Alternative Assessment of Women and Media based on NGO Reviews

of Section J, Beijing Platform for Action

coordinated by Isis International-Manila on behalf of WomenAction 2000

Compilation: Meena M. Shivdas

Regional Reports and Editorial Support: Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, Susanna George and Luz Maria Martinez of Isis International-Manila; Karen Banks, Dafne Sabanes Plou and Jill Small of the Association for Progressive Communications- Women’s Networking Support Programme (APC-WNSP); and Sally Burch of Agencia Latinoamericana de Informacion and APC-WNSP.

Translations: Dafne Sabanes Plou of APC-WNSP, Maryvon Delanoë of ______

Layout: Irene R. Chia of Isis International-Manila

Looking Back

The Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) adopted by UN member states in 1995, outlines the issues around women and media under Section J and points to key strategies and actions that address the media concerns of women. While the BPFA recognises the advances made in communications technology, it is important to emphasise the continued stereotyped media portrayal with a significant increase in media images that perpetuate violence against women, and also women’s lack of access to expression and decision-making in and through the media. The recommendations to governments, NGOs and media organisations are made under two specific strategic objectives: 1) increase the participation and access of women to expression and decision making in and through the media and new technologies of communication; 2) promote a balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media.

The BPFA calls for action to be taken in the areas of media policy on gender issues, women’s portrayal by media and the relatively low-ranked positions of women in media organisations. The BPFA underscores the importance of a gender perspective in media policies and programmes. It also emphasises advocating for change within mainstream media that is based on sustained monitoring of media content and intent toward gender sensitivity.

What has been the progress in implementation five years hence? This alternative assessment report brings together the collective analysis and efforts by women activists, media practitioners, academics and researchers to monitor and review government efforts to implement the recommendations from Section J of the BPFA. It also addresses the emerging issues and concerns that have been identified after the BPFA was adopted, and identifies strategies for change.

About this report

This report covers discussions on such emerging issues of concern as globalisation of the media and its implications on women’s lives, and the challenges and obstacles presented by information and communication technologies (ICTs). The report calls attention to the rapidly changing media scenarios, and outlines strategies to increase women’s access to expression and decision making in and through the media and new communications technologies, and bring in a more diverse and realistic portrayal of women’s images. The report is presented in the format suggested by UN DAW and UN CSW to UN member states in reporting progress made in implementing the BPFA.

The report is based mainly on three regional NGO reports on women and media that were specifically meant for the alternative assessment document. These are reports for Asia compiled by Isis International—Manila, Latin America and Caribbean compiled by (ALAI) Agencia Latinoamericana de Informacion--Quito, and by the Association for Progressive Communications—Latin America, and the UN European Union compiled by (APC) Association for Progressive Communications--London. The report also includes information from the alternative report on 12 critical areas of concern for West Asia--compiled by the network of women’s NGOs from the Arab world, and information on Section J and the situation with ICTs from the African Information Society Gender Working Group (AISGWG). Information has also been drawn from UN regional reports (ESCAP; ECSWA; ECA; ECLAC, ECE), relevant UN Websites (WomenWatch; UN CSW; UN DAW), NGO analyses and reports on women and media, and online discussions that reviewed the implementation of recommendations from Section J of the BPFA.

While every effort has been made to bring in the diversity of global media situations and the range of women’s experiences with the media post-Beijing in the different regions, this report acknowledges the limitations of presenting a ‘global’ alternative document. First, the tendency to generalise situations and positions is recognised and care has been taken to illustrate statements and points with examples from specific regions or countries. Second, the report may not cover all of the measures undertaken by women’s groups, researchers, academics, media activists, media practitioners, and others who are in the forefront of monitoring implementation of Section J and striving for change at the levels of policy formulation and practice and ‘on the ground’ realities. This is especially true for Africa and West Asia and much of Eastern Europe for which we were not able to get NGO reviews of Section J. In the case of Africa, as AISWSG rightly pointed out, in addition to logistical, time and information constraints, it has been noted that there is a limit to the value of producing a regional report for the sole purpose of compiling a ‘global’ document at this time. This is because there has been no uniform global review process of the implementation of Section J by NGOs using agreed upon indicators to measure progress and/or regress in the different regions. There has been no systematic construction of analyses for monitoring based on agreed variables and markers. Further, the group felt that any review or monitoring effort has to be seen within the framework of a sustained process for change. In West Asia, although there were intense efforts to contact groups to review Section J, time and other constraints prevented the inclusion of the results of such efforts.

We are also aware that some of the regional reports and information are mainly on ICTs. While this is a reflection of the growing use of ICTs by women, it also indicates the work of the groups who compiled the reports. These groups use ICTs for their media implementation and advocacy efforts. However, this factor does not in any way negate the efforts of women who work with other media forms including print, radio, television, films and traditional and indigenous modes of communication such as oral histories, story-telling and dance. We acknowledge all of the efforts made by women around the globe to set right media wrongs.

We thank all those involved in bringing out this report for their unwavering support and hard work. We hope this document would be helpful to media activists, media practitioners, media analysts and policy makers.

IIntroduction

Section J of the BPFA highlighted five key points on women and the media . These are:

  • The advances made in information technology, particularly the scope for communication networks to transcend national borders, that have benefits as well as disadvantages for women;
  • The increase in the numbers of women who work in the communications sector, however, this has not translated into increased access to power and decision-making in media organisations; women are also not able to influence media policies;
  • The lack of gender sensitivity in media policies and programmes; increased promotion of consumerism; and the need to create self-regulatory mechanisms for the media;
  • The continued stereotyped portrayal of women in the media and the increase in violent and pornographic images of women;
  • The obstacles to women’s ability to access the expanding electronic information highways; and the need to involve women in the development and dissemination of new information technologies.

This report shows that five years after governments adopted the BPFA and committed themselves to implementing the recommendations, many of the concerns expressed in Section J still remain while new ones have emerged. Information from the various regional reports indicate that although some progress has been made in implementing recommendations from section J, a lot of this has to do with the sustained monitoring, networking and lobbying efforts of women’s organisations and media watch groups. This is indicated in NGO as well as government reviews and analyses. Official governmental reviews submitted to the UN and NGO reports indicate that there has been an increase in the number of women entering media organisations at the professional level and there is an increase in the percentage of women students graduating from journalism and mass communications courses. The women and media situations in both Asia and Latin America regions conform to this trend.

However, there is a continued negative portrayal and representation of women that may be linked to the lack of implementation of national media codes and, in some cases, even the lack of existence of such codes. Further, women continue to have limited access and participation in decision-making in the media industries and governing authorities and bodies that oversee formulation and implementation of media policies. Women media practitioners continue to face gender-based discrimination including sexual harassment at the work place. Therefore, the power to shape and influence media still eludes women. From the foregoing it can be said that more still needs to be done by GOs, media organisations and NGOs to achieve the two strategic objectives outlined in Section J.

Even as Section J captured some of the concerns of women activists, researchers and women media practitioners in its analysis of the women and media situation, not all dimensions of the women and media relationship are explored. The economic and political realities within which transnational media corporations perpetuate inequalities and inequities are not addressed and women’s vulnerabilities as traditional keepers of indigenous knowledge within this environment are not acknowledged. Women are concerned with the absence of analysis of the globalisation of media, particularly mergers of transnational media corporations and changes in media ownership at national levels that have a bearing on media content and intent.

The Asia report points to the strangleholds of transnational media corporations that are edging out nationally owned media enterprises leaving even less space for women in both the mainstream and alternative media. In addition, globalisation of the media paves the way for increased commercialisation, consumerism and more importantly, homogenisation of cultures resulting in the marginalisation of the voices of minority and indigenous cultures and peoples. In Latin America and the Caribbean, women assert that giant multimedia organisations control different kinds of media resulting in unequal representation of all social actors. Meanwhile, such crucial issues as freedom of expression and information, and mechanisms for accountability with increased use of ICTs engage women in the UN European region. Women in the Arab world acknowledge that though women are in key decision making positions in media organisations and institutions, more advocacy still needs to be done to counter women’s stereotyped images in the media.

The monitoring of implementation of Section J is not without problems. The structural and procedural policies and processes in place in many of the countries make assessments and evaluations difficult to achieve. The report from ECE suggests that some governments have restructured their national machineries for the advancement of women without necessarily integrating its mandate for gender issues into other national and regional institutional mechanisms governing media and those governing the development of ICTs. In many cases, the national machineries for women’s advancement that have the mandate to monitor implementation of the BPFA have neither the resources nor the power to exercise it.

Another important factor to consider in the UN and NGO reviews of the implementation of the BPFA is the absence or minimal acknowledgement given to the media sections in the various Regional Plans of Action that were adopted before the Beijing Conference. It is felt that the media sections in the Regional Plans of Action are far more reflective of the prevailing media situations and the recommendations were more grounded in contextual realities. For example, the Asia Pacific Plan of Action described the changing media situation and the threat to indigenous forms of communication and cultures by the increased flow of foreign and homogenous images. The document also outlined ownership patterns and drew the connections between corporate intents and media contents. Although the BPFA attempted to elaborate the global media picture based on the different regional situations, the politics of exclusion based on perceived national interests in UN deliberations, limitations of UN procedures and other factors severely limited the scope of Section J.

In addition to substantive limitations pertaining to intellectual scope and analyses, the politics of global negotiations, and structural and procedural obstacles to reviewing implementation outlined above, Section J of the BPFA also has problems linked to assessments and evaluations given the political and socio-economic realities of different countries. The Latin American analysis points out that the weak democracies in most of the countries in the region function within inflexible structural adjustment programmes imposed on them leaving their institutions, the media among them, vulnerable to vested economic interests. This has implications for media’s role in mobilising civil society and promoting democratisation and political participation. Information from Africa1 asserts that Section J has limitations in assessing commitments and actions of governments with regard to new ICTs as the global document does not anticipate the rapid growth and expansion of ICTs and does not fully assess its influence and impact.

All of the above analyses on the review of implementation of Section J of BPFA point to the complex layers and dimensions that need to be deconstructed and understood within relevant frameworks that include the socio-political and economic realities of all countries that make up the global community. This report is calling for a deeper understanding of the connections made between globalisation and women’s media portrayal and access to expression and decision making in all media including ICTs.

IIOutcome of the Review

Gains

Asia

Just as there is a notable increase of women in mass media educational institutions, more women can also be found in television, radio and print. This increase in women’s employment in media institutions has resulted in increased coverage of women's issues. While most women media practitioners are still in the reportorial level, there have been a few exceptions where a number of women have risen to higher level positions—e.g. the editorial level and management of advertising agencies—as in the case of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. The increase of women media practitioners has also led women to form professional associations where they can address media issues in their countries. For example, there are active women’s media associations in countries like China (All China Women’s Journalist Association), the Islamic Republic of Iran and in South Korea (South Korea’s Women Journalists Club). However, even as more women's issues are being covered, women's portrayal, on a general sense, remains negative. This may be attributed to the absence of a critical mass of women in decision- making positions and more importantly, the media enterprises that they work for are driven by profit and women's issues are not seen as profit-making.

The new information technologies (ICTs) have allowed women to link and network with each other more effectively and share information and resources faster. The women’s movement in the region has increasingly used the electronic medium to put forward their advocacy and build solidarity. In Central Asia, e-mail has become a valuable tool in exchanging ideas and information among organisations as well as a way of combating the relative isolation of the countries in this sub-region from the global movement. In most former Soviet states, mass media is still highly censored and the Internet has become a way to go around censorship and the repression of information. However, Kazakhstan recently passed a law that threatens the power of information and communication in the region. Its policy "On Establishment of Billing Telecommunication Tariff Center” enables the tracking of all e-mails and Internet for censorship of "unwelcome" information.

Another recent development is the use of ICTs in enhancing the social use of traditional media like radio. At present, there are already innovative models of using ICTs to extend radio’s reach and capacity to interact with users, and to improve its cultural relevance and programming quality. Women’s radio programmes making use of this convergence of technologies are now being broadcast in countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Radio is the most accessible form of communication in South Asia, the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia particularly the Mekong region. Women’s radio programmes can be found in these countries despite the little support they receive from governments or private sources. The generally low levels of literacy in the non-NIC countries (except for the Philippines) also accounts for radio’s popularity. Findings from a 1998 research2 on radio show that radio reaches between 60 to 88 percent of the population in the region.