Pathways beyond critical media education

At the workshop entitled Rethinking Democratisation of the Media: Pathways Beyond Critical Media Education, Terry Hermano, Director for the Women's Programme (pictured third from left), moderated the session on gender and media reform with the panel representatives from India, Cambodia and the Philippines.

The paradigm of media education clearly has its boundaries. In most parts of the world, where media reform has resulted from critical media awareness, it has occurred in a piecemeal, ad hoc and isolated fashion. Media education may contribute to our critical engagement with media but for collective reformation and democratisation of the media, there is an urgent need to look beyond traditional approaches.

It was from this understanding of the urgent need to shift the focus from media education to media reform that WACC, in its first collaboration with the newly formed SIGNIS (formerly UNDA-OCIC), held the symposium workshop Rethinking Democratisation of the Media: Pathways Beyond Critical Media Education, from 20th – 25th September in the Philippines. Attended by 29 participants from the UK, Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, the workshop provided an opportunity for these Christian communication groups, media educators and activists to reflect on the past, present and future of media education and to set an agenda for media reform. This process was informed by 13 case studies of media reform from throughout Asia which were presented during the six days of the symposium. Each presentation was followed by a reflection session in which participants identified key issues emerging from the experiences highlighted and drew up a list of learning points in relation to advocacy, lobbying and networking as three of the principal components of the process of media reform.

For many years, numerous groups in Asia have undertaken media education programmes, but few of them have gone beyond those to pursue media lobbying and reform. Some of the groups who have lobbied for media reform are activists or organisations that may not have been active in past media education programmes. The sharing of experiences between these two groups of activists and educators at the symposium made clear the potential for media reform in Asia and revealed ways in which the gains of the media education movement can be consciously transformed to develop an active media reform movement.

In addition to country case studies, the symposium workshop had three thematic panel sessions on culture, media and globalisation; advocacy, lobbying and networking; and gender issues and media reform. Terry Hermano, Director for Services and the Women’s Programme, who was representing WACC at the symposium, chaired the session on gender and media reform where she gave a presentation on the experience of conducting the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 2000 and its use as a tool for media education and advocacy. She was joined by gender and media specialists from India, Cambodia and the Philippines, all of whom contributed their experiences of the gender dimension of media reform.

The symposium workshop ended with a commitment from all the participants to implement a variety of concrete initiatives aimed at furthering the development of a media reform movement. These initiatives include an Asian online newspaper, a community radio project, a study of the status of media education in Asia, the establishment of a clearing house and centre to collect, receive, maintain and distribute Asian media educational resources, and two gender initiatives - a gender sensitivity award for advertising in three media in Asia and an Asian media monitoring project on the portrayal and representation of women and other development issues, as an extension of the next global media monitoring project to be organised by WACC in 2005.

Over the six days of the symposium workshop, participants developed a clear understanding of the limitations of the media education movement and were able to reflect deeply on the media reform agenda and develop a concrete programme of action –mapping pathways beyond media education.