Southern Africa: Calling for gender responsive media education

Johannesburg 6 May: This past Sunday- 3 May the world commemorated World Press Freedom Day. As such, GAMAG Chair- Gender Links is partnering with UNESCO and the Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG), to raise awareness on issues relating to Women and the Media during the course of the month. This week’s focus is on gender in media education, training and research.

According to the Gender in Media Education (GIME) 2010 audit that GL conducted, gender is not an essential component of journalism and media training. The GIME report, covering media studies departments of 25 tertiary institutions in 13 countries, showed that only 28% of the institutions sampled in the region had stand-alone gender policies. The study also revealed massive gender gaps in media training institutions’ composition and in training curricula. While men are the majority of the academic staff, the majority of students in the departments of media education and journalism training are female (61% compared to 39% male students). The large numbers of women in media education and journalism classrooms do not translate into large numbers of women in newsrooms. Many female students cited in the GIME research said they had been sexually harassed by their colleagues and sources during internships and would not consider pursuing journalism as a career. Most of them opted to go into public relations.

The GL News Service spoke to GL Media and Communications Manager Sikhonzile Ndlovu on the work GL is doing across the region to mainstream gender in media through the Centres of Excellence (COEs) for gender in the media project. GL is working with 108 media houses in 12 SADC countries and ten journalism and media training institutions in the region. Ndlovu also chatted to the GLNS about the ongoing 2015 Gender and Media Progress Study (GMPS) which will gauge progress in achieving gender equality in and through the media.

Click here to hear what Ndlovu had to say.

This podcast is part of the Women and Media campaign in partnership with UNESCO and the Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG). Next week’s theme Public Awareness and Media Content. Watch this space!

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