With gender inequality in the media as a central theme, women who participated at the three-day Gender and Media Advocacy Seminar for the Pacific are calling for increased participation in the media. They also called for increased access of women to free expression and decision-making in and through the media and for balanced and non-stereotyped media portrayal of women.

Women from the Pacific gathered for a three-day Gender and Media Advocacy Seminar for the Pacific in Suva, Fiji, from October 23-25, to come up with strategies in advocating and lobbying for a more gender-sensitive news media.

“The stereotyped and unequal representation of women in the media remains one of the major impediments to the achievement of gender equality,” said media expert Nebojsa Radic of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), who organised the workshop together with femLINKPACIFIC: Media Initiatives for Women.

This workshop is a follow up to the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) held in 2005, wherein representation of women in the news media in 76 countries was mapped out. GMMP findings revealed that gender imbalances in content, access, ownership and control of media are prevalent and that gender bias and stereotyping in and through media negatively impact on women.

“This workshop is important because we want to equip the participants with the findings of the 2005 report and help them voice out for equal representation of women in the media in the run-up to the next global survey that will be conducted in 2010,” said Radic.

Sarah Macharia, WACC's media and gender justice programme manager, said that the workshop called attention to Section J on “Women and the Media” in the Beijing Platform for Action (PFA) which calls for increased participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the media and new technologies of communication as well as for balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media.

To address the concerns raised in the workshop, all participants agreed to:
- forge positive partnerships and coalitions with the media executives and organisations as well as present the results of the GMMP 2005 through a series of local seminars;
- sensitise the broader community to understand gender and the media and enable the establishment of media monitoring working groups to undertake ongoing and consistent media monitoring at national level;
- use the existing expertise within the Pacific, which is Fiji Media Watch to undertake a regional media monitoring training programme and to then establish in-country training of media monitoring groups in the lead up to GMMP 2010;
- work with media councils and media associations to implement the action plan within their member organisations—using the results of national media monitoring as evidence; and
- develop and stage ongoing gender and media training to promote media literacy from a gender perspective with a special focus on young women.

Participants also reaffirmed the role of women’s media initiatives, such as community radio as a media strategy to advance commitments to gender equality as well as strengthen and support community empowerment efforts.

Sources:
“Call for gender equality in media” from The Fiji Times Online, posted on October 25. 2007, <http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?ref=archive&id=72981>.
“Fijian communicators struggle for gender equality” from The World Association for Christian Communication, posted on October 31, 2007, <http://www.wacc.org.uk/wacc/regions/pacific/pacific_news/fijian_communicators_struggle_for_gender_equality>. “Pacific region gender and media advocacy workshop” from The World Association for Christian Communication, <http://www.waccglobal.org/wacc/regions/pacific/pacific_articles/pacific_region_gender_and_media_advocacy_workshop>.