What happened to Section J?

Sarah
Macharia from the World
Association for Christian Communication (WACC) summaries the outcomes of the panel discussion on the Fourth Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), which took place on March 2 in New York on the occasion of the 54th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW): “You may be aware the GMMP is a longitudinal study running since 1995 on gender in the world news media. The research is implemented in 5-year cycles, to capture a one-day snapshot of gender representation and portrayal in the news across participating countries. 130 countries took part in GMMP 2010, an increase from 76 in 2005, 70 in 2000 and 71 in 1995. The WACC in collaboration with UNIFEM organised a parallel session at the 54^th CSW to present and debate the preliminary findings.” 

Among the key findings: Only 24% of the people interviewed, heard, seen or read about in mainstream television, radio and print news are female. This is a significant change from 1995 when only 17% of the people in the news were women. On the one hand the pace of increase in women’s visibility in the news has been maintained over the past decade. On the other hand the largest rise in women’s visibility is in stories of low priority on the hierarchy of news media agenda priorities.

Further, a significant component of the increase can be attributed to a notable rise in women as ordinary people providing  popular opinion, and much less to women’s voices as ‘experts’. Analysis of media coverage on selected issues of special concerns to women contained in the Beijing Platform for Action reveals such issues receive an average of less than 1.5% media attention each. Another finding is that almost one half (48%) of all news stories reinforce gender stereotypes while only 8% challenge such stereotypes.  

Panellist Ms. Saniye Gülser Corat (Director, Division for Gender Equality, Bureau of Strategic of Planning, UNESCO) said gender equality is one of two global priorities for UNESCO. She illustrated UNESCO’s work on gender and the media with examples, such as the annual ‘Women make the news campaign’ directly inspired by Section ‘J’. She invited reflection on indicators for media to measure the gender responsiveness of their output. 

Panellist Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls of femLINKpacific Media Initiatives for Women in Fiji highlighted the need to integrate Section ‘J’ in regional and national action plans, and the need to support women’s media networks.

Panellist Sanjay Suri, Editor in Chief of InterPress Service invoked debate that sharpened counter-arguments on the claim that the news agenda cannot be faulted for imbalanced representation because the world reported is imbalanced.

Panel moderator Joanne Sandler (Deputy Executive Director, UNIFEM) stirred reflection on the kind of media aspired for by social justice activists. The panel discussion and debate came to a close with Sandler’s strong recommendation to ensure the issues raised become clearly visible at the Millennium Development Goals Review Summit scheduled for September, 2010.

The complete preliminary report is available at http://www.whomakesthenews.org/images/stories/website/gmmp_reports/2010/gmmp_2010_prelim_key_en.pdf (English only), with highlights in French and Spanish.