Women in decision-making structures in media

As with so many other aspects of social, cultural and economic life in the 21st century, women’s occupation of decision-making positions in media industries is low relative to their proportion in the sector’s labour force. Despite increasing numbers of women graduating from professional and vocational programmes and entering the industry, most research suggests that they get stuck at middle management and rarely achieve the really top jobs. Given the dominance of US scholarship in this field, the research on which this short paper is based aimed to explore women’s penetration of top level management across a range of large media organisations, both public sector and privately-owned in the EU and Croatia. The work was funded by the European Institute for Gender Equality and the idea for it arose from the decision of the Council of the European Union’s Presidency in the first half of 2013 (Ireland) to prioritise Area J of the Beijing Platform for Action. Area J has two aspects, one relating to the participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through media and new communication technologies, and the other to promote a balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media. Whilst the project addressed both these elements, this paper is focused exclusively on the first element.