WACC programme manager leads opening plenary at Religion Communicators Council Convention

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By Philip Lee, WACC Deputy-Director of Programmes

		“Communicating Outside the Box” was the theme of the 2011 convention of the Religion Communicators Council held in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA, 31 March to 2 April. Speaking on the topic of “Gender and the News Media: A New Approach to Building Lasting Peace?”, WACC’s Programme manager, Dr Sarah Macharia, explored how societies have become increasingly polarised along competing political or ideological positions. This has often led news journalism to take one-sided positions over more balanced positions. This results in certain interests and voices being accorded grossly disproportional print coverage or broadcast time.
Dr Sarah Macharia, Programme manager, WACC

WACC’s Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) has starkly demonstrated that the diversity present in reality is veiled or ignored in the world depicted in the news. Further, news tend to magnify and normalize discrimination, injustice, and inequality when it comes to gender difference. Drawing on research findings, the presentation suggested how peaceful coexistence can be enhanced with the help of gender-fair, responsive and balanced reporting. It argued that representing society in all its diversity is the key to the emergence of a more equitable world.

Dr. Macharia manages two of WACC’s global programmes – Media and Gender Justice and HIV and AIDS, Communication and Stigma. Of Kenyan origin, she is a feminist political economist with extensive work experience in the field of gender and human development. Dr Macharia has worked with African civil society and international development organisations and is a contributing researcher at the International Secretariat for Human Development housed at York University, Toronto, Canada.

Against a background of technological changes that have revolutionized communication, economic pressures that have reduced the number of journalists covering religion and limited the space available for religion news, social media that have changed public relations practices, and demographic and cultural shifts that have altered the faces of communities, the RCC Convention asked how faith communities – and religion communicators – respond to this dynamic cultural environment.

See: http://www.religioncommunicators.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=71889&orgId=recc

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WACC promotes communication as a basic human right, essential to people's dignity and community.

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