Women in Japanese media: A study of gender experience.

Women in Japanese media:

A study of gender experience.

By Tanja Hof (11263423)

University of Amsterdam

MA: Media Studies – Journalism and Media

ms. dr. Pauline J.C. van Romondt Vis

31st of August, 2018

平成30

Meer ouderschapsverlof voor journalisten, de toekomst

voor vrouwen in de Japanse journalistiek?

In een studie van de Universiteit van Amsterdam deelt Tanja Hof de ervaringen van een vijftal Japanse vrouwen werkzaam in de journalistiek. Wat voor belemmeringen komen vrouwen tegen wanneer ze zich proberen op te werken? En, nog belangrijker, hoe houden we vrouwen werkzaam in de Japanse journalistiek?

De geïnterviewde vrouwen zijn werkzaam bij de NHK, Japan's enige publieke omroep. Ze geven aan dat ze maar moeilijk promotie kunnen maken. Dit is niet vanwege hun kennis of kunde. Het grootste gedeelte van de Japanse vrouwen is opgeleid en geniet een middenklasse bestaan. Toch zijn vrouwen in managementposities moeilijk te vinden. Dit geldt ook voor vrouwelijke journalisten. Hebben zij dan geen ambities om hogerop te komen?

“Jawel,” zo zegt één van de vrouwen, “maar je krijgt vaak de kans niet. Helemaal niet als je kinderen hebt.” Het huishouden en de opvoeding van kinderen combineren met een bloeiende carrière blijkt een groot probleem. Hoewel alle vijf vrouwen vinden dat zij een waardevolle bijdrage kunnen leveren aan de journalistiek, merken zij allen op dat zodra er sprake is van een man en/of kinderen zij snel van een koude kermis thuiskomen. “We worden qua werk niet anders behandeld dan mannen,” beweren een paar van de vrouwen. Desondanks worden doorwerken en carrière maken toch een probleem. Dit komt omdat vrouwen in Japan geacht worden om de volledige verzorging van hun kinderen alleen op zich te nemen. Op deze manier hebben de vrouwen niet alleen een zeer belastende baan, maar worden al hun 'vrije' uren besteed aan het onderhouden van hun gezin. Hierdoor kunnen zij niet zo vaak overwerken, of van werk locatie veranderen, of naar trainingen in het buitenland gaan, als hun mannelijke collega's. Sterker nog, zij worden hiervoor vaak niet eens meer gevraagd, met alle gevolgen van dien.

De vrouwen zijn overtuigd dat zij een toekomst in de journalistiek verdienen, maar dat die er alleen kan zijn als er de nodige aanpassingen komen. In onze digitale wereld kunnen ze vaker thuis en op grotere afstand werken. Ook is er een nieuw beleid om overwerken tegen te gaan. Daarnaast willen de vrouwen meer vrije dagen om voor de kinderen te zorgen; ook voor hun mannelijke collega's. Zonder soortgelijke

aanpassingen zien zij hun toekomst somber in, maar zij zijn allen bereid om hard te werken voor verandering.

Table of Contents

Women in Japanese media:

A study of gender experience.

Introduction

Half a decade ago, an article in the Columbia Journalism Review (Martin & Abbas, 2011) counted just over 15% female journalists in full-time positions within Japanese news organisations. Government legislation to increase the amount of working women and women in managerial positions has been passed under prime-minister Shinzō Abe (安倍 晋三 abe shinzou1). For example, although financial incentives are still weak, both

mothers and fathers are now offered 52 weeks of paid parental leave (Thompson, 2016). This too, has affected women working in journalism in Japan in the way that, women who would once leave their jobs permanently after motherhood would at times return to their places of employment and women with a strong wish for children were more inclined to enter a career. However, despite this government incentive for women to (re)join the workforce, women still return to the workforce in part-time, low-paying jobs in which they do not need a high level of skill (Thompson, 2016; Browne, 2006). As such, the number of women working in journalism has also remained low. In 2017, Oi & Sako inform us that this number has increased to 18% since the 2011 study by Martin & Abbas due to the attempts by the Japanese government and large scale media organisations to encourage and support more women in the journalistic field.

Women in journalism are widely considered a cornerstone of workplace diversity, as supposedly, they report news differently from men (Steiner, 2008; Rodgers & Thorson, 2003). According to scholars and journalists alike, this diversity is invaluable for

qualitative news reporting (Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch, 2008). Despite this belief,

1 _{In Japanese studies names of real people, places and historical events should be noted with their correct}

kanji character script equivalent. Although this thesis was written for journalism studies, this convention will also be followed here to make this thesis searchable for different disciplines.

journalism may still be considered “a man’s job,” when looking at employment numbers. Not only is the work floor dominated by men, managerial positions in media are also still largely held by men. In 2011 in fact, 98,6% of managers in media were men (Martin & Abbas, 2011). To compare: last year, in 2017, only 18% of all media employees in Japan were women (Oi & Sako, 2017), with still only a select few in managerial positions. If less than 2% of managerial positions in media were occupied by women in the last 10 years, I would claim we are looking at a waste of potential. I would argue that changing these numbers remains difficult, presumably because of the role of women in Japanese

society. This role has traditionally dictated that women are in charge of household duties and child rearing. This is the same for most other countries. In addition to the potential benefits of increasing the amount of working women, it can be said that having an equal amount of women in the workplace as part of creating a newsroom that reflects the diversity of society ought to be a moral objective.

English language research focusing on Japan specifically is sorely lacking in the journalism studies field (Oi, Fukuda & Sako, 2012). Studies on the experiences of Japanese women working in media are generally rare, possibly because of the low number of women working in the field. Therefore, studying the experience of women working in Japanese media in depth could give valuable insights on how the experiences of women in Japan might be similar or different from women working in media in other countries. This is important, because the gender gap is not bound by location or culture, but is a worldwide phenomenon that has yet to be solved. The more countries can be examined in depth, the more insights we may gain into this problem. On top of that an in depth analysis might be able to pinpoint which parts of the societal values that play a role in the continued existence of the glass ceiling in Japan need to be surmounted to be able to work towards a more equal society. In that sense this study could provide some valuable new data. Furthermore, women in Japan enjoy a remarkably high literacy and education rate (Martin & Abbas, 2011). Women working in media in Japan, especially as journalists, do not have many peers yet and are still paving the way for other women that

want to work in media. I am interested in what it is like to be one of the 18% of women (Oi & Sako, 2017) working in Japanese media. How do they experience being part of a

minority group and which obstacles do they encounter in their careers because they are women?

Therefore, in this thesis my main research question is:

- How do women experience working within a traditional media organisation in Japan?

To answer this question, I will also pose the following sub-questions:

- Do Women working in media think there is a difference between them and their male co-workers? And, if so, what do they believe this difference is and how do they perceive this difference as an obstacle for their own careers?

- How do women working in media like to see their future improved and what do they think needs to be done to get to this ideal future?

In this thesis, I will address these questions by doing an exploratory study after which a larger scale or quantitative study could be conducted (Koetsenruijter & Van Hout, 2014). To start, I will focus on a single Japanese news outlet. In particular, I will be focusing on the television broadcasting company NHK (日本放送協会 Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai lit: Japan

Broadcasting Corporation), the national public broadcasting organisation of Japan. I

have decided to start the research on female media employees in Japan here, at this news outlet, because the NHK is the only national public television broadcaster in Japan. With fifty four broadcasting stations spread across forty seven prefectures that already create 168 hours a week of programmes to broadcast just for the general television (NHKG) (NHK Corporate Profile, 2017-2018) I decided that the position of the NHK in Japanese society is prominent enough to be representative for Japanese media organisations.

Five women working for various (news)programmes in several different positions have been asked to share their experiences working as women in a traditional Japanese media organisation through qualitative interviews held by video call and e-mail. To be able to research Japanese women in media on a larger scale, research should start small. Although this study focuses on a select, small portion of working women in a single company, their responses should be able to help determine topics for larger studies. As such, this study is a first exploration of the experiences of women working in media organisations across Japan.

A discussion of existing literature on (Japanese) women working in media can be found in the first chapter of this thesis, to be able to cluster ideas and opinions expressed through the interviews held with the selected group of Japanese women. Gender in the workplace, Japanese media and what it means for women to be part of a minority will be discussed to place this study in the relevant context. A more in depth explanation of the research method and grounded theory analysis can be found in the second chapter, covering the theories behind the interview questions and the method of interviewing through video call and e-mail pertaining to the corpus of this study. This is followed by my research findings in chapter three containing an analysis of the ideas and opinions expressed by the five women that were interviewed during this study.

Theoretical Framework

In this chapter I will discuss a couple of different theories from former studies on women that have worked for large scale media organisations and their perceptions of the gender gap. Firstly, I will discuss what gender means in the context of this study, followed by an overview of gender in the workplace and women employed in media organisations. Then I will touch upon what journalism means in the context of this study and what journalism in Japan looks like. This last concept will be followed by a brief history of journalism in Japan and what it means for women to be a minority in this field. Then stereotypes about female media employees will lead to a discussion on their position and the obstacles they face or support they receive in other countries than Japan. How do the experiences of Japanese women working in media differ from those working as journalists in for example South Africa (Rodny-Gumede, 2015), South-Korea (Kim, 2006; Cho & Davenport, 2007) or Australia (Pradner, 2013; Cann & Mohr, 2001)? After this, an overview of the job and gender models, that explain a difference in attitude of women in regards to what gender equality means depending on the size of a company (Rodgers & Thorson, 2003) and what these models mean for the interpretation of the experiences of the five

Japanese women collected through this study, will be given. Lastly, the reasons for why it is important at all for there to be more women in the workplace will be discussed. The answers given by the women of the NHK I have interviewed and that will be discussed in the chapter „Research Findings’ will be considered and evaluated in line with these theories.

Gender

Before we begin an in depth discussion about existing literary work regarding women in media, I would like to define the use of the gendered word “woman.” Although gender studies defines a difference between sex and gender, sex being the distinction between the male and female physical bodies and gender being noted as a performance not exclusive to sex (Butler, 1990), when using the word woman I refer to the female sex in

this study. In this case the word woman coincides with a female gender performance. As such, Japanese stereotypes related to being a woman as used in a cultural context are taken into consideration (Butler, 1990; Beauvoir, 1973; Thornham, 2007) and applied when speaking about the women in this study. For example, one such stereotype and its consequences is that men are met with surprise and praise when prioritizing child

rearing, while for women it is considered normal to do so. This is precisely the form of stereotyping that will be looked at more closely in this study.

Gender in the workplace

None of those that were interviewed were asked about their gender identity and as such any responses and conclusions made from their responses are processed with the idea that all these women identify as female and more importantly, are perceived as female by their co-workers and environment. So for the sake of convenience, in this study the word woman is used as both the female gender identity and the female sex. For more in depth research on “gender” in the workplace, an additional study would have to be conducted focusing on this topic. As such, this study is inconclusive on the role of gender

expression on the perception of workplace (in)equality.

Journalists

In this study we talk about media and journalism. The women interviewed in this study are working in the journalistic field are reporters, or work as editors, managers or human resources personnel. As such, when talking about journalists, in this study I refer to journalists as all those involved in the making of a product suitable for broadcasting, in any layer or department of our case-study organisation. Although the theories discussed in this study concern media employees in all types of media, the people interviewed in the case-study of this thesis are all employed at a broadcasting company. Therefore, it should be noted that the experiences of the women interviewed in this study do not reflect media as a whole, but cover a small part of public broadcaster employees.

This study will focus on a select group of women who work for a media organisation in Japan. To be able to extend the amount of research on the topic of the experience of women working for media organisations worldwide and specifically for those women working for media organisations in Japan I will try to grasp what it is like to be a woman working for such a company in Japan, that also has an international broadcasting service (NHK World). Although what may be true for women in other countries may not

necessarily be true for women in Japan, they can give valuable insights into the similarities and differences between the experiences of women working in media

organisations in Japan and other countries. Why these differences exist is then cause for further study.

A brief history of journalism in Japan

Currently, Japanese media organisations operate differently from, for example, those in South Africa. News gathering and the way in which news is brought to the public is one such difference. In their 2012 study, Oi, Fukuda & Sako reported three major differences between the workings of Japanese news organisations and other media in democracies around the world. Firstly, newspapers are still widely read by the public, despite a decline in readership since 2001. NHK data from 2005 shows that TV viewing has remained stable since 2000 (Oi, Fukuda & Sako, 2012). Secondly, the media is dominated by a select group of organisations that work closely together. This results in 70% of the Japanese public considering their press trustworthy. Journalistic values in Japan are largely the same as in other countries. For example, Japanese news organisations report valuing freedom of press, separation of fact and opinion, independence and objective reporting (Oi, Fukuda & Sako, 2012). Lastly, news is gathered mostly through tightly controlled outlets (sources and press conferences) referred to as Kisha clubs (Takeshita & Ida, 2009). According to Oi, Fukuda & Sako, this could be the reason for “traditionally bland and homogenous journalism … and an absence of investigative reporting” (Oi, Fukuda & Sako, 2012, pg. 52; Feldman, 1993; Freeman, 2000; Kim, 1981). In a system where a lack of investigative reporting and homogenous journalism dominates the field,

the different viewpoints women bring to journalism would not necessarily be encouraged as these new points of view could disrupt the homogenous order of this traditional style of reporting. That these different views could prove valuable here, goes without saying.

There is also a distinct lack of an online presence of traditional Japanese media organisations. The lack of advancement in Japanese media from traditional media

sources towards the online may be due to a rapidly aging society in Japan. In a census of 2015 by the Japanese governmental statistics bureau of the ministry of internal affairs and communications, the results stated that Japan had the highest population of people aged over 65 in the world with 26,6% (Statistics Bureau, 2015). They also had the lowest population in the world (12,6%) of people aged under 15 (Statistics Bureau, 2015). In 2000 the population of Japan over 65 years of age was only 17,3% of the total population (Statistics Bureau, 2000). In other words, the population of people over 65 years of age has increased with 9,3%, while the population of children has only declined in the past fifteen years. These numbers show the tremendous problem of an aging society in Japan. This same aging also delays an advance of media channels in Japan, keeping newspapers on paper and news broadcasts on linear television. Although change is slowly advancing upon these news sources, this slow changing of matters is not the way in which journalism started out in Japan.

Journalism in Japan started between the end of the Tokugawa period (徳川時代

tokugawa jidai, 1603-1868) and the start of the Meiji period (明治時代 meiji jidai,

1868-1912). At the time Japan was under a lot of Western influence to modernise and escaped colonialism through the ability of the country to adapt to “modern thought.” Under the Meiji government, press freedom was guaranteed in the constitution (1889) as part of a policy to modernise Japan and strengthen its military. However, at the time press circulation was not far reaching or wide spread. This would swiftly change during the Taishō period (大正時代 taishō jidai, 1912-1926) (Oi, Fukuda & Sako, 2012). During this period democratic thinking and political parties sprung to life, with mass-circulation of

press to spread these new political thoughts and increased impact on the opinions of the readership as a result.

This history of press freedom and mass media was briefly interrupted by the World Wars, starting in 1926 when Japan fell under military rule (Oi, Fukuda & Sako, 2012). Press was censored greatly and guided to help strengthen positive thoughts towards the war effort. When the allied forces under the leadership of the U.S.A. abolished press censorship at the end of the war and occupied Japan, Japanese media was greatly influenced by ideas originating from the American press. Something that would also influence ideas on

women working as journalists and (re)opening the way for women to enter the journalistic work field, be it as a minority.

When researching women in media, one needs to take into account the prevalence of this position of women as a minority in media across the world (Mazingo, 1989). In Japan, the average journalist is a male in his mid-forties that graduated from a university with a Bachelor’s degree, not necessarily in journalism studies (Oi & Sako, 2017). Despite what this image may imply, women have been a part of journalism relatively early compared to the rest of the world. Female reporters were already working for news outlets in Japan before the nineteenth century. This stands in contrast to other parts of the world were it was only during the war periods of the early twentieth century that women first started to work as journalists. In the United States, for example, women only joined the journalistic workforce during World War II (1939-1945) to cover the positions left open by men

serving in the United States army. This caused a shift in ideology about women working a man’s job. Suddenly, women could be reporters, despite the previously held belief that women were incapable of “reportorial” skills (Robertson, 1992). This was a school of thought that formerly prevented women from joining the journalistic workforce and took several more decades to abolish. In the same way that the Japanese media world copied these types of thoughts about women, they also copied American values on what good journalism is. For example, the belief that news should be brought objectively through a

variety of sources. This coincides with the idea of Van Zoonen (Deuze, 2005; Van Zoonen, 1998) that states that journalists have a shared ideal image of what a good journalist is and how her or she should act. Schudson calls this the shared culture of news (Deuze, 2005; Schudson, 2003). In short, both types of stereotypes about women as journalists and what good journalism is are shared amongst cultures.

In the same manner, women working as journalists in the Netherlands face the same idea that women are “incapable” of performing in the journalistic field, while trying to uphold a journalistic ideal of what type of reporters they should be. In 1986, Diekerhof, Sax and Acker described that this idea that women are unsuitable for journalistic work, has to do with the stereotypical views on how a woman should act: submissive, docile, caring and okay with sexual advances.

Image

Journalism is a field in which showing doubts and insecurities is „not done’ (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986). As such, traits like submissiveness and being docile seem

counterintuitive. To get the best stories one is thought to need traits such as

assertiveness and determination. To get a promotion a journalist should take the initiative from their boss(es) themself. Although women are expected to condone sexual

advances, and in fact, many women use this fact to further their career and use it as an edge with their sources (Chambers & Steiner, 2010; Robertson, 1992), this kind of behaviour is also widely disapproved of, and makes for unpleasant situations. Furthermore, women are expected to not only want children, but raise them too, no matter where in the world you look (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986). But, child rearing costs time. Time that a career oriented woman is also expected to put into reporting, as good journalists are expected to be present at the scene of the „news’ at all times

(Deuze, 2005). These expectations can be called incompatible, because nobody can be in two places at once or take two drastically different approaches to life. Usually, this results in women focussing a lot of their time on their careers. They sacrifice family life,

that they are expected to prioritize as opposed to their male colleagues more often. This results in a dissonance between traditional values (women should take care of their children) and modern work demands (women should put in as much effort into their jobs as men).

However, raising children is considered impossible to combine with an ambitious career. An example given by Diekerhof, Sax & Acker (1986) illustrates this. When a woman that they had interviewed suggested she might want children in the future, her boss acted surprised. After all, she was a very ambitious woman, so why would she want children? To the researchers she clarified that it felt wrong to her that her boss assumed she would never want any children because she was ambitious, even if she was not thinking about having any at the time (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986).

Because of the idea that women because of their biology and traditional family values are inherently the main child rearers within a family unit (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986), women are also less likely to make it into managerial positions. According to a study amongst 500 news companies in 60 different countries, done by Byerly in 2011, only 27% of the top positions in media management around the world were held by women

(Byerly, 2011; North, 2014). In South Africa too, where women have reported an increase in women’s rights in recent years, the increase of women in managerial positions is still low. In 2013 only 4% of women worked at board level (Rodny-Gumede, 2015). As such, an increase in women’s rights does not necessarily have to correlate with an increase of equality in the workplace. Despite the efforts made by the Japanese government to increase the number of women at work, this also seems to be the case in Japan.

Position

As described above, notably women’s historical entry point into journalism was women’s topics (Steiner, 2008), or news women would like to read about. In other words, women would work on topics that media thought women would be interested in. Such topics are

considered “soft” news. This is news covering topics such as child rearing, education and gastronomy. Women would more commonly enter the journalistic field through writing less valued soft news so they could start their careers. They would start at a company in departments covering topics such as entertainment, the arts and education (North, 2014). Although an unspoken rule, while starting out or even after being promoted, women are less often found in positions that produce “hard” news, such as politics and business. There is a distinction between hard and soft news. Wherein hard news is considered of a higher hierarchy than soft news (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986). Although one could argue that women choosing to stay in soft news positions is because of women’s own interests (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986), the women interviewed in the 2008 study by Steiner who said that they disliked working in these soft news positions saw men in junior positions promoted before them into hard news positions that they themselves had coveted. This would sooner imply sexism, rather than a preference for soft news

departments (Steiner, 2008; Koetsenruijter, 2015). Even when women do seem to enjoy working in these positions the 1986 study by Diekerhof, Sax and Acker showed that their preference is met with surprise because of the perceived “inferior” position of soft news by their colleagues and most importantly other women and their own managers

(Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986). Remaining in soft news is here considered unambitious, while journalists are expected to always be ambitious. This is a dissonance with the idea that women should also raise children, because having an ambitious career and child-rearing is also considered incompatible. These two different expectations could then be called mutually exclusive.

In the same vein that soft news is considered inferior to hard news, local news is

considered inferior to national news. This causes many journalists to endeavour to work for national news organisations, preferably in the capital. Women who have the ambition to work for national news are asked to prove that they can create hard news stories, despite their positions in soft news (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986). The position of these ambitious women in soft news departments then, eventually becomes an obstacle for

women to advance in their careers, while at first soft news departments were their entryway into the journalistic work field (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986).

Other obstacles

While working as journalist, women do not only face a struggle for their position in valued news departments, but they are also judged, not for their journalistic skills, but on their appearance. Even in positions where appearance should make no difference, such as in war reporting, sexual harassment was a notable consequence of the idea that women should be “pretty” regardless of the type of reporting they did (Steiner, 2008; Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986) In fact, the “riskier” the type of reporting, the more likely it was that women would be questioned or harassed based on their sex (Steiner, 2008).

In most of the world, working conditions for women are comparatively bad. In the study done by Rodny-Gumede in 2015 about South African journalists, interviewed women reported these working conditions as one of the main reason so few women work in media. Salaries are unequal, working hours do not accommodate a combination of child rearing and career progress and leave benefits, such as for maternity leave are low or non-existent. The largest problem cited by these women was family obligations when asked about obstacles for advancing in their careers (Rodny-Gumede, 2015).

To this day women remain a minority within reporting jobs in Japanese news

organisations. On top of that, women seem to have a remarkably hard time working their way to the top, with even less women (1.4% in 2011) working in managerial positions in Japan (Martin & Abbas, 2011). In other countries, women reportedly tend to not make it to the top despite their ambitions (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986), because of their entry positions in “soft” news, stereotypes about women, traditional family values, a lack of benefits and time to split between their work and home lives.

Support and the importance of change

As mentioned in the introduction, the Japanese government has tried to set up policies to allow women better access to the journalistic work field. However, these policies do not take away traditional ideas about the role of women as child rearers or the obstacles this brings for women as noted in the last paragraph. According to the South African women, patriarchal attitudes also prevented women from advancing in their careers, regardless of whether or not they actually had children. Just the idea that women could become mothers was enough to question promoting women to senior or executive positions (Rodny-Gumede, 2015).

Although women experience obstacles in all layers of media companies, leadership roles seem especially hard to acquire for women. Men and women are said to have different leadership styles. The idea is that women lead by being cooperative, social and

constructive (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986) where men are competitive, defensive and lead from the top-down (Arnold & Nesbitt, 2006). Worldwide, organisations have remained reluctant to let women take on executive roles, despite the idea that female leadership styles could actually benefit (news)organisations, that traditionally value male leadership styles. What is and is not considered news and thus published is considered reflective of the demography of the journalists working for a particular medium (Rodgers & Thorson, 2003). Although scientifically inconclusive, an increase in women in the workforce should, then, influence the news agenda (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986). However, some researchers, claim that an increase of women would do absolutely

nothing for changes in news content (Van Zoonen, 1998; Rodny-Gumede, 2015), because women will report on the same topics as men anyway (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986).

Other researchers claim that because the work environment changes and different topics are discussed when there is an increase of women in the office, news content will reflect an increase in topics regarding minorities and for example sexual violence, no matter which gender writes about said topic. For example, stories on sensitive subjects

regarding women could increase, merely because they were being discussed during coffee breaks. Not because women would sooner report about these topics, according to some men (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986; Rodny-Gumede, 2015), but rather because these topics become less taboo in general (Rodgers & Thorson, 2003).

According to some journalists from other studies (Cann & Mohr, 2001), the amount of men or women in a news organisation should not matter as „the news’ should remain the same regardless of the gender of the journalist. However, they do believe that news selection and interpretation of source material could differ. For example, men are said to be more likely to report on topics that may help their careers along and are more prone to interviewing well known sources than women (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986).

The gender and job models of socialisation

The study by Rogers and Thorson found that women working at smaller companies were more likely to note gender as an issue and an obstacle towards career advancement. They were also more likely to take greater risks while reporting on sensitive subjects and would note that when returning from maternity leave it was highly likely their assigned news stories would lean towards softer news topics. New mothers were assumed to need more flexibility and more leasure deadlines because of their new family obligations, whereas new fathers were not treated in the same manner.

In other words, men and women were treated differently in regards to maternity leave, benefits and a responsibility to the home. These differences varied between larger scale companies, were women might work besides a small amount of female co-workers and small scale companies where a woman might very well be the only woman in the office. According to a study by Rodgers and Thorson from 2003 there is a difference between women working in these conditions in regards to expectations about their roles as women (and mothers). In this study a difference is made between the job and gender models, two phenomenon that can be observed in companies in regards to socialisation.

These models were built on a theory to explain why women experience gender issues differently when they work with groups of women (not necessarily in the same

department) in a larger company (while still being part of the minority), than when they are a minority group counting only one woman or a small number of women in a smaller company (who are more likely to band together). Both of these models stand for the way in which minorities are assimilated within a work environment, or in this case, how the work environment or context of growing up while performing a specific gender identity socializes a person in their work environment (Aven, Baker & McEvoy, 1993).

According to the gender model women are socialised differently from men starting in their childhoods, due to caretakers emphasizing their assigned gender role. In other words, women are taught to act a certain way as young girls and men are taught to act in a different way when they are boys. They are also taught to treat women a certain way, like the women were taught to act a certain way towards men. This is called a

socialisation process. This process causes men and women to assimilate differently in new environments. This type of socialisation is also the one they take with them during their working life. This generally results in men and women valuing and prioritizing different things, in life, but also at work. In the case of women for example, they tend to prioritize family obligations and child rearing (once they have any) over their careers, because that is what they were taught to prioritize. Men on the other hand, would have been taught to put more emphasis on personal achievement, and display goal oriented behaviour (Aven, Baker & McEvoy, 1993; Rodgers & Thorson, 2003) and as such, are more likely to focus on their careers. Because this socialisation model is based on

gender, they also take a distinction between men and women with them in their working life. When nothing counteracts this socialisation, an emphasis is then set on gender and the differences between men and women. This is especially common in small scale companies, where a woman may very well represents women at large (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986).

For example, women in small scale companies were less likely to be assigned

investigative pieces, because of potential „dangerous’ backlash. Rodgers and Thorson presumed that this gender socialisation at small scale companies was more likely, because men and women would more often socialize within their own gender group, which is less likely in larger news organisations. Women in larger news organisations were more often spread across departments and worked with a larger amount of men. This supposedly causes them to socialize on a more equal footing with men and causes less gender based group forming for lack of women in the same department. This would happen more often between women in smaller companies, where the thought of „us girls against all these men’ was more likely to cause gender based groups. This type of

socializing caused stereotyping to occur more often, which resulted in obstacles that the women interviewed would label sexist, as opposed to waving them away as a personal lack of skill, which was more likely to happen in larger companies (Rodgers & Thorson, 2003).

The difference in attitude towards gendered obstacles between women in small and medium sized, and large scale companies can be explained by examining a second model. The job model, that is more prevalent in large scale companies, where a higher need for assimilation is essential for a working organisation. The job model explains how minorities get overlooked when they are part of a group that bases merit on skill. For example, a lone woman in a man’s company will easily become „one of the guys’ and if she assimilates, her male colleagues will be less likely to point out her gender and refer more towards her skill, because her different socialisation, or upbringing, has become neutralized. These women could be considered representative for their gender, but their gender was more likely to be entirely glossed over, if the company was large enough. If more women would join the company or worked alongside her in her department this attitude towards her would shift and her male colleagues would sooner point her out as one of the women as opposed to one of the guys. These singular women are also more prone to portray stereotypical male behaviour, because in the past this behaviour would

have helped her assimilate to the work environment. They were more likely to say any obstacles they encountered were not due to their gender or others treating them as a female stereotype.

Women and men are considered equal when the job model occurs. Not their gender, but their performance influences the way they are socialized. No matter the background of the woman, the organization and her experiences as a journalist influence the different treatment within an organisation. Especially in larger scale companies, which in media organisations are dominated by men, women are expected to act like men and perform at the same level as their male colleagues to avoid exclusion and get promoted.

Attitudes towards gender were also influenced. Women in larger corporations tended to express less concern about gender, or would name their gender as an issue, less often than women working in smaller organisations. They had developed similar behavioural patterns and attitudes as their male counterparts and reported not seeing any difference between the assignment of hard and soft news based on gender. As such, this study found that the size and male-to-female ratio of an organisation (in that particular case-study a media organisation) directly influences attitudes towards gender and styles of reporting. In short, these models represent a theory to clarify attitudes and experiences women may or may not have towards gender differences in association with company size. Differences in gender or background were also less likely to cause differences in news content in these larger scale companies. Women would too often behave in a masculine manner and conform to the work culture to report on controversial topics, possibly to maintain existing power structures and keep their jobs (Rodgers & Thorson, 2003).

To summarise

As can be seen in this chapter, there can be many reasons for a minority of women in journalistic positions within media organisations. At the very least it can be concluded that there is a difference between perceptions and experiences of women as a minority

(Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986). As such, I will delve further into what the Japanese women themselves perceive as obstacles to their career advancements and what they think has to change before gender is more balanced within their work spaces, in this case within the TV branch of the NHK. As such, although not the purpose of this study, the question “why” Japanese women believe their minority status is maintained may be answered after looking at their experiences anyway. Conducting further study with the experiences collected throughout this study may shed even more light on the matter. Currently, I consider that the low number of women in Japanese journalism and managerial positions could be explained by the reasons listed below.

Although women in Japan have worked as journalists for over a century, only a few are working in media organisations, especially in management positions. It is possible that the status quo is not contested, because women would rather conform to the way things are than fight against the roles they are pushed into (Rodny-Gumede, 2015). It is also possible that women are assigned positions in which they have less chance of promotion (Gallagher, 2001). Or, they could be subject to patriarchal ideas about skill, lack of time to commit between their careers and traditional family values while men do not encounter similar dissonances of expectations (Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2015). These are only a couple of the obstacles women reportedly encounter while pursuing a career in journalism. On top of that, women working in small scale companies have a different perception of the issues they experience than women working for large scale

organisations. Although the reasons why there are so few women working in media are not the focus of this study, the experiences of women working as journalists in Japan that will be researched in this study may shed light on a few of these reasons for Japanese women, and perhaps also for women working in media as a whole.

In short, some of the reasons mentioned above may be why women remain a minority according to former studies. It could be the case that, as in other countries, traditional roles for women tend to lean towards the home; child-rearing and housework. Many

women probably choose to focus on this option because of societal expectations

(Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986) which are actively encouraged by the Japanese economy and tax-system (Kuijk, 2005). Because of their child-rearing positions, women will sooner work part-time than men who do not have this active role within the home, because they lack the time to commit to a full-time career while raising their children. Part-time workers are less likely to be promoted to managerial positions. A lack of promotion may cause dissent about working in the media in general (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986). As with all working life in Japan, long hours and the many location changes that journalists while working their way up on the corporate ladder endure are not conductive to family life. This is a reason in general, not to pursue a career in media, let alone a managerial position in media, especially for women who are expected to field family life

simultaneously with their careers (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986; Rodny-Gumede, 2015).

Furthermore, to make a career out of journalism means to acquire a certain skill-set such as directness and goal oriented behavioural patterns, traditionally associated with

masculinity. As such, although women might have stereotypical skills which could further journalistic pursuits (nurturing relationships, subtlety), they may have to display behaviour that is generally frowned upon for women by societal standards. Something which, while it might make for good journalism and good stories, would prevent „goodwill’ for

promotions. Or, conversely, women that want to promote will be asked to behave in a more masculine manner, which not all of them would be comfortable with. They might also encounter struggles when expressing „familial’ ambitions. As such, ambition is then passively discouraged under the active narrative of „ambition will lead to rewards’ (Arnold & Nesbitt, 2006; Rodny-Gumede, 2015). In a male dominated career, men would sooner be promoted by other men who are already in managerial positions than women,

because she is considered „the other’ and as such would be evaluated differently from her male co-workers and is thrown into the role of soft news provider, from which promotion is more challenging (Diekerhof, Sax & Acker, 1986; Steiner, 2008). I believe the women of the NHK may not consider gender to be an issue in regards to the lack of

promotion of women and are more likely to report that they are not treated differently from their male counterparts, because of the size of the company that they work for. In fact, I think the job model of socialisation (Rodgers & Thorson, 2003) could possibly be at play here, because the NHK counts over 10.000 employees, of which only 15% were female as of 2010 (Oi, Fukuda & Sako, 2012).

In the next chapter I will discuss how the interviews with these women were conducted and which method of analysis was used to look at the information acquired through these interviews. This will be covered in the next chapter „Methodology.’

In the chapter „Research Findings,’ the experiences of the Japanese women in my case-study will be catalogued, categorized and analysed. Examples of the theories discussed in this chapter may be found when analysing the answers given by the five women of the NHK, so it is important to keep these theories in mind when reading the following

Methodology

This chapter will cover a basic outline of the NHK, the women interviewed for the case-study in this thesis, the way in which information was collected and the way in which this information will be analysed. This will help answer the research question “How do

women experience working within a traditional media organisation in Japan?” because these women all work for such an organisation and as such, can provide first-hand accounts of what it is like to work in such an environment.

NHK

To be able to determine in what way the findings discussed in the last chapter apply to the women working in journalism in Japan, this study will be looking at a group of five women working in various positions at NHK, or the public broadcasting organisation of Japan. They all agreed to be interviewed for the purposes of this study. The reason for choosing this company as a starting point for this type of research is the key position within the Japanese journalistic field the NHK holds and the size of the company. There are only a select few large television networks in Japan. Aside from the public

broadcaster NHK, the five largest (television) networks are: Nihon TV, TBS TV, Fuji TV, TV Asahi and TV Tokyo (Oi, Fukuda & Sako, 2012, pg. 53). Television can be viewed in 99% of Japan. In other words, coverage can be called nationwide (Oi, Fukuda & Sako, 2012). Since the 1950s there has been only one public broadcaster, NHK, which in 2010 had over 10.500 employees (of which 13,5% were women). Aside from (local) TV stations, NHK operates radio and satellite TV networks, production companies, a publisher and an orchestra. Revenue is collected through subscription fees, as with any public

broadcaster. In 2010 NHK earned around 670 billion yen, equivalent to about 6,5 billion euros (Oi, Fukuda & Sako, 2012). In this way, the NHK can be considered a traditional, large scale media organisation in Japan. As stated in the introduction of this thesis, there are governmental policies in place at Japanese companies to increase women in the workplace. These policies are also taken into consideration at the NHK (NHK, 2017-2018).

The Women

There were few respondents that answered the call to be interviewed about their

experiences as women working at a Japanese media organisation. Although it should be noted that any true face-to-face endeavor to find respondents, without the use of video call or other such methods, would probably have severely limited the amount of time available to conduct in depth interviews. There was no selection within the corpus, as there were not enough respondents to turn anyone away. As such, there was no further selection of women, other than that they were employed as media professionals at the NHK and willing to be interviewed and share their experiences for the purposes of this research. Despite several requests to other types of media organisations for women to share their experiences, in this study only broadcasting media responded. As a result, this study focuses on women working for the Japanese NHK. Because of the central position of the NHK within Japanese news organisations, as mentioned in the last chapter, I believe that the experiences of these women can prove to be a valuable starting point for research on the experiences of women in Japanese media regarding their own position within the workforce, regardless of corpus size.

There were five women that did agree to be interviewed for the purposes of this study. They are Miyu Fujiwara, Haruka Ito, Saki Kondo, Hiyori Maeda and Airi Nakajima2 . They have worked for the NHK for various periods of time. Three of them have children. None of them work in a traditional board or managerial position, although a few of them would like to or do have responsibilities similar to those of managers. Not all of them are

reporters. They represent a variety of job positions from editorial to productional to reportorial. Because of the non-commercial nature of the NHK, they work in what can only be described as a traditional public broadcasting organisation in Japan. Because they all work for the same company, similar opinions and experiences were found and function as a way to draw conclusions from their (shared) experiences that should say

something about the experiences of women working in media in Japan as a whole. Aside from changing their names to preserve anonymity, this thesis will not include the full interviews in the appendix for privacy reasons. Anonymity was guaranteed to the women before they would agree to be interviewed for the purposes of this study. When needed, full disclosure can be petitioned for with the researcher, who will then ask explicit

permission (anew) to use the full interview from those it may concern. The lack of respondents made it even more necessary to take precautions to preserve the anonymity of these women.

The effects of culture

In this study participants were asked additional questions to further examine under which belief systems they operate and what their values are (Alshenqeeti, 2015).

When analysing their answers one needs to consider two things (Gubrium & Holstein, 1997; Carter & Bolden 2012). Firstly, that these women are individuals and as such have different social realities. Secondly, that regardless of individual experiences, these women at the same time operate within a similar social context. As such, both the individual and the shared experiences of these women give new context to their

answers. These women do not operate alone (Carter & Bolden, 2012) and as such, their interpretation of reality may be influenced by commonly shared thoughts (Gubrium & Holstein, 1997; Carter & Bolden, 2012).

What can be called a main influencer is the concept of culture (Pattillo-McCoy, 1998). Regardless of background, these women all share one major factor: they all operate under a Japanese cultural context. In this study, culture means a shared discourse of concepts in the Foucauldian tradition (Foucault, 1975; 1977; 1978). Although first defined as such in the mid-twentieth century, the idea that culture influences conceptualization remains relevant even today. Here, this means not just a shared identity (Gubrium & Holstein, 2002), but also that when referring to an object in a certain language, there is a shared concept of said object. An example of this would be the amount of words for

different kinds of snow in Norwegian, that is absent in most other languages, but

communally understood by those privy to the Norwegian language. In other words, some concepts expressed in Japanese or in a Japanese context may not exist in another language or culture. Although it should be noted that operating within a culture does not necessarily mean one identifies with the same culture and culture may be fluid (Carter & Bolden, 2012). In the case of these five women it is assumed that they do share a similar cultural experience. However, although all of these women may speak from a position of „Japanese media professionals,’ they do not necessarily all speak from a position of motherhood. At least three of the subjects have children and as such, may speak from this position (Carter & Bolden, 2012). This should be taken into consideration when analysing their answers.

Even though there were indeed few respondents to this study, it should still be able to serve as a collection of experiences of women working in Japanese media organisations. One can argue that these women do not merely embody their individual experiences, but may represent a form of zeitgeist (A theory developed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) in 1807), or “the experience of a people in a historical time and place” (Carter & Bolden, 2012, pg. 3). All these women were convinced of the importance of

participating in this study, or they could have chosen not to respond. As such, their answers may include some bias. The answers given by the five women interviewed should be interpreted as a glimpse into collective thought (Carter & Bolden, 2012). However, further study with an increase in the amount of respondents would be necessary to fully examine the scope and spread of these thoughts.

The interview method

Through e-mail, five interviews were set up to be conducted through video call. Because of the time difference and physical distance from the interviewed and time constraints because of the hectic nature of working in media, some interviews could only be

the women interviewed spoke and wrote English, some of the others were interviewed in their native Japanese. An upside of this study then, is that some of the interviews could be interpreted from the native language of these five women, as the researcher speaks Japanese. Although some of the women did feel comfortable being interviewed in English (a shared language by both researcher and participant, though native to neither), some of the women preferred to speak their minds solely in their native tongue.

Because of these time constraints and the minimal face-to-face contact in the traditional sense of the word, the interviews conducted in this study may not be as in depth as would be preferred. Qualitative research, after all, aims to give an in depth and “detailed account” of behavioural patterns and beliefs in context (Rubin & Rubin, 2005;

Alshenqeeti, 2015). The women were interviewed either from their homes or work spaces at a time where they could elaborate on their answers for as long as was needed through video-call or through a series of e-mails containing the interview questions contained in the appendix included at the end of this study.

The interview itself was set up as a structured interview. Because of the semi-structured form of these interviews and the flexible nature of such an interview form (Rubin & Rubin, 2005), the five women were given a modicum of control over the process. They were given the opportunity to share their experiences in their own way (Coughlan, Ryan & Cronin, 2009; Frances, Coughlan & Cronin, 2009). With this control and their shared cultural experience, they were also given a voice about their historical experience (Gubrium & Holstein, 2012) and thus, their historical reality. Although

interviewing may be time-consuming, with few respondents, and the experiences of these women may not be fully anonymous when speaking about experiences, and a form of bias about socially acceptable answers may occur because of the presence of an interviewer, the amount of information collected in this manner remains denser than from any other form of interviewing (Alshenqeeti, 2015).

Of course one can also not discredit the historical significance of using modern

technologies in research. After all, research that could only be conducted face-to-face before has now found a new dimension in this century through the use of the internet which has created new forms of collecting data with both up- and downsides. In this study, that means that conducting interviews with these five women located on the other side of the world from the researcher was possible.

In the past, face-to-face interviews were considered different from the online, or so called synchronous (James & Busher, 2012), interviews conducted through video call. Despite the lack of true face-to-face contact, conducting qualitative research through a semi-structured interview by means of video call and/or e-mail can still be called worthwhile as the face-to-face contact can be closely emulated. In other words, I would argue that the differences between a face-to-face interview and an interview conducted through an online video call are minimal and as such can be considered effectively the same as one another. In this study, the online video call interview method thus takes the place of the face-to-face interview. Their interviews still uncovered some more information than could be acquired through other information collection techniques such as surveys or analytical content research (Blaxter, Hughes & Tight, 2006; Alshenqeeti, 2015). Because, as stated above, one of the purposes of this study is to analyse a shared thought pattern and experience between the women interviewed, such an opportunity to ask more specific questions to check for theories or how prevalent a thought or experience might be is invaluable to this study.

There is a certain level of interaction between the researcher and the one interviewed when conducting interviews through a video conference. The interviewer is present, albeit through a video connection. These interviews occur in real time, where expression and tone can be observed. In that sense, they are nearly indistinguishable from

interviews conducted in person. As such, a natural form of interaction can occur (Dörnyei, 2007) and an understanding of the interview questions can be ensured (Alshenqeeti,

2015). Most importantly, this method made it possible to observe behaviour and gave the possibility of asking for additional information (Jamshed, 2014). Not being able to ask for elaboration in real-time is an obstacle for the interpretation of written interviews. Also, more information is likely to be given when the interviewed believes the idea that the researcher and the one interviewed are sharing an experience (Bowker & Tuffin, 2004; James & Busher, 2012). Questions that may otherwise remain unanswered through misunderstanding can be asked again in a different manner (Alshenqeeti, 2015) and information that may otherwise be deemed too private, may be freely given when

interacting „in person.’ This does not change when the face-to-face interview is moved to the online by means of a video call. Those interviewed through video call were also asked to answer again through e-mail, so the gist of their stories could be held next to their spontaneous reactions. Having the time to respond and formulate answers could just as well lead to a more socially acceptable use of language about their experiences (James & Busher, 2012). But, when held next to the audio recordings could show what kind of answers are socially acceptable at all. Furthermore, written research notes and audio recordings taken of these interviews could be reread, continuously, as needed (Berg, 2007; Hermanowicz, 2002; Alshenqeeti, 2015). The latter being impossible when the conversation is not recorded.

Because of time constraints, not all interviews could be conducted through video call. These interviews were conducted asynchronously, or not in real time (James & Busher, 2012). The asynchronous interviews were conducted through e-mail and as such had technological limitations. They are easier to set-up than face-to-face or synchronous encounters as they are not limited by scheduling conflicts. Especially in the context of this study, where the researcher and those interviewed were located in a different time zone (James & Busher, 2012) and those interviewed are continuously subjected to a heavy workload. Aside from the normal workload, these interviews took place around the end of the year and the start of the new fiscal year in Japan, causing additional time constraints for those interviewed. Valuable data on expression and behaviour may get

lost during such a transaction of information (James & Busher, 2012). However, as the interviewed have more time to formulate a response and consider their answers, detailed reports were still given. All those interviewed in this manner could take as much time as needed to express themselves and think about their answers (James & Busher, 2006). Additionally, follow up questions about short or unclear answers or elaboration on thoughts, emotions and experiences were asked, again through e-mail. This method leads to less external interpretation and more thought through answers (Alshenqeeti, 2015).

The biggest risk with the type of interview conducted through e-mail is the amount of time that can pass before an answer is given. The amount of non-response is higher than when one asks for a face-to-face interview as real life circumstances of which the

researcher may remain unaware can take priority over answering. This causes a higher withdrawal rate from the study (James & Busher, 2007; 2009; 2012). Although none of the women withdrew, at times, the back and forth of the written interview did take several days. Furthermore, when the subject is disengaged, they may answer shortly instead of in depth, which is generally considered the reason why interviews through e-mail may be unpreferable (James & Busher, 2006). At the same time, when a response was given it became the more preferable method. Instead of conducting a face-to-face interview at an inconvenient time, respondents could answer when they had the time to sit down and answer elaborately. However, answers through e-mail may go off on a tangent. This could have been prevented if one were to interview a respondent face-to-face or through video call (James & Busher, 2012). Fortunately, all respondents came through with their answers and elaborated when requested or were concise otherwise, regardless of whether or not they were asked to answer questions through video-call or e-mail.

In short, the women interviewed in the asynchronous method gave more reflective and cohesive answers, while the women interviewed through the synchronous method gave

an additional layer of interpretation through their physical expressiveness. These two approaches were taken to hopefully gain more honest answers instead of merely socially acceptable ones (James & Busher, 2012). This was also the reason that e-mails asking for elaboration were sent out to both groups. However, it should be kept in mind that

anyone interviewed will always only share their experiences to the extent that they are prepared to give insight into their own experiences, thoughts and opinions, which may not always concur with reality (James & Busher, 2012). In other words, „reality’ remains a matter of subjectivity. Although by no means does this mean that a personal reality is unreliable, repeated studies should still yield the same type of experiences (Alshenqeeti, 2015).

To truly be able to compare and contrast the answers of these women, a form of

structure was also needed (Berg, 2007). As such, a list of interview questions was made to be able to keep track of the structure of each interview and to make sure all areas that needed to be covered within this study were covered (Alshenqeeti, 2015).

Topic Choice

Because former studies on the experiences of women working as media professionals in other countries do exist, a repetition of these shared experiences as meant by

Alshenqeeti (2015), is a focus of this study. That means that the experiences of the

Japanese women would be shared by women in other countries (Alshenqueeti, 2015). As such, some topics were added to this interview specifically to find out if women in Japan experience the same obstacles as women in former studies, while other topics, such as the difference in wages between men and women and instances of sexual harassment, were omitted from the questions asked during the interviews and only appeared in the answers of the women when brought up by the women themselves. In this study I chose to focus on the experiences of these women regarding working life and the effect of motherhood thereupon.

As mentioned above, the experiences of these women were collected through an in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interview counting eighteen questions (found in the appendix) with the possibility to add more questions (on both sides) or share more information if the women interviewed thought it was relevant to one of the four topics. These topics concerned either their background, journalistic values, experiences as women working for a media organisation or the changes they thought were needed to make working for a media organisation (as managers or otherwise) a continued

possibility for women. These topics were chosen in accordance with the information derived (Wang & Yan, 2012) from previous studies described in the last chapter. These topics were decided on to be able to determine which of the theories discussed in the last chapter might have been experienced by women working in Japanese media, if at all.

Firstly, three questions were asked to determine the background of each woman to be able to contextualise their answers and experiences and consider them in light of each other and the conclusions taken from former studies. Secondly, questions four through eleven concerned their journalistic values to determine what each of these women thought was important while working in journalism. The third topic concerned their

experiences of working as women in a Japanese media organisation, covering questions twelve through seventeen. Finally, the women were asked to share their thoughts on what would have to change in the journalistic field if women were to attain a more equal position within journalism in Japan and to share any additional information they thought would be important to this study. Feedback about the interview questions was also requested at the end of some of the longer interviews. In addition, women in managerial or similar positions were asked if, in their opinion, their role as managers changed their views on working as a woman in a media organisation as compared to their views before they were in this a position.

Grounded theory analysis

In the end, the aim of using an interview method or doing qualitative research, is to be able to find a cohesive story of experiences supported by direct quotes of those interviewed (Sutton & Austin, 2015). While this may be achieved through our

semi-structured interview method, the most important thing after collecting such information is how to analyse it. In this study, the answers of our corpus of women were analysed by using the grounded theory of analysis. Grounded theory is a method that uses coding to analyse qualitative data in at least two steps (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012). After the

answers of the five women were noted down in a storytelling dialogue, their answers were converted to codes. These are discussed below.

Firstly, information was divided into categories. What is this answer about? This is called open coding, because any category can be given. The core point here is to stay open minded towards the data. The categories in this study were: values, expectations, obstacles and support. Secondly, these categories were divided into coded answers (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012) that were put into a visual web to show similarities between categories. For example, answers that concerned “having children” were given the code motherhood. This code turned out to be a label that covered several smaller codes, such as, time constraint and transfers. All of these codes could be put under the obstacles category. Other answers could fall under the code parental leave and could also be given the code benefits. As such, this code could be sorted under the category of

support. These codes helped divide information into experiences that show similarities or significant differences through what type of information was categorized under the same code (Sutton & Austin, 2015). This method is known as axial coding (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012). Here, axial coding functions as a way of breaking down large amounts of

qualitative data into simpler terms and to categorize large amounts of information into labels that were visibly connected (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012).

In other words, grounded theory was used in this thesis to be able to give short labels to large amounts of quantitative interview information without losing essential information as to be able to figure out which obstacles the women interviewed experienced in their careers. This was done to convert anecdotes into core themes and then further distill these themes into concrete obstacles. For example, an anecdote about a male colleague being promoted over one of the interviewed women time and time again, while other women did not receive a promotion either, was initially coded with the words „passover promotions’ (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012). If this code came about in multiple anecdotes from multiple women one could then conclude unequal promotion to be an obstacle for the women working as media professionals in Japan, as long as the corpus of

interviewed is large and diverse enough. However, after further examining this code, it could be concluded that the obstacle was not „passover promotion,’ but „dissonance between the roles of men and women,’ and the passover promotion was a result of the expectations of other journalists towards their female colleagues.

Analysis method

The codes were determined and assigned through analysis of sentence structure, show of emotions and use of certain words (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012). No selective coding, an explanation of a theory based on axial coding or discriminant sampling to test this theory, was performed in this thesis. This is because a larger corpus would be necessary to come to a true theory. However, this preliminary study was able to conjure an initial list of obstacles and support for women working in media organisations through code.

Categories

Following the interview topics, background, values, obstacles and change, all answers were divided into one of the four categories expectations, values, obstacles and support. The category „Expectations’ consisted of any answer about what society or family

members considered appropriate behaviour or conduct for the interviewed women. Conversely, „Values’ were the expectations media organisations or the women