Women in Chinese Media

University of Technology Sydney

12:30pm – 1:30pm Mon, August 5, 2019
UTS Building 10, Level 5, Room 580

In accordance with the global trend of women’s employment in journalism, China has witnessed an unprecedented increase in women’s participation in the news profession over the last two decades and half. However, while accounting for more than 40 percent of the overall labor force in journalism, women still tend to occupy roles with lower pay and less power. Against this background, this talk tries to provide an insight into the obstacles to Chinese women journalists’ career advancements. The research is based on materials from in-depth interviews with journalists, both women and men, and relevant visual and written documents narrating journalists’ life and career choice in China. Four kinds of obstacles will be discussed: institutional obstacle, organizational obstacle, cultural obstacle, and self-contained obstacle.

About the Speaker

Dr. Haiyan Wang is currently Associate Professor at the School of Communication and Design at Sun Yat-sen University in China. She received her Ph.D. in Communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, MA in Communications Policy from University of Westminster, UK., and BA in Journalism from Fudan University, China. Before becoming an academic, she was an award-winning investigative journalist in Southern Metropolitan Daily, China. She has been a journalist fellow at the Reuters institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford in 2008, an Endeavour fellow at University of Sydney in 2012. Haiyan’s research focuses on political economy of the media, impact of digitalization on journalism, role perceptions and role performance of journalists, investigative journalism, international journalism and women in media. She is author of ‘The transformation of investigative journalism in China: From journalists to activists’ (MD: Lexington Book), and more than 30 research articles appearing in leading SSCI-listed journals such as Journal of Communication, Media Culture and Society, Journalism, Journalism Studies, International Journal of Communication, Asian Journalism of Communication. She serves on the editorial board of Media Culture and Society and Feminist Media Studies.