916078&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85072916078&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1464884919848183

DO - 10.1177/1464884919848183

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85072916078

SN - 1464-8849

VL - 21

SP - 307

EP - 326

JO - Journalism

JF - Journalism

IS - 3

ER -

Whose voices are heard? The byline gender gap on Argentine news sites

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this