Women in business media: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Representations of Women in Forbes, Fortune and Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 2015-2017

Abstract

Despite their growing presence within the business sector, women have long been underand misrepresented in business media, with negative consequences for their entrepreneurial and other work aspirations. Research into the frequency with which women are featured and cited in business media, as well as the dominant discourses in terms of which they are represented, has repeatedly found patriarchal biases that undermine women’s position in the world of business. However, most of these studies are now outdated and many focus only on female entrepreneurs, are non-representative small-scale case studies, or do not subject business media coverage of women to fine-grained linguistic analysis. In this paper, therefore, we document how women (in general) are represented in three top-selling American business magazines (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune) between 2015 and 2017. First, we compare the frequency with which men and women are mentioned across all articles published in this time period (n=2,317), to determine any statistically significant variation. Second, using a representative subset of sample articles (n=63), we identify the number of times women are mentioned per article, to gauge the level of prominence accorded to them. Third, we use Hallidayan (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004) transitivity analysis and van Leeuwen’s (1996) representation of social actors framework to document the level and types of behavior ascribed to women, as well as the category labels used to depict them. Lastly, drawing on current business studies scholarship and related grey literature, we situate media portrayals of women within twenty-first century North American business culture. This paper contributes to a growing literature on mediarepresentations of powerful women and provides gender equality advocates – including those within both business and business media – with valuable information about how media coverage of women can better reflect and construct women’s position in the business world.