Time to Step Up

On the global debate about gender equality in the media there is often a demand for regional discussions. I am privileged to be part of such a project, Nordic Gender & Media Forum, organized by Nordicom at the University of Gothenburg.

During 2014 there will be a number of activities where of course the work of IWMF will be an important part of the discussion.

Here is the book!

We are many happy co-authors that just recieved this book in the post. It feels so good.
Standing ovations to Carolyn M Byerly for the work that she has done as an editor.

My engagement in this project started in Johannesburg already in 2008, at the Gender Summit organized by Gender Links.At the summit Carolyn M Byerly announced that IWMF were looking for regional coordinators. Five years later the book is here! 

The Palgrave International Handbook of Women and Journalism

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Gender & media panel at Nordmedia 2013

Every second year there is a Nordic media researchers conference; Nordmedia. This year it takes place in Oslo, Norway Aug 8-10. We are having a panel, The Uncomfortable Gender Gap in The Nordic News Media, based on new research in combination with the chapters that we wrote for the coming Palgrave International Handbook on Women and Journalism.
Hopefully there will be a good discussion. Tarja Savolainen, University of Helsinki will talk about the EIGE report that investigates the gender equality in the media organisations in all the EU member states. Turid Øvrebø, Volda college, will talk about her new research from Dagsrevyn, NRK and I will discuss the possible implications of recent political documents from the EU and the Council of Europe regarding Gender and the Media.

IAMCR 2013 Dublin

Women Journalists  and Media structures in Time of Crisis. That is the name of the Panel in the Gender & Communication section on Friday, 16 pm, at  the IAMCR conference. There will be a fantastic group of researchers presenting data from the IWMF-study and the research that they have done from all over the world, ther researchers are representing Mexico, Kenya, Estonia, Brazil, Chile, South  Africa and many more. I my self am very much looking forward to meet these people IRL since we all share the experiece of writing about our country for the Palgrave-book ( see earlier blogpost.)

Again we have our editor, Carolyn Byerly to thank for this opportunity.

Panel at the ICA Conference in London

We are very fortunate. In June, some of the contributors to the Palgrave International Handbook on Women and Journalism ( see earlier blogpost) will be able analyze the current situation for female journalists. Thanks to our editor, Carolyn M Byerly, we will be part of the academic discussion in London where The 63rd Annual Conference of International Communication Association (ICA) will be held. Only 36 % of the papers and panels were accepted so it is quite a thrill. For me it is also my first ICA conference.

The theme of our panel is Women Journalists in Turbulent Times: The gendered impact of historical shifts in newsrooms. The panelist are: Carolyn M Byerly, Howard University, Jad Melki, American University of Beirut, Diana Iulia Nastasia, Southern Illinois University, Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh, Butler University and my self, Maria Edstrom, University of Gothenburg.

If you are attending the ICA conference, please come and take part of the seminar:
Scheduled Time: Thu, Jun 20 - 9:30am - 10:45am  
Building/Room: Hilton Metropole, Hilton Meeting Rooms 16 & 17, London

From the abstract:
Women journalists are caught in a confluence of local world events that is not of their making but which shapes their work lives nonetheless. This panel identifies some of these events – what we characterize as “historical shifts”—and explores how these shifts are affecting women’s occupational status and ability to do their work as reporters. Indeed, the overarching goal is to find the otherwise invisible gendered dimensions of forces that affect and/or reshape women journalists’ relationship to the profession and their work. These forces are produced in the macro-sphere by political shifts like popular uprisings that topple governments, economic shifts that are producing unemployment or stagnation (including in newsrooms), technological shifts that are changing the nature of news making, and cultural shifts like the rise of religious fundamentalism, particularly in the Arab states. 

Some of these impacts have been documented in recent research, in which some panelists have participated. Relevant examples include the Global Report on the Status of Women in News Media, which surveyed women’s location in more than 500 news companies around the world, and the Global Media Monitoring Report, which examined (among other things) the extent to which women reporters cover serious news like politics, war, and the economy. 

The full abstract can be found here.

The Palgrave International Handbook on Women and Journalism on its way!

Carolyn M. Byerly who was the principal investigator of the IWMF study is also the editor of a volume from Palgrave Macmillan  where scholars from all over the world are contextualizing the data from Global Report on the Status of Women in The News Media

The book will be an important contribution to the global discussion about women and the media. 

There are contributions from all regions included in the book. From the Nordic countries there are chapters about Finland, Norway and Sweden are included in the book. Henrika Zilliacus Tikkanen and Tarja Savolainen wrote about the Finnish situation, Turid Øvrebø wrote about Norway and I contributed with a chapter on Sweden.

The Palgrave International Handbook on Women and Journalism will materialize as a book in autumn 2013.

Nordic Perspectives
Time for some updates. 
Since the Zagreb conference on Women and Media the fabulus Viktorija Car edited a great volume of Media Studies/Medijske studije where all the keynote speakers contributed. It is all open access, My article has the title  'Is There a Nordic Way?: A Swedish Perspective on Achievements and Problems with Gender Equality in Newsrooms .
The whole volume can be found here: