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 | | The Deputy General Secretary of WACC, Lavinia Mohr, has reiterated that women are still significantly underrepresented and misrepresented in news media coverage despite significant change since the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) - coordinated by WACC- began 15 years ago.
Mohr was addressing the fourth Southern African Gender and Media Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, October 13. The theme of the Summit is Gender and Media, Diversity and Change: Taking Stock.
Her keynote speech was based on the 2010 Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) report: Who Makes the News? released by WACC, 29 September 2010 (see details here...) According to the GMMP report, 76% of the people heard or read about in the world's news are male. The world seen in news media remains largely a male one.
| | Deputy General Secretary of WACC, Lavinia Mohr (Photo by Richard Choe, for WACC) | | |
Mohr reported that 24% of people in the news are female, compared to 17% in 1995, while 44% of persons providing popular opinion in news stories are female compared to 34% in 2005.
The GMMP monitored 1,365 newspapers, television and radio stations and Internet news sites, 17,795 news stories and 38,253 persons in the news in 108 countries with 82% of the world’s people.
She noted that WACC's project support has traditionally been largely of a responsive nature, adding that WACC's largest single activity is the Global Media Monitoring Project, a worldwide longitudinal study on the representation of women and men in the world's news media.
WACC works with partners around the world, including Gender Links (GL), on building communication rights and promoting communication for social change.
Mohr said she was encouraged that today female reporters are responsible for 37% of stories compared to 28% fifteen years ago, and their stories challenge gender stereotypes twice as often as stories by male reporters.
She advised media institutions to develop and adopt gender sensitive policies and guidelines which will encourage full participation of women at both editorial and management levels.
The GMMP 2010 report in English, French and Spanish is available here... The Summit is hosted by Gender Links (GL), the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and the Gender and Media Southern Africa (GEMSA) Network. The Summit, held October 13-15, has brought together media practitioners, trainers, gender activists, media regulators and all those who subscribe to the GEMSA slogan “making every voice count, and counting that it does” to share best practices in creating a media that is more responsive to gender and diversity concerns. With its overarching theme, Gender, Media, Diversity and Change: Taking Stock, the summit takes place against the backdrop of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development that calls for gender parity within the media, as well as equal voice and fair treatment of women and men in editorial content by 2015.
Source: GenderLinks (http://www.genderlinks.org.za/article/profile-of-a-communication-rights-activist-2010-10-13) |
