According to the authors, the internet has brought many advantages including increased productivity, flexibility and more opportunities to work for publishers virtually anywhere.
The ILO claims that women in particular have seized the new opportunities with evidence showing that women now make up a much larger proportion of editorial staff.
Women, who represented less than 20% of journalists in Portugal during the 1980s, now make up more than 30% of the profession, which has increased fourfold in the past decade,' the report states.
New media publishing now also represents a rich vein of potential work and, ILO says, freelances are in a ideal position to keep in touch with both traditional and new media developments.
On the downside, the report notes that: 'While the internet seems to have made life easier for freelances, the opposite appears to be true for staff journalists.'
The main disadvantages cited include information overload, increased pressures and ultimately an increased workload, ILO says. 'Digital workflows now allow content to be 'repurposed' for other media, and this has exacerbated the problem.'
The report also argues that new media publishing presents challenges to the traditional media. 'Ultimately, the new media channels have in many ways turned primary sources and ordinary people into de facto journalists themselves, perhaps harming the previous monopoly that a select group of professionals used to have in producing public information.' ILO describes this process as 'disintermediation' which allows internet users to go straight to the source of a story or nugget of information.
The ILO report was presented to an international symposium on information technology held in Geneva this month. See the ILO website for more details.
Free daily newsletter
If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).
