GMPS and GIME in-country launches

Gender Links (GL) has started taking the findings of the Gender In Media Education (GIME) audit and the Gender and Media Progress Study (GMPS) to the countries. This past month there were launches in Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar and Malawi. This has provided stakeholders an opportunity to engage with and discuss the findings of the two studies.

The ongoing country launches are part of GL’s regional advocacy efforts to get the media and academics to have a dialogue around critical gender and media issues. In Botswana, GL launched the two reports at the President Hotel on 1 February. This launch was also attended by media students from the University of Botswana. The Malawi launch took place at the Malawi Sun on 31 January. It was attended by media, academics as well as members of the Media Council of Malawi secretariat. The Lesotho launch took place at Maseru Sun on 8 February.

The reports have been received positively in all instances with media houses saying the GMPS findings speak to the need for more media commitment in achieving the SADC Gender Protocol targets. In Malawi, the guest of Speaker Eunice Chipangula highlighted the need for deliberate strategies to improve women’s representation in media. Although the proportion of women sources in Malawi media has increased by seven percentage points from 11% in the GMBS to 18% in this study, stereotypical representations of women and men still abound.

Gender Links is building on the findings of the GMPS by working with individual newsrooms on gender policies. This also takes forward the findings of the Glass Ceilings study conducted in 2009.

GL continues to work with journalism training institutions to mainstream gender into journalism and media training curricula. Educators are identifying gender entry points based on the GIME findings. GL will also continue to run media literacy training courses with training institutions as part of taking the GIME findings forward.