Analytical View of Mediating Job Stress and Work-Life Balance ‎Through Self-Motivation Among Women journalists in Kerala’s ‎digital Age

The domain of digital journalism is rapidly evolving through new technologies, audience engagement models, and shifting newsroom ‎dynamics. Within this space, the role of women journalists is increasingly significant for demand-focused analytical exploration. Findings ‎also suggest that economic implications for news organizations in emerging markets with unmanaged stress result in reduced productivity, ‎where higher attrition rates among women journalists affect overall organizational performance. Prevailing studies focus mainly on external ‎challenges like gender bias and discrimination, overlooking internal psychological factors such as self-motivation. The benefits of emotional ‎control and intellectual autonomy in stress management are rarely studied, particularly in the view of digital platforms that bring about new ‎pressures, which have a significant impact on self-motivation. To bridge this, the proposed analytical study focuses on 28 women ‎journalists across Kerala, thereby using the Maslach Multidimensional Motivational Scale (MasMoS) to quantitatively assess intrinsic ‎motivation, stress, and personal-professional balance. The research adopts the integrated Hierarchical Maslow-Herzberg model to interpret ‎the interplay between intrinsic drives and extrinsic stressors. Further, hypothesis testing, such as Levene’s test, Brown-Forsythe test, and ‎Welch’s test, is used to validate the mediation role of self-motivation in the digital workspace. Results indicate that self-motivation acts as a ‎stabilizing force, helping female journalists to manage stress and preserve work-life boundaries‎.