Identifying and assessing gender bias in radio journalism in conflict-affected contexts: evidence from Burkina Faso

This article explores how conflict intensifies and institutionalises gender bias in radio journalism in Burkina Faso, revealing a self-reinforcing cycle between newsroom practices, gendered power relations, and media representations. Bridging media, gender, and conflict studies, it shows how entrenched societal gender norms and structural inequalities within media organisations are sharpened under conditions of insecurity. The findings demonstrate that journalists’ often unconscious gender biases shape editorial decisions, field assignments, and interactions with affected communities, and are reproduced in broadcast content. Women journalists reported systematic exclusion from “hard news” and conflict reporting due to assumptions of fragility, while simultaneously being assigned emotionally demanding coverage such as trauma and gender-based violence. These contradictions both reflect and reinforce conflict-driven gender expectations associated with hegemonic masculinity and constructions of feminine vulnerability. Methodologically, the study combines focus groups, interviews, and radio content analysis. To organise and interpret the findings, we applied a framework comprising seven areas of analysis to identify domains of gender bias in humanitarian organisations and adapted it here to journalism in conflict settings. This framework elucidates how gender bias emerges across day-to-day practices, fieldwork, organisational processes, professional development, and interactions with affected populations, showing how conflict exacerbates existing inequalities in the media sector.