The aim of this study is to discuss the importance of gender in editorial leadership in African countries. Women in leading positions in the media industry work in a traditionally male-dominated area. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were carried out with five women on their work in media management in Zambia, Uganda, Nigeria and Ethiopia in order to explore how a group of female media managers in a non-western setting manage both their gendered identity and their identity as media professionals. This study challenges a western-based understanding of the role of gender in newsroom cultures. Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of capital is used as an analytical instrument. The study suggests that female gender is regarded as a positive capital, which contradicts other studies of women in media management. Another conclusion is that the ‘velvet ghetto’ is spreading, as women in journalism receive low salaries, if any.

The aim of this study is to examine what effect an extensive affirmative action programme has had on a group of black women in the South African media, and how they perceive how existing power structures affect their everyday experiences within their respective media companies. The empirical base is an interview study with eight black women who hold or held top editorial positions in South Africa. Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory, the results suggest that there is an escape from journalism as other forms of symbolic capital have not managed to outweigh the negative capital of being a black woman in South African journalism.

This study examines how gender interplays with the news agenda during a very large scale event, in a country still undergoing political transition and where journalism plays a significant role in the nation-building process. The present study brings new knowledge to this area by examining the news agendas in South Africa on a specific gender-related issue: the rights of sex workers and trafficking victims, concerning men and children as well, but women in particular. This issue is often debated in connection with global sports events such as the World Cup. Drawing on interviews with media practitioners and on discourse analysis, the purpose of this study was to examine the news discourse on sex labour and trafficking and the connection with the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The findings suggest that the media discourse during the event was permeated with the rhetoric of nation-building. The combination of sport, media, and nationalism in a country in transition resulted in the ‘symbolic annihilation’ (Tuchman, 1978b) of a specific gender issue.