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Introduction to Gender

Module 1_Topic 2: Womens Absence in Mainstream Media

Introduction to Gender

At end of this topic, you will be able to: discuss the notion of symbolic annihilation in relation to womens underrepresentation in the media; explain the meaning of gender advocacy; highlight the importance of media monitoring and advocacy; outline some media monitoring and advocacy models; and provide examples of media monitoring and advocacy in the Pacific Region.

WACC, Mission Possible: A Gender and Media Toolkit Chapters 2-3, available online at: http://whomakesthenews.org/tools/mission-possible-a-gender-and-media-advocacy-trainingtoolkit.html

Introduction to Gender

This lecture discusses womens absence in the mainstream media. It highlights the importance of media monitoring and advocacy to help redress gender imbalances in the media.

Symbolic Annihilation Women make up more than 50% of the worlds population, yet they comprise less than 20% of professional journalists (Navuri, 2011). Since the 1960s, the global womens movement has played a critical role in critiquing media organizations and their output. Their main argument has been that womens underrepresentation in the media has kept them powerless (Gallagher, 2001, 3) or socially disempowered. The term symbolic annihilation, coined by George Gerbner in 1972, was used to describe womens erasure or absence in the media. In 1978, Gaye Tuchman argued, in her article The Symbolic Annihilation of Women in the Mass Media that most media portrayed women in traditional roles; did not offer many positive images of women in the public sphere; and generally tended to define women in relation to their roles with men (150). Tuchmans main contention was that if the media continued to reflect hegemonic, patriarchal values, then constant repetition of such themes can be expected to encourage the maintenance of womens subordinate position in society (1978, 151), which promoted a false, repressive ideal (1978, 151). Womens invisibility in the media further demonstrated that the power to decide public and media agendas remained largely a male privilege (Gallagher, 2001, 3).

The UN International Decade for Women The United Nations International Decade for Women from 1975-1985 was an important period for raising awareness on the status of women and making recommendations to improve the status of women. It comprised three international forums and conferences Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985). The UN Decade for Women was particularly critical for raising awareness on the underrepresentation of women at all levels in media organizations. In 1995, ten years after the decade had passed, Section J of the Beijing Platform for Action titled Women and the Media highlighted two strategic objectives. Strategic Objective J.1 aimed to increase the participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the media and new technologies of communication and Strategic Objective J.2 was primarily concerned with promoting a balanced and

Introduction to Gender

non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media (Section J, Beijing Platform for Action, 1995). While awareness was generated on womens absence from the media, the task ahead for gender advocates was to ensure that women were subjects in the mainstream media and not just objects. This involved lobbying against the patriarchal hegemony that permeated many media organizations.

What do you understand by patriarchal hegemony? Is patriarchal hegemony evident in media organisations throughout the Pacific region? If so, how?

Women Empowering Communication In 1994, the Womens Association for Christian Communication (WACC) with ISIS International and the International Womens Tribune Centre (IWTC) organized a conference in Bangkok in 1994 titled Women Empowering Communication. The conference was attended by more than 400 women from 80 different countries. Topics discussed included: coping with violence against women in the media, ecology and the media, the portrayal of women in advertisements, obstacles and prospects for women working in the media industry and alternative media strategies (Information Bulletin, Cameco, 2/1994). The gathering agreed that large media organizations are patriarcha l in nature, which promotes stereotyped gender-roles, treats women like commodities, highlights violence against women and veils womens contribution to society (Information Bulletin, Cameco, 2/1994). Participants focused on developing practical strategies to strengthen and empower womens communication. One of the main outcomes of this conference was the birth of the Global Media Monitoring Project, the worlds largest longitudinal research on gender in the media.

The Global Media Monitoring Project GMMP has drawn attention to womens underrepresentation in all media positions ranging from news media ownership, publishing and reporting to broadcast production (2010). GMMP is coordinated by Media Watch, The World Association for Christian Communication and other non-governmental organisations and institutions. GMMP commenced in 1995 with the involvement of 71 countries. By 2010, the number of countries participating in this project had risen to 108 and included six countries

Introduction to Gender

from the Pacific region (Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Australia and New Zealand). Every five years since the commencement of this project, participants from all over the world gather to monitor their news media for one day. GMMP helps to monitor gender in the media. Monitoring how often women are quoted as primary sources is an example of quantitative monitoring. Qualitative monitoring would analyze gender biases, stereotypes, and change of value judgment, perceptions and attitudes (WACC, 2004).

Listen to the podcast on the Global Media Monitoring Project, which orientates you to the role it plays. You can access more information at: http://www.medinstgenderstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/highlights_en.pdf. What have you learnt about the relationship between gender and the media from this short video summary of GMMP findings? What are some benefits of media monitoring? The Importance of Gender Advocacy Gender advocacy in the media is concerned with how we can change the content of the media to ensure that its representation of gender is accurate, fair and balanced. Questions pertaining to womens underrepresentation in all sectors of the media industry, who sp eaks in the news, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and womens invisibility or symbolic annihilation are all concerns of gender media advocates. Gender advocacy is about removing biases from the media, mainstreaming gender in the media and working towards policy change. It involves critiquing and challenging the media to change the way it portrays and represents women in its editorial content and programming; the way it confines women to the lowest positions in newsrooms; the way it uses women, sex and violence against women to attract audiences; and the way it ignores discrimination against women in all sectors of society in the main news pages and broadcasts (WACC). Target audiences for gender advocacy include journalists and reporters, editors, managers, directorate/governance structures, external policy makers and the general public. Journalists, particularly senior journalists, are the primary targets for gender and media advocacy because they decide which stories to cover or not to cover, how to cover these stories, who to interview and so forth. As they assign news stories and oversee the news content, editors who understand the importance of media advocacy can play a critical role in ensuring that women are not symbolically annihilated as subjects in the news media. Editors can also select news stories that promote the empowerment of women and sexual minority groups. Gender advocacy is

Introduction to Gender

necessary for media managers to ensure that the policies of the organisation are not gender-biased and that women are hired in managerial positions. While the directorate or the Board of Directors do not play a role in the day to day running of the media organization, they do dictate the broader agenda of the organization based on their personal vested interests and would benefit from some knowledge of gender issues and the need for gender advocacy. External policy makers, for example, the State and private sectors can also make a difference to media content.

The General Public and Media Literacy While mainstream media clearly constructs and reproduces gender stereotypes, the way the general public receives the news media and advertisements will differ depending on our interpretation of the content, our lived experiences and our individual cultural backgrounds. The meaning extracted from an advertisement, for example, is created within the relationship between the advertisement and the receiver of the advertisement. We may fully accept the stereotypical message in the advertisement; partially accept this message; or completely reject the intended reading of this advertisement. This is called reception theory. In the context of the media, the term media literacy is often used. WACC defines media literacy as the ability to understand the way the media works, to spot bias in the news and to recognize accurate and impartial news coverage (1994).

Introduction to Gender

Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: Fourth World Conference on Women, 15 September, 1995, available online at: http://www.unesco.org/education/information/nfsunesco/pdf/BEIJIN_E.PDF [accessed 1 November, 2011] Beijing Platform for Action, Section J: Women and the Media, Beijing, China, September, 1995, available online at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/media.htm

Gallagher, Margaret (2001) Chapter One: The Case for Monitoring and Advocacy in Gender Setting: New Agendas for Media Monitoring and Advocacy, New York: Palgrave, 2001, p. 3-22. Navuri, Angel, Discrimination Against Female Jurnos Should be Discouraged IPP Media, available at: http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=26973 [Accessed 1 April, 2011] Tuchman, Gaye, Chapter Nine: The Symbolic Annihilation of Women by the Mass Media in Culture and Politics, edited by Crothers, Lane and Charles Lockhart (2000), Palgrave, Macmillan. Information Bulletin, Cameco, 2/1994, available online at: http://www.cameco.org/mediaforum_pdf/ib02942.pdf [accessed 1 November, 2011] The Global Media Monitoring Project (2010) available at: http://www.whomakesthenews.org/ [Accessed 2 April, 2011] _____ Video coverage, available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us3mGDYmNDQ [Accessed 10 April, 2011] _____ Regional and National Reports (2009) available at: http://www.whomakesthenews.org/ [Accessed 2 April, 2011] WACC, Mission Impossible: A Gender and Media Advocacy Toolkit, available online at: http://www.whomakesthenews.org/images/stories/website/Advocacy_toolkit/missionpossibleeng.pdf [accessed 2 April, 2011]