Joanne Public vs. Joe Public: News Sourcing and Gender Imbalance on Argentine Digital Media

This article examines the gender distribution of sources and the factors associated with women?s representation in news stories on eight Argentine online news sites and their respective social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter. Content analysis of 3010 articles shows that men are approximately twice as likely to be cited as sources as women. The analysis also finds a negative association between articles about public affairs topics and the presence of women as news sources. It also yields an increased use of women sources in stories with a female byline. Furthermore, there is no significant relationship between the presence of women as sources and whether the article was posted on the homepage of a news organization or its social media accounts. We draw on these findings to theorize on the role of technological change in the dynamics of gender inequality, and to reflect on how the relative dearth of women?s voices in news stories may hinder diversity and inclusion in the public sphere.