Chapter 4: Networking, Women, Freelancing, and Work–Life Satisfaction Among UK Mass Communication Professionals

Maintaining work–life balance has been a continuously challenging issue in communication industries, with some authors raising this issue in the early 2000s. However, there are hardly any studies analysing the work–life balance in depth; studies mainly call for this research agenda. Therefore, to explore the issue of well-being in mass communication industries, we launched a survey on mass communications practitioners exploring issues such as employee and employer engagement, work culture and relationships, work–life balance, work–life conflict, job satisfaction, well-being, and networking, perceived gendered discrimination and sexual harassment, relationships and support, work, and community engagement and freelancers. In this chapter, we focus on freelancers, and the results show that practitioners spend too much time working, which impedes opportunities to visit friends and family and have time for themselves. Gender differences are particularly visible among freelancers where life satisfaction is higher among men as opposed to women; male respondents report a positive effect of networking if they freelance, whereas women report negative sentiments, and finally, men feel more left out of career opportunities if full-time but not freelance, whereas women report general sentiment of being left out. One of the conclusions of the survey is that if one is a woman, one should not be freelance in the mass communication industry. In addition to that, networking seems to present a well-being issue, particularly for women.