Nadi, Fiji Islands—Top media representatives gathered together to discuss and devise a “Pacific Women Media Action Plan” on September 21-22, 2006 aimed to promote gender equality in the region. 

In the Pacific region, females account for only 26 percent of total news subjects, compared to male news subjects which account for 74 percent, according to the Global Media Monitoring Project 2005, whose goal is to map the representation of women and men in news media worldwide. Stories where women are central to the news dropped down from 11 percent in 2000 to 9 percent in 2005, while, only 3 percent of the news monitored in the region highlighted gender issues.

In an interview in Islands Business, co-organiser Julie Middleton, women's advocacy and communications officer at the Pacific Women’s Bureau at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, said that “Women can be poorly served by mass media—they are often reduced to stereotypes, or portrayed as sex objects. They can be invisible when the discussion is on society and development.” Furthermore, she underscored that there are relatively few women in decision-making roles in media, which tends to work against women being heard in the news, and being relegated as staff members.

With this in mind, seventeen chief executives, directors, editors, and senior journalists from both the English and French-speaking Pacific discussed how to better represent women in the media as well as how to raise the status of women working in media organisations through the adoption of the action plan.

The Pacific Women Media Action Plan calls on media organisations to:

• resist rather than reinforce negative stereotyping;
• opt not to use material that condones or incites any form of violence;
• promote human rights education;
• seek partnerships and information exchange with women’s civil society, including women’s media initiatives;
• promote gender sensitivity and the use of gender-inclusive language; and
• ensure that media policies, including codes of ethics, are consistent with gender equality commitments.

The plan is in accordance to Section J, “Women and Media,” of the internationally-recognised Beijing Platform for Action that aims for a balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media and for increased participation in decision-making by women working in the media.

Symposium organisers, which include the Pacific Women’s Bureau, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA), are all hoping that the plan will be used by media organisations in the Pacific as a template for promoting gender equality.

Sources:
“Action plan meeting aims to boost women in Pacific media” from  Pacific Women's Bureau, posted on September 4, 2006, <http://lists.spc.int/pipermail/press-releases_lists.spc.int/2006-September/000019.html>.
“Media executives drive plan of action to boost portrayal of Pacific women” from Pacific Women's Bureau, <http://www.spc.int/women/media_executives.html>.
“Pacific Media Execs Devise Action Plan” from Islands Business, <http://www.islandsbusiness.com/islands_business/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=17118/overideSkinName=issueArticle-full.tpl>.
“Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women”
<http://www.un.org/esa/gopher-data/conf/fwcw/off/a—20.en>
“Who Makes the News?: Global Media Monitoring Project 2005”
 <http://www.globalmediamonitoring.org/who_makes_the_news/report_2005>