Full Description
Freelancing has become a dominant work mode in communication industries such as public relations, marketing communications, digital media, and corporate communication, offering flexibility, autonomy, and creative freedom to workers, as well as dynamic access to specialized skills for businesses. However, below this shiny surface lies a complex reality marked by job insecurity, unequal access to job opportunities, and persistent gender constraints. Studies that looked at this profession in the communication industries through the lens of gender have been few and far between.
Gender and Freelancing in the Communication Industries: Experiences, Practices, Discourses is the first edited volume to focus specifically and exclusively on the intersection of gender and freelancing within the communication industries, challenging the assumption that freelancing is inherently liberating. The book investigates how gendered narratives, structural inequalities, and national labour policies influence freelancers' identities, career dynamics, and everyday practices, offering a comprehensive perspective of national and international viewpoints and inviting critical reflection on equity, identity, and sustainability in the gig economy.
Divided into three thematic sections, the chapters examine discourses surrounding resilience and empowerment in online communities, explore exclusionary networking practices, and uncover how women navigate precarity, work-life balance, and professional isolation. Contributors draw from diverse methods including autoethnography, qualitative interviews, and generational analysis to capture the lived realities of freelance communication professionals.
This collected volume benefits professionals from various fields, including communication specialists, researchers, business leaders, and policymakers. Freelancers seeking to understand their role in the economy, communication experts exploring gender dynamics in their industry, and researchers interested in the intersection of gender, work, and freelancing will find valuable insights.
Contents
Foreword; Ralph Tench
Chapter 1. Gendered discourses on precarity, empowerment, resilience and well-being within freelance professional virtual communities in the communication industries; Anca Anton and Raluca Moise
Chapter 2. Balancing precarity and empowerment: A discourse analysis of women communication freelancers' narratives in online media; Raluca Moise and Anca Anton
Chapter 3. Doing feminist public relations research as a mobile freelancer: An autoethnographic study; Hyunji Doh
Chapter 4. Networking, women, freelancing, and work-life satisfaction among UK mass communication professionals; Martina Topić and Michal Chmiel
Chapter 5. Freedom or constraint: Gendered experiences and practices of Portuguese communication industries freelancers; Maria João Cunha, Carla Cruz, and Célia Belim
Chapter 6. The gendered experience of freelancing in the Turkish communication industry: A comparative analysis; Özlem Alikılıç and Ebru Gökaliler
Chapter 7. Gender and perspectives on work-life balance and conflict, job satisfaction, well-being, and networking: A comparison of freelance experiences in the communication industries in Romania and Poland; Anca Anton, Anna Jupowicz-Ginalska, and Monika Kaczmarek-Sliwinska
Chapter 8. Sex, sexuality, and sexism: A generational comparison of women's freelance career experiences in the UK public relations industry; Sarah Bowman, Heather Yaxley, and Elizabeth Bridgen
Chapter 9. Becoming and being freelance PR women in Croatia: Female students' perspective; Mirela Holy, Geran-Marko Miletić, and Marija Geiger Zeman
Chapter 10. The lived experiences of female PR practitioners in the UK: Exploring bourdieu's theory of habitus, gender imbalance, and exploitation; Sarah Williams
