Women in the Media Spaces: Negotiating Inequalities and Power Struggle in a Neoliberal World

The neoliberal economy has significantly transformed the nature and meaning of work across sectors by deepening existing inequalities through the internationalisation of labour and shifts in work culture. Women were the worst victims of such a disruptive shift in work culture. The media industry is one sector that had a profound impact through digitalisation, the growth of satellite channels and the visual media revolution. With the demand for emerging visual media, the work culture and the skills of media personnel were redefined. On one hand, the visual media attracted many women to take up media journalism as a prospective career as it was perceived as a glamorous career with immense visibility and popularity. It redefined their ideas of courage, freedom and femininity. On the other hand, the women in the media struggle to keep up with the demands of the industry in terms of their work timings, nature of work and to negotiate with the power structure. In a patriarchal system, the cultural conditioning of society and family responsibilities also affect the well-being of women. This is a qualitative study using narrative method and in-depth interviews were conducted with seven women media professionals working in different media platforms in Kerala, South India. The research objective was to understand how work in media was redefined in a neoliberal context and examine its implications for women in media. Through a phenomenological lens, researchers have explored how ‘successful’ women media professionals navigated through their everyday challenges both at work and in their private spaces.