Women working in sport media and public relations: no advantage in a male-dominated world

ABSTRACT

Globally, the public relations industry is overwhelmingly female, while sport media is overwhelmingly male. This positions the women who work in sport public relations at the intersection of two gendered industries. Drawing on analytic frameworks understanding organisations as gendered, this study explores the experiences of women in public relations, communications, and media relations roles in Australian sport organisations. From a survey (n = 123) and interviews (n = 16) this research found – surprisingly – that the Australian sport public relations workforce was almost equally male and female. However, women were not equal across other variables, and participants also reported that their gender had negatively influenced their work. This study found that despite being employed in almost equal numbers in a traditionally male-dominated field, the context within women work is still gendered.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• sports media
• public relations
• the friendliness trap

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.