Space for Solidarity? Studying Women Journalists’ Experiences of Covering Minoritized Groups

This study seeks to explore how women journalists’ perspectives on role conceptions and practice might contribute towards an understanding of minoritized group coverage, and help us explain the potential enactment of solidarity in and through journalism. Drawing upon Biddle’s role theory, we conducted 23 semi-structured interviews with women journalists based in the UK and Germany. Findings reveal that whilst women journalists’ perspectives on how minoritized groups should be represented in the news media are relatively consistent, their practiced roles often do not match this ideal due to a complex range of political, professional and personal factors. Many women journalists from minoritized groups perceive their identities as being exploited and suppressed strategically, ultimately constraining their work. Overall, this study contributes to the theorization of solidarity in and through journalism; rather than being a distinct, alternative sub-genre, the interviews uncover solidarity as a regular and often invisible journalistic practice, influenced by structures of intersectional opportunity and disadvantage.