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DOI: 10.1177/0163443706059578
2006 28: 123 Media Culture Society
Kyung-Hee Kim
Obstacles to the success of female journalists in Korea
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Obstacles to the success of female journalists in
Korea
Kyung-Hee Kim
HALLYM UNIVERSITY, KOREA
The media industry in Korea has recently experienced great change,
including change in the eld of news reporting. In newspapers, the number
of pages has increased, topics have been divided into different sections, and
editorial policy has become more reader-centered. Broadcast news has
begun to deal with more casual news topics than before. Thanks to these
changes, the proportion of female journalists in the media industry has
increased slightly, but there is still only a small number compared with
male journalists. Moreover, the proportion of high-ranking females above
the position of associate editor is still very small, regardless of the total
increase. In May 2001, the number of females in the ranks above the level
of associate editor in the Joong Ang Ilbo
1
was only 4 out of total of 118,
and in KBS (Korean Broadcasting System), the public broadcaster of
Korea, only 7 out of 80 (Chung, 1999). These two companies are known to
have higher proportion of female journalists than others. This shows that
the demand for female journalists has not increased, even though the
demand for soft news (i.e. more casual content, such as culture, well-being
or family issues, compared to hard news stories related to politics,
national issues or economics), which is generally considered as being
appropriate for female journalists to write about, has increased.
In several advanced nations, the proportion of female journalists in the
news media has also increased. For example, the number of female
journalists in the United States has increased, and their working condi-
tions in the media industry have improved. In 1970, 30 percent of the
American newspaper workforce was female. By 1980, this had increased
to 40 percent and, by 2001 to 48 percent (Hemlinger, 2001). It is an issue
in nations like the US whether or not the current news media, with more
Media, Culture & Society 2006 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks
and New Delhi), Vol. 28(1): 123141
[ISSN: 0163-4437 DOI: 10.1177/0163443706059578]
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female reporters, are any different from the past when it comes to
describing females. In media studies, content analyses of the presence or
absence, stereotyping and devaluation of females are abundant in American
journals (Steeves, 1987). Van Zoonen (1988), for example, analyzed
whether journalists in the Netherlands had a double standard when
selecting news topics, in order to see whether or not the increase of female
reporters resulted in any difference in the depiction of females in the news
media. The result showed that there was no signicant difference in choice
of news topic between male and female journalists. This indicates that
there is still under-representation of females in news production in both
quality and quantity, and that news content has not changed, regardless of
the increase in female journalists.
The current situation in the media industry described above is not simply
due to the characteristics of news content regardless of whether it is hard
or soft or the number of female journalists. Rather, it is caused by certain
mechanisms that exclude females from the news production process. This
study will address the following issues: what are the mechanisms that
exclude female journalists from news production? In what ways are female
journalists alienated from their news organization?
Theoretical framework
The female journalist as media producer
Many studies of liberal feminism focus on current inequalities in numbers
and opportunities for females in media professions (Steeves, 1987).
However, they fail to uncover the specic underlying physical or ideologi-
cal reasons that restrict females in media professions. They also provide no
explanation for the decline in their salaries and inuence in the eld, even
though the number of female professionals has increased over the years
(van Zoonen, 1991).
The gatekeeper studies go one step further than the studies mentioned
above. Many of them emphasize that women are rarely used as sources in
stories depicting news of national or international importance, which may
serve as a signal to readers that women are unimportant with regard to
public events and activities, and undeserving of leadership roles (Arm-
strong, 2004). Womens issues tend to be marginalized in both the news
and agenda setting in the press. According to van Zoonen (1991, 1994),
news sources are still overwhelmingly male, despite the growing number
of female politicians, business executives, and medical and legal profess-
ionals. Some research into news producers view of women starts from the
assumption that the distorted image of females in the news is due to the
small number of female media producers. However, the gender of
124 Media, Culture & Society 28(1)
journalists hardly plays any role in the selection of news (Merrit and Gross,
1978; van Zoonen, 1988; Whitlow, 1977). These studies show that the
distortion of females in the news has not changed, regardless of the equal
number of female news producers.
Tuchman (1972) explains that the reasons why female media profession-
als have the same point of view about womens issues as men are to do
with the culture and professionalism of the news industry. She also
suggests that there is a signicant difference between the newsmens
thoughts and the messages that they produce. She insists that profession-
alism, especially objectivity, is utilized as a strategic ritual. From her
perspective, it is female journalists strategic ritual to accept male journal-
ists viewpoint about females as standard when they write a news article. In
other words, it is assumed that a certain mechanism compels them to adopt
male journalists viewpoint as standard in the choice of news so that they
appear completely professional.
Feminism and the work of professional females
Feminist theories start from the question of where the gender restraints
come from. Each feminist theory provides different explanations of gender
restraints. For example, liberal feminists try to nd their causes in social
customs and tradition; Marxist feminists nd fault with capitalism; radical
feminists blame the gender/sex system of the patriarchy; and psycho-
analytic feminists blame the Oedipus complex.
Socialist feminism, which integrates Marxist, psychoanalytic and radical
feminism, believes that both patriarchy and capitalism are the reasons for
gender restraints. Socialist feminisms explanation is very persuasive because
it can explain why females are suppressed and excluded, while Marxist
feminism cannot address that issue. It also provides an explanation for the
gender constraints caused by capitalism, while radical feminism cannot.
This study assumes that socialist feminism is the best tool to investigate
gender constraints, since capitalism and patriarchy have had a most
powerful inuence on every aspect of modern society, including the family
and the workplace. Because modern Korean society is a capitalist society,
it is hard to deny that some contradictions and inequalities have their origin
in class, as Marxist feminism insists. However, capitalism alone cannot
explain all the constraints on women in Korea. The reality in Korean
society, where there is discrimination between males and females, even in
the same workplace or in the same position, shows that there is another
underlying reason for gender constraints that capitalism alone cannot explain.
The current study assumes that it is patriarchal structure mixed with capi-
talism that is the reason for gender constraints, not just capitalism. This
assumption can be strongly supported by increasing understanding of sex
125 Kim, Female journalists in Korea
roles in the workplace, which is suggested as an important concept by most
feminist theories.
According to socialist feminism, it is not capitalism, but the mixture of
the patriarchal structure with capitalism, that forms the basis for the
gendered division of labour, putting females in the household and males
into the industrial workplace. Socialist feminist thought can be divided into
two theories: one is dualist, insisting that capitalism and patriarchy are
totally separate social networks from each other; the other is a theory of
holistic systems, which insists that both form a single concept and that they
cannot be detached from each other. Separating them makes it impossible
to analyze the existing situation in modern Korean society, which is the
result of a mixture of patriarchy and capitalism. Therefore, this study will
take the perspective of Alison Jagger, the leading philosopher of the theory
of holistic systems (Tong, 1989). Jagger identies alienation as the concept
that will provide us with a theoretical framework powerful enough to
accommodate the main insights of Marxist, radical, psychoanalytic and
even liberal feminist thought. In this study, female journalists as news
producers will be analyzed in terms of the concept of alienation as
developed by Jagger.
Alienation and exclusion mechanisms in production
The alienation of female journalists can be investigated either at the level
of the news organization or at the personal level. First, when investigating
it from the organizational level, the marginalization of female journalists is
the best example to show how they are alienated in a patriarchal and
capitalist society. This study denes the marginalization of females as the
state in which they are put at the margin, far away from the power that
decides on the strategic direction of an organization, while men are put at
the center of the organization. Generally, power is dened as an agents
potential inuence over the attitudes and behavior of one or more
designated target persons (Yukl, 1994). When considering the social
meaning of the news, the most important power in the newsroom is the
power to decide editorial direction, and to inuence the course of editorial
direction. The marginalization of female journalists in this study will
be based on their positions of ofcial power, such as chief editor or
senior editor.
Second, at the personal level, the alienation of females appears as a form
of dissatisfaction with their work, or a low level of the sense of belonging
to their organization. The most fundamental reason for the alienated state
of females is the capitalist patriarchal structure. That is, the capitalist
patriarchies make the mechanisms of exclusion work, which cause the
alienation of females in the news production process
This study tries to understand exclusion mechanisms by focusing on the
areas where those mechanisms that are directly relevant to female journal-
ists operate. These can be divided into two broad areas: the ofcial area
and the private area. The ofcial area is the area outside the family, which
includes exclusion mechanisms in both the newsroom and in the news
gathering process. In this context, an exclusion mechanism refers to widely
held societal beliefs, and the customs and culture that alienate female
journalists from the society.
The exclusion mechanisms within the news organization are those that
alienate female journalists from the organization they belong to, that is, the
mechanisms that derive from working in a male-centered system within the
newsroom. The exclusion mechanisms in news gathering are external, and
reject females in contexts outside the newsroom. Communication occurs
through social networks and there is a tendency to ignore females in
Korean society, so that some areas are not so easy for female journalists to
report on as for male reporters. The exclusion mechanisms in the private
area are those deriving from family issues which prevent females from
living the life of a journalist. These exclusion mechanisms can function as
the source of the alienation of female journalists from the public area. This
theoretical framework is summarized in Figure 1.
Research methods
In order to gure out the exclusion mechanisms, this study performs a
content analysis of the female journalists essays in the annual magazine
Female Journalists, published by the Korean Female Journalists Club. The
reason for using qualitative research methods in this study is that the
exclusion mechanisms of the news production process can hardly be
perceived because these mechanisms are not explicitly evident; they differ
depending on the situation and are implicit. Therefore, the exclusion
mechanisms can be understood better by examining female journalists
daily experiences. One hundred and seven articles were selected for
analysis from the rst eleven issues of Female Journalists (Korean Female
Journalists Club, 19902002). First, every paragraph that shows the
exclusion mechanisms in the news production process in each article was
selected. Second, the selected paragraphs were classied into three cate-
gories: news gathering, organizational area and private area. Third, the
sentences in each category were classied according to different sub-
categories. Finally, under each subcategory, the concepts most relevant to
an explanation of the exclusion mechanism in question were provided.
Exclusion mechanisms in news gathering
The results show that the following mechanisms that exclude female
journalists are found in the news gathering process: (1) the authoritative
method of collecting information; (2) the culture of unethical compromise;
(3) informal communication; and (4) a traditional view of womanhood.
The authoritative method of collecting information
The authoritative method of collecting information is dened as the way in
which the journalist, as the power holder, collects data from the news
source coercively. The problem here is that both journalists and news
sources consider this natural. In a society where there is a tendency to
discount a females ability, this method of information collection leaves
female journalists at a signicant disadvantage. One female journalist
recorded this tendency as follows:
In a tough situation at the police station, a male reporter tries to approach the
detectives very boldly with a strong and low tone of voice. The detectives
FIGURE 1
Exclusion Mechanisms in the news organization
Capitalist patriarchy
Exclusion in the news gathering process
Exclusion in news organization
Exclusion in the private area
Alienation of female journalists
Organizational alienation:
marginalization
Personal alienation:
self-alienation from the job
Capitalist patriarchy
Public area
Private area
would consider him a veteran newspaperman and submit to his requests.
However, in the same situation, they even make a practical joke for a female
journalist, and that makes me upset. (Female Journalists, 1993: 1423)
Some female journalists suffer from the belief that they too should use this
aggressive method to collect information; this makes their behavior seem
unnatural and it has an adverse effect on the news source.
Some female journalists who start working on crime issues are obsessed
with the thought that they have to approach news sources authoritatively.
So they deliberately speak harshly to the news source, and tend to be upset
even at the slightest thing. The news source then concludes that these
female journalists are rude and arrogant, and eventually tries to avoid them
(Korean Female Journalist Club, 1993: 1389).
Female journalists try to nd their own way of collecting information in
order to overcome the failure that they experience using male journalists
authoritative way of collecting information. However, it is not easy to nd
another news collection method or to know how news sources will receive
this new way, because the news sources are so used to the authoritative
way. Therefore female journalists are still worrying about how to collect
information (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1994: 162).
The culture of unethical compromise
The culture of unethical compromise, in this study, refers to the reality that
the journalists act out the problematic culture of the Korean society, even
though they realize its ethical wrongness. For example, Korean journalists
often enjoy the sexually decadent bar meeting provided by the news
source, even though they know that the commercialization of sex is
unethical. They sometimes intrude on the privacy of the news source, or
even accept and give bribes. This is not necessarily true of all female
journalists. Bribes, in particular, are considered a source of conict by most
journalists in Korea, regardless of their gender. Many male journalists do
not engage in this activity because of ethical conicts.
However, there is a reason why the culture of unethical compromise
should be understood as a mechanism that excludes female journalists:
there is a tendency for males not to take journalistic ethics as seriously as
females in the capitalist patriarchal society of Korea. For example, males
who are used to the commercialization of sex may not put a signicant
meaning on being entertained at a room-salon, a type of decadent bar in
Korea. Concerns about the alienation that possibly results from not
conforming to the unethical culture can be easily found in female
journalists articles.
It was difcult to reject the bribe that was distributed to the entire press. I was
afraid of being alienated from the male-dominated press, most of whom had
seniority over me, if I chose to go my own way. (Korean Female Journalist Club,
1990: 161)
More important than rejection by their colleagues is the news sources
opinions about those female journalists who reject bribes:
What is strange in bribes is that a feeling of oneness takes place in the
relationship after a hidden deal was done. So, the bribes make it possible to
trade in so-called hard-core news with each other, between the news source
and the journalist. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1991: 225)
This feeling of sharing the unethical behavior between the journalist and
the news source is very problematic, since it can become a mechanism that
excludes those journalists who refuse to participate in this unethical
behavior. Another example of unethical compromise derives from the
masculine value system of modern Korean society, which does not object
to the commercialization of sex.
I was also in agony after the dinner meeting at the room-salon with the people
of my newsbeat or company, because they had provided some courtesans and
expensive liquor as well as the meal in order to be told that they treated us very
well. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1990: 1612)
If a close connection is established between a journalist and a news source,
and the information is mainly passed on in an inappropriate place such as a
room-salon that females cannot stand, female journalists will be accord-
ingly excluded from that connection.
Informal communication
Informal communication is dened as communication that takes place
between journalists and sources in an informal setting. In Korea, much
important information is shared in a bar or a public bath rather than in an
ofce. Since most of the news sources are male, it is difcult for female
journalists to participate in male public baths or late night meetings in bars
in order to obtain information. Informal communication, therefore, plays a
central role as a mechanism that excludes females from the news
production process. Female journalists essays show that they had to make
a much greater effort than male journalists because of their disadvantages
with regard to obtaining information from informal communication:
Frankly speaking, when I heard that male journalists meet the news source in
bars, public baths, or even the mens room, I was jealous of them thinking that
it would be unfair to women. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 2000: 44)
Most of the records about informal communication between journalists and
news sources point out that it alienates females from the power-holding
departments of the media company, such as political or business news
departments:
As my senior female journalist in the business department said, it is true that the
niche for females in the business department of the newspaper company is very
narrow in Korea, where most of the relationships are still built in bars, the sauna
or on the golf course. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 2001: 80)
Informal communication creates a xed notion that it is difcult to foster
a deep relationship between female journalists and news sources through
meeting at the sauna or having dinner at a bar. Female journalists are
considered to be unable to obtain high-quality information in the political
or business areas, in turn, they are only qualied to be assigned to minor
departments, such as the department of culture (Korean Female Journalist
Club, 1993: 134).
The traditional view of women
The traditional view of women is that females should stay working in the
private area because of their inability to understand the complicated
public eld. Korean women seem to be treated as disgraceful beings, who
should be avoided in some public elds. Even though journalism is a
respected professional vocation in Korean society, the traditional view of
womanhood functions as one of the mechanisms that exclude female
journalists from the news gathering area. The mechanisms in this category
include: (1) the belief that journalism is a profession only for men;
(2) seeing female journalists primarily as women and only secondarily
as professional reporters; and (3) the social trend to ignore females.
Female journalists in Korea often encounter a reality that journalism is a
male-dominated profession.
It is a fatal mistake to reveal that I am a female to newspaper readers. When
those readers call me to voice their opinions about my article and realize that I
am a female, they say, No wonder your article was so bad. These calls hurt
me so much that I cannot listen to them calmly. (Korean Female Journalist
Club, 2001: 99)
There is a problem with the notion that a journalist is a profession only for
men, since this becomes a direct barrier when female journalists cover the
news. They have to go through tougher security checks than male
journalists when they enter the newsbeat, and they have to talk more in
order to convince news sources that they are journalists (Korean Female
Journalist Club, 1990: 175). Since news sources often do not take female
journalists seriously, they hesitate to offer them important information
(Korean Female Journalist Club, 1994: 194).
The second exclusion mechanism is due to the traditional view of
women, which considers female journalists as women before seeing
them as professional reporters. Because the news source tends to think
that females are disgraceful beings who will bring them bad luck, they
treat female journalists accordingly. For example, female journalists were
prevented from entering a sports arena because it was considered that
their presence would cause a team to lose the game (Korean Female
Journalist Club, 1992: 233). The reason this old view of women is
problematic is that news sources are not polite to female journalists and
do not provide them with signicant information they would give to male
reporters.
The third exclusion mechanism in this category is the culture of ignoring
females in modern Korean society. There is a common belief that females
are inferior to males, and hence females intellectual ability is questioned:
When I rst started reporting about cultural treasures, the experts in the eld
reacted to me by saying that they doubted my ability. They wondered whether
or not I could even understand that difcult stuff, and they speculated on how
long I could last in the eld. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1995: 182)
Only in very rare circumstances do news sources provide female journalists
with the same high-quality information they would to male journal-
ists. Therefore female journalists have to expend much more effort than
men in order to collect the same amount or quality of information.
However, those efforts would often be in vain.
Exclusion mechanisms in the newsroom
The exclusion mechanisms in the news organization that are found in
Female Journalists are the masculine bond, the culture of distrust of female
journalists and the stereotype of the female reporter.
The masculine bond
The masculine relationship in Korea is based on males irrational favor-
itism towards their own gender. It is a natural phenomenon that males
evaluate themselves as productive and attractive beings, and this intensies
the tendency to identify with each other. This allows men to keep the
power of control over the resources of the organization (Lipman-Blumer,
1976). This masculine bond is built secretly and informally, so female
journalists are critical of this informal relationship that excludes females
from the organization.
Some female journalists, who realize the existence of the masculine
relationship in the society, try to absorb and practice a masculine behavior
in order to intervene in the masculine relationship. However, this is mostly
impossible for females. According to the essays, those female journalists
are only considered women who are not feminine by the male journalists,
rather than being considered members of the masculine bond (Korean
Female Journalist Club, 1995: 1934).
The problem is that this informal tie has a huge effect on the dynamics
of relationships in the formal area. The masculine bond inuences the
efciency rating of the journalists, and pulls females from the center of the
organization to the margin. This procedure takes place very subtly, so
female journalists are often assigned to a department where they have
never wanted to work. Even though there are also many cases of male
journalists being assigned to departments where they do not want to work,
female journalists feel that those cases happen more among them. Female
journalists are assigned to tasks that are so-called only suitable for
females. According to one article, when female journalists have to
compete with male journalists, many personnel changes within the com-
pany are decided according to the gender of the journalists rather than what
each individual can really do (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1995: 195).
Distrust of female journalists
Another exclusion mechanism is the culture of distrust of female journal-
ists. Because there is a common belief in modern Korean society that
female journalists are unreliable, they are not assigned to important tasks.
In other words, just because they are females, they are forced to work in a
certain minor department or cannot be given anything important to do.
The most commonly mentioned issue related to this mechanism is about
late-night work. Late-night work is regarded as an important task, not only
because it is hard to work at night, but also because journalists have to
make their own judgments on events taking place at night, and this
judgment reects on the newspaper or the broadcasting company. There
was a case when a chief editor drove a female journalist home before
midnight because he was uncertain of her ability (Korean Female Journalist
Club, 1990: 896; 1995: 2423). The reason why late-night work is
problematic is that it is one part of a mechanism that excludes females in
every aspect and marginalizes them (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1991:
1945).
Even though the editorial department of a media company is generally
considered to be suitable for female journalists, the traditional culture that
distrusts females also has an inuence over this department. Because of the
mechanism of distrust towards female journalists, the idea that females are
not able to take charge of the main sections persists in the organization and
brings about the reality that female journalists have editorial control only in
marginal areas (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1990: 1678). This is so
pervasive in the newsroom that even the female journalists themselves
agree with the situation that degrades females (Korean Female Journalist
Club, 1991: 205).
The stereotype of female journalist
It is very absurd for some men to think that the best way of praising females for
their abilities to treat them as a nuisance by telling them you are not a woman.
(Korean Female Journalist Club, 2001: 81)
The comment you are not a woman shows that there is a certain rule
when male journalists dene female journalists. This may be the issue most
frequently mentioned by working women, that they are evaluated according
to a certain stereotype of women as a whole, rather than being respected as
an individual, no matter where they work. Females working in journalism
are no exception with regard to this issue. In the newsroom, the opinion
that females are suitable for the cultural department, or that they are not
able to report criminal events, or that married women are hard to send on
business trips, is naturally exchanged. If a male journalist makes a mistake
in his reporting, only he as a person will be considered unsuitable for that
task. However, if a female journalist makes the same mistake, people
would conclude that all female journalists are likely to make the same
mistake. Even when female journalists perform well, people do not think
that this is because of their abilities. Rather, female journalists success at
work is discounted because people think that they have achieved success
through favoritism towards females:
I managed to land exclusive interviews with the owners and the CEOs of
several conglomerates. However, I heard that people, including my colleagues,
said that the CEOs of these companies only like to have interviews with
women. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 2001: 83)
To assign female journalists to departments other than those supposedly
suitable for women gives rise to speculation that there is a radical feminist
managing personnel. They are viewed as the representatives of all female
journalists. If they make any mistakes, therefore, all females will be
considered unsuitable for that line of work (Korean Female Journalist Club,
1994: 162). Because it is a mechanism that marginalizes womens roles,
the seriousness of this problem could be very great (Korean Female
Journalist Club, 1994: 194).
Exclusion mechanisms in the private area
The analysis of female journalists essays shows that females are restricted
in working as journalists even on the domestic front. This is because of the
general concept of gender-roles in modern Korean society, which ordains
that the housework, pregnancy, and childcare are womens jobs.
Housework
Female journalists do not raise the issue of housework as seriously as that
of childcare in their articles, yet they do mention the reality that they could
not work as hard as male journalists because of housework (Korean Female
Journalist Club, 1992: 188). The pieces reect the reality that the pressure
of housework often makes female journalists accept being assigned to the
marginal departments, where they have relatively more time, even though
those departments do not have signicant power:
It is a burden that female journalists should do the late-night work and come
back home and get up so early in order to do the housework, such as preparing
for their childrens lunch box, while male journalists are taken care of by their
family and they can sleep until right before they go to work. (Korean Female
Journalist Club, 1991: 1967)
Pregnancy
Pregnancy may work as a big restrictive factor for female workers. For the
journalists, most of whose duties include meeting with news sources
outside the ofce, the physical discomfort will be a bigger restrictive
factor. Regardless of this, little was recorded about pregnancy in the female
journalists pieces. This might be explained by the fact that the period of
pregnancy is a very short period in a whole career, and that it is accepted
that there is no better alternative that would help support the pregnant
journalist. The following extract shows that the pregnancy operates an
exclusion mechanism of the private area:
When I was ve months pregnant with my second child, it was unbearable to be
assigned to the Ministry of Science and Technology. . . . It was a mental burden
to me that I had to enter into a place that was full of male journalists and male
news sources. . . . I can remember the time when one scientist that I interviewed
in my last month gazed at my swollen belly, with surprise and compassion.
Childcare
The most frequently mentioned exclusion mechanism in the private area is
the problem of childcare. In modern Korean society, housework may be
taken care of by people other than wives, but childcare is different from
housework, because of the social belief that a mother is the best person to
care for a child. Because of this, childcare is a big burden for working
mothers, even though the childcare providers with whom they leave their
children with are reliable people. Female journalists, as working mothers,
are also faced with many conicts because of this notion (Korean Female
Journalist Club, 1992: 150).
It is a problem that the concern about childcare makes female journalists
give up their work or directly affects their career. Female journalists are
forced to make a choice between their job and childcare. The best solution
to the childcare problem so far is that female journalists do their best for
their children by devoting to them whatever free time they have. In other
words, only a Wonderwoman, who is forced to be an all-rounder
throughout the workplace and home, can accomplish the solution to the
childcare problem:
My strategy to ease the burden on my mind was to become a daycare teacher
for my child after work, as other working moms may do for their babies.
However, this solution at the personal level may work as a powerful
exclusion mechanism for female journalists in the news production process.
Therefore, it is urgently required that a solution be found to childcare at the
social level instead of the personal level (Korean Female Journalist Club,
1994: 767).
The alienation of female journalists
Horizontal and vertical marginalization at the organizational level
The female journalists articles record that female journalists have experi-
enced marginalization. Female journalists realize that this alienation is
making it hard for them to voice their opinion to the company. Even when
they do, their opinions are often ignored or rejected:
There are tons of invisible walls that restrict our domain of activity. The people
who created that wall even might not be conscious that it exists, but it
constantly regulates and puts us into a certain small frame that restricts our
growth. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1990: 168)
When my appropriate opinion or suggestion is seen as a complaint or objection
by the company, I cannot but keep repeating the word dilemma. (Korean
Female Journalist Club, 1994: 152)
The marginalized state of female journalists as shown in the female
journalists essays could be categorized into two subcategories: horizontal
marginalization and vertical marginalization. Horizontal marginalization is
dened as the state which female journalists are pushed out of the power-
wielding elds, such as the political, the social or the business news
departments. Van Zoonen (1988) nds that the media industry clearly
shows a horizontal separation of the media labor force, with female
journalists assigned to work in minor elds, such as consumer interests,
housing and entertainment. The female journalists reexions in Korea also
reveal horizontal marginalization at the organizational level. All female
journalists, from junior to senior level, write that they are excluded from
the power-holding departments and kept in specic areas, such as womens
issues and the culture (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1990: 152; 2001:
76). The following quote gives an example of vertical marginalization of
female journalists:
I was also marginalized in the matter of promotion. . . . In fact, my former
junior male journalists are now directors or chief editors, while I am only an
acting editor, and have to apply to headquarters to get authority in writing to
take this role, at the age of 40. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1990: 157)
First, the difculty for female journalists to acquire the legal power
shows their vertical marginalization. As van Zoonen (1988) says, it is hard
to nd female workers, even in those elds that are assumed to be female-
dominated, and there are very few female chief editors in the newsrooms in
Korea. Second, the higher female journalists formal position is, the more
they are cut out of the power-holding departments. Most female journalists
currently working in social or political departments at newspapers have less
than 10 years career experience, but most female chief editors work in the
lifestyle department or the culture department. This shows that the
tendency for females to be alienated from the power-holding departments
intensies as the female journalists positions become higher.
Self-alienation from the job at the personal level
The published pieces often show the self-alienation of female journalists.
Discrimination towards female journalists is so common in Korean society
that they even become used to being discriminated against. Or, female
journalists give up their own principles and become depressed, as they
conform to the rule of the newsroom. They feel frustrated because of the
prejudice against female journalists:
There is one thing that has made me feel powerless for the last year: a prejudice
against female journalists. This novice journalist also suffered from the
disapproval of society, as lots of senior female journalists have suffered and are
still suffering. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1995: 142)
To look back and summarize my past days makes me have the illusion that I
was so brave and dignied at that time. However, in fact my feelings were hurt
on many occasions and I became depressed. Eventually, I had to give up my
principles one by one. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1995: 194)
The self-alienation of female journalists includes their dissatisfaction
with their current tasks and a low level of a sense of belonging to their
organization. Even though there are not as many mentions of alienation at
the personal level as there are mentions of horizontal and vertical alienation
in the female journalists essays, there are still some complaints of
inequality in opportunities to deal with in-depth information because of the
gender-biased role-split:
However, the complexity of the work was not the biggest difculty. The number
of pages on broadcasting issues is so many that four journalists in our
department are now dealing with them. While male colleagues take care of the
hard news, such as broadcasting law or satellite broadcasting issues, I have to
deal with the soft news. So there is no joy of researching in-depth information
or getting new knowledge. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1992: 187)
According to Locke (1978), job satisfaction is feeling good about ones
own job or experiences in the job. In this sense, the emotional state of the
female journalist shows the state of her alienation. The mentions of a low
sense of belonging to the organization in the female journalists testimony
shows that they are alienated from the organization:
Seeing that so many junior female journalists quit this job because they feel the
work is hard or unsatisfactory, or the husbands family is against the work, I
have begun to think that what the female journalists need most are love of and
devotion to their work, even when situations that force us to resign ourselves to
social disadvantage come up. (Korean Female Journalist Club, 1990: 159).
Regardless of the competition they experienced when they tried to enter
the media industry, the fact that female journalists often quit the job more
easily than male journalists shows that their sense of belonging to an
organization is very low. The sense of belonging to the organization is
closely related to job satisfaction. If job satisfaction is high, an employees
sense of belonging to the organization will be also high (Mobley, 1977).
Since an alienated persons sense of belonging will be lower than that of
people who are not alienated, the female journalists low sense of
belonging to the organization where they work precisely indicates the
alienation of female journalists in the news production process.
Conclusion
This study investigates the mechanisms that exclude female journalists
from the news production process. The existence of these mechanisms
shows that female journalists are devalued compared to male journalists,
not simply because of any personal incompetence. Many of the mecha-
nisms that are found in this study, to do with housework, pregnancy and
childcare, are also found in other professional jobs as exclusion mecha-
nisms in Korea (Cho, 1990; Chung, 1997; Joo, 1992). Cho (1990) indicates
that females are in a very disadvantaged position because of information
sharing within social networks, and because major decisions are made at
bars or during a round of golf. She also indicates that the traditional view
of the difference between males and females does not evaluate the latter
appropriately, based on their ability.
On the other hand, there are some unique exclusion mechanisms such as
collecting information the authoritative way and the unethical culture of
compromise that show problems within the Korean media. Journalists are
recognized as powerful by Korean society. This explains how journalists
can assume an authoritative attitude without hesitation, when they meet
certain people to collect information. It is Korean media culture that should
be corrected. The unethical culture of compromise, such as giving or
receiving bribes or visiting pleasure haunts, is another problematic part of
Korean media. When this media culture disappears, the Korean media will
be able to restore its sincere image of the journalist, and female journalists
will have a chance to show their proper abilities, which they cannot do in
current circumstances.
This article attempts to investigate the exclusion mechanisms by show-
ing how female journalists are alienated. These ndings can contribute to
the better understanding of the reality of female journalists in Korea, and
demonstrate why such studies should be continued. However, there are still
some limitations in this study. First, in researching the mechanisms that
exclude female journalists, this account does not show how male journal-
ists are potentially affected by those mechanisms, because it only analyzes
articles written by female journalists. If the study had included pieces by
male journalists from a comparative viewpoint, it would be easier to
describe exclusion mechanisms with greater clarity. Finally, future studies
need to show the alienation of the female journalists more systematically,
by examining gender differences in assignments, showing the uneven
distribution to different departments, and by making a comparison of
the drop-out rate of male and female journalists from the newsroom in
Korean society.
Notes
Research for this study was made possible through a grant from Hallym University,
Korea.
1. According to Korean ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation) Association, Joong
Ang Ilbo ranks number two in terms of readership as one of the leading newspapers
in Korea in 2002, with a daily circulation of 2,051,588 following Chosun Ilbos
2,377,707.
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Kyung-Hee Kim is Director of the Internet Media Center and Assistant
Professor at the School of Communication, Hallym University, Korea. She
is currently working on recent changes in news organizations and produc-
tion. Her research interests include online journalism, news organizations
and audience research.
Address: School of Communication, Hallym University, Chuncheon,
Korea 200702. [email: khkim@hallym.ac.kr]

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