Abstract

With the emergence of the mass press in late nineteenth-century Austria, newspapers provided the main forum for public discourse, and journalism became a source of power. Thus, investigating the participation of women in journalism can also be seen as an analysis of power in the sense of control over (information) resources. Based on one of Foucault’s concepts, the study differentiates between changes in the distribution of power inside journalism (‘power to’) and those forces that had sufficient power (‘power over’) to promote the involvement of women in the business of daily journalism in Austria during one of its heydays in the 1920s. The editorial line, which provides the central rationale for journalistic action, and market orientation, which provides the main rationale for entrepreneurial action, are considered as the two main factors capable of influencing the participation of women in journalistic power. Furthermore, we ask for biographical circumstances, which promoted women’s career opportunities within this male-dominated business.

Keywords: women in journalism, media history, interwar period, First Austrian Republic

How to Cite:

Oggolder, C., (2017) “Power to the women? Viennese Journalism in the interwar Period”, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 8(3), 73-98. doi: https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.134