Performing access: women, frictions and the ‘third gender’ in journalism

Women (video) journalists have been put in boxes; they have been told what is the right place for them in the media industry for years (Chambers et al., 2004, Ross Arguedas, 2025, Topić and Bruegmann, 2021). This chapter looks outside these categories to understand practitioners who operate from the margins of the places and stories their male colleagues do, which leads to different experiences and results.

This chapter draws from interviews with women video journalists from around the globe about their experiences while working in the field to understand the different types of generative frictions and the strategies women use to turn frictions into professional strengths. The research points to different performing acts women (video) journalists use to access, record and edit news stories under the framework of what has been labelled the ‘third gender’.

Journalists operating from the margins harness social and identity frictions in intersectionality of their gender, race and professional role in a specific geo-cultural contexts. The chapter uses media frictions to offer new perspectives in journalism practice, focusing on practitioners who are producing news stories on topics and people who otherwise wouldn’t have been seen or heard.