Women in the media

Saturday, February 18, 2006

A GLOBAL research on gender in news media shows the marginalisation of women in news was still a reality.

The third Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) organised by the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) said that women constituted 52 per cent of the world's population but made up only 21 per cent of people in the news.

The report highlighted that women were most under-represented in radio where there were only 17 per cent of news subject compared to 22 per cent in TV and 21 per cent in newspapers.

Fiji Media Watch, in partnership with Pacific regional co-ordinators of the 2005 GMMP, femLINKPACIFIC (Media Initiatives for Women), launched Who Makes The News? the report of the 2005 Global Media Monitoring Project.

Also present was Women's Ministry director Maria Matavewa and the general secretary of the Soqosoqo Vakamarama, Adi Finau Tabakaucoro.

'Who Makes the News? campaign, endorsed by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), was aimed at promoting gender equality in the media by challenging the news media to take substantial and immediate action to ensure that they represented women and men in a fair and balanced way.

Fiji Media Watch co-ordinated the monitoring of the news in Fiji last year on February 16.

The vice president of Fiji Media Watch, Peter Emberson, said news in Fiji was under the microscope on that day.

Mr Emberson worked closely with FMW co-ordinator Violet Savu to compile and analyse Fiji news.

The three daily newspapers, the 1pm English radio news bulletin of Fiji Broadcasting Corporation and Fijian language news bulletin of Viti FM (Communications Fiji Limited) were monitored, together with the 6pm and 10pm newscasts on Fiji Television.

"There were 94 news items and 272 people (news actors, subjects, and people making the news). This was what we analysed altogether. That's the number of stakeholders in the news on that day in Fiji", said Mr Emberson.

"In Fiji, 49 per cent of the population is women but only 20 per cent of the people featured in the news are women. It is the same the world over," he said.

"The 20 per cent includes those who work in the news, those who present the news and the subjects of the news. It is a predominantly male scenario you are looking at."

Temporarily available at: http://www.fijitimes.com.fj/story.aspx?ref=archive&id=37285

Source: The Fiji Times