Presence and leadership of women in media: The impact of the streaming platforms

Abstract

The Spanish media industry is highly masculinized. Productions of female leadership are still a minority. This research seeks to observe how the rapid consolidation of streaming platforms, and also the intensification of their production policy in national markets can infer this reality. The main goal is to find out what impact these new players have on the employability and leadership of women within the Spanish industry. For this purpose, international over-the-top (OTT) platforms, which also develop their own productions in Spain, are studied. Diversity in labor structures is analyzed, by areas of specialization and by levels of responsibility, taking as a sample the original Spanish productions released since 2015 until the beginning of 2020. The results show a slight positive impact of the OTT on the employability of women in the media industry, although it continues to be highly masculinized.