2015/07/03 by Marian Meyers, Lynne Gayle
Social Sciences · #Diversity (politics) #Ethnic group #Gender studies #Gender, Feminism, and Media #Intersectionality #Media Studies and Communication #Media studies #Newspaper #Normative #Political science #Population #Race (biology) #Resistance (ecology) #Social Media and Politics #Sociology #Variety (cybernetics)
paper · doi:10.1080/10646175.2015.1049760
openalex publication_date 2015/07/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
Previous studies have examined the experiences of either women or minority journalists to determine whether newsroom diversity makes a difference in news content, concluding that the gender and race of newsworkers does not substantially alter the news. However, they have not looked at the work practices and experiences of African American women journalists to determine whether their newswork challenges or reinforces dominant journalistic constructions concerning race and gender. Drawing on the cultural studies model of encoding/decoding, as well as the concept of intersectionality and standpoint theory, this study asks whether the social location of journalists as African Americans and women affects their work practices in ways that increase racial and gender diversity in the news, challenge stereotypes, and otherwise resist normative news constructions of race and gender. Interviews were conducted with 10 African American female TV and newspaper journalists in a major metropolitan area with a majority Black population. This study found that these journalists employed a variety of strategies to resist normative constructions of race to provide positive Black images and voices in the news, but did not similarly feel the need to intervene in news constructions involving gender.