The “gendered price” of press freedom in the digital age: Documenting threats and challenges for female journalists in western media systems

A growing body of research documents that female journalists often face extreme obstacles in their work. The rapidly growing international debate around press freedom, especially after the onset of the pandemic and the technological developments in recent years, has brought to the fore another crucial issue: do female journalists enjoy the same level of press freedom as their male colleagues in the digital age? Although gender has been a longstanding barrier for media professionals, in recent years digital technology has offered additional “weapons” to anyone with a smart phone: from smear campaigns to online attacks and AI-generated forms of assault. This work seeks to systematically identify and document the dimensions of threats to female journalists in western media systems and to detect and assess new manifestations of gendered threats in the digital age. In the course of the study, several types of threats emerged affecting not only female journalists but also those of any other gender beyond male. The study aims to offer an analytical categorization of these threats, focusing on western media systems, where overall press freedom has been acutely affected in recent years.