Sexual harassment in the creative and hospitality industries: a comparative media analysis to understand the mobilising power of #MeToo

This article investigates British newspaper coverage of workplace sexual harassment in the creative and hospitality industries during 2024 to assess the mobilising power and limitations of #MeToo across sectors. Despite high prevalence rates of harassment reported in national surveys, the hospitality industry receives negligible media attention. In contrast, coverage of the creative industries is extensive, yet overwhelmingly dominated by celebrity cases. Using a mixed-methods design, this study combines quantitative content analysis with qualitative thematic analysis of articles published in The Sun , The Daily Mail , and The Guardian . Findings reveal two key dynamics. Firstly, celebrity status is the dominant news value driving coverage, marginalising the experiences of ordinary workers across industries. Secondly, reporting is shaped by partisan media cultures. Right-leaning newspapers The Sun and The Daily Mail routinely discredit female complainants, frame male perpetrators as the ‘real’ victims, and trivialise much harassment as ‘not real’, whereas the left-leaning The Guardian avoids such representations and adopts a victim-believing position. The analysis demonstrates that #MeToo has struggled to disrupt the celebrification of sexual harassment and to penetrate deeply into right-leaning parts of the media. Furthermore, right-leaning newspapers have politicised sexual harassment in their attacks on feminist politics, equality agendas, and the BBC, framing #MeToo as enabling a culture of left-wing ‘overreach’. As #MeToo is entangled in an increasingly polarised media environment, it becomes ever more difficult to reach audiences across the ideological spectrum and this hampers the movement's impact. What this study calls for, then, are renewed efforts to include ordinary victims, challenge media misrepresentation, and resist the cultural backlash against gender justice.