Constructing women as authorities: Local journalism and the microphysics of power

Abstract

This study extends Tuchman's concept of “symbolic annihilation” by applying recent power/knowledge research to the issue of gender inequality in news work. In political and feminist theory, power recently has been conceptualized as inseparable from the production of knowledge, involved in the production of the very meaning of scarcity and the meaning or necessity of conflict. This study integrates the power/knowledge perspective into the ideological conception of news work and uses this integrated position to illustrate how women are constructed or deconstructed as legitimate authorities in local news reporting—in this case, a routine story about child care.