Media in Saudi Arabia: The Challenge for Female Journalists

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor in Department of Media Faculty of Sciences and Literature Khoulod.ma@hotmail.com

Abstract

This study explores the role of women journalists in Saudi Arabia and provides more understanding of the challenges and barriers that working in the media presents for them. The social changes that are taking place may not fit well with a more conservative society, but female journalists are showing that they have been facing up to these challenges.
Using a qualitative approach, this study sought to elicit the perceptions of a range of women working in the media and also interviewed male editors to gain their perspective on females working in their domain.
The study revealed that the women chose journalism as a career because it was an area in which they excelled and which they very much enjoyed, despite numerous challenges they encountered. Although they had faced disapproval from family initially, they managed to win over parents and husbands once they started to have their work published. In more recent years the universities have been establishing media and communication courses for women and this is giving more support to journalism being a career choice. Nevertheless, it was clear that women were restricted by their gender in having access to influential chief editor positions, which were reserved for males.
It was also found that the male editors approved of women working in journalism and spoke highly of the quality of their work. However, this may also be because the women open up the readership of newspapers by writing articles targeting other women and thus increase sales.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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