Are journalists aware of the gender gap? : A study on the perceptions and experiences about the language used in the representation of women in the Italian press

Abstract: This thesis studies Italian journalists' perceptions and experiences of the use of gendered language in the representation of women in the Italian press. Previous research has shown that Italian media misrepresent women by producing gender stereotypes. This is, to a certain extent, related to language: Italian is considered to be a gender language, meaning that every noun, pronoun and adjective have a gender. The research questions that guide this study are: what are the Italian journalists' perceptions and experiences of gender in the articles they write?  What is the place and role of language in the journalists' evaluation of gender equality in news? What are the reasons behind the journalists' use of language when they write a piece about a woman? Using an ethnographic approach, 9 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed following the journalistic culture perspective proposed by Hanitzsch (2007). The results show that there are many different approaches to gender, from the one suggesting to neglect gender as a category at all in the news production, to the one that sees gender as a category that is newsworthy as such and a starting point for an article. Also the role of language is interpreted in very different ways. On one side there is the idea that, compared to the gender gap being a broader social problem, language is secondary; on the other, language is considered to be able to drive a change in the society. Finally, also the reasons behind the journalists' use of language are diverse: the ethical codes do not apply to all the journalists or reveal a lack of guidelines that oblige journalists to rely on their morality, gender sensitivity, or interest to the topic of gender equality; or on the newspaper's own guidelines. The readers' assumed expectations, as well as the kind of journalism (with its requests in terms of time and space) influence the use of language with regard to gender equality. The results show also that, beside some context-dependent elements, which make Italy a specific case, there are some universal considerations that can be made. In particular, basing on these universal elements, the addition of a linguistic dimension to journalistic cultures (Hanitzsch, 2007) is suggested. In this dimension, it will be proposed to include two levels: the influence of language on social reality and the influence of journalism on language.