A range of NGOs, civil society organizations, media outlets and individuals have developed initiatives to bring about improvements, in relation to employment, recognition and representation. These initiatives have ranged from in-house positive action programmes such as women’s leadership courses, to national projects such as directories of women experts, as
well as regional initiatives such as the EU-funded project Advancing Gender Equality in Media Industries (AGEMI). Both the European Institute for Gender Equality and the Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Commission have brought together collections of methods, tools and good practices relating to women and the media.
Examples of good practice include monitoring equality policies and plans, adoption of quotas, use of sex-disaggregated statistics, awareness-raising, training for women, training for women’s leadership, self-regulation, shadowing, buddies, mentoring, awards for gender-aware journalism and advertising, internal surveys (media houses) and commitments to monitor media content for gender-bias and do something different as a result.
Media regulators are also being encouraged to adopt policies aimed at improving gender balance in media organizations and content, including through publicly owned media. Some countries currently have some level of gender and media policy, although a 2015 UNESCO survey found that roughly three-quarters of the 27 countries that responded do not, and two-thirds have not mainstreamed gender and media issues into national cultural policies and programmes.85
The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), which represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and more than 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries, leads the Women in the News (WIN) campaign together with UNESCO as part of their Gender and Media Freedom Strategy. In their 2016 handbook, WINing Strategies: Creating Stronger Media Organizations by Increasing Gender
85 UNESCO 2015.
Diversity, they highlight a range of positive action strategies undertaken by a number of their member organizations from Germany to Jordan to Colombia, with the intention of providing blueprints for others to follow.86 The AGEMI project, cited above, aims to develop an online platform that brings various resources together in one place as well as develop a set of thematic teaching and training units on different elements of the gender-media relation, which will be freely available to download and share.
Women’s accomplishments in the media sector have long remained under-recognized by traditional professional and news organizations, a trend that remains unchanged. For example, women have won only a quarter of Pulitzer prizes for foreign reporting and only 17 per cent of awards of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.87
A number of organizations, mostly gender-focused, have launched dedicated prizes to recognize achievements of women in media.
The International Women’s Media Foundation continues to recognize the courageous work of women journalists. In 2007, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists’ began giving out the EDA Awards annually to recognize women filmmakers and photojournalists. More recently, in 2015 the African Development Bank began sponsoring a category for Women’s Rights in Africa, designed to promote gender equality through the media, as one of the prizes awarded annually by One World Media.88 In considering the way in which women’s contribution to the news environment is made visible, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize is an annual award that
honours a person, organization or institution that has made a notable contribution to the defence and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world. Nine out of 20 winners have been women.
A number of initiatives have been developed that differ in terms of focus, purpose and sector. In countries like the UK, USA and Thailand, directories of women experts have been established to provide an easy reference for journalists who want to seek out voices other than the usual male suspects as sources for news stories. Similar directories have been set up elsewhere, including in most of the Nordic countries.
The Poynter Institute since 2014 has been running a Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media, expressly focused on the skills and knowledge needed to achieve success in the digital media environment. Similar initiatives have begun to appear in other regions. UNESCO has also led workshops media professionals and community media in Gabon and Burundi, as part of its global efforts to enhance gender equality in the media.89
86 WAN-IFRA 2016.
87 Asquith 2016.
88 African Development Bank 2015.
89 Kenmoe 2016.
Conclusion
The dramatic changes in media pluralism require the elaboration of new frameworks able to capture not only the range and diversity of producers of news and how much information is available, but also how likely users are to be exposed to and engage with it.
The trends analysed in this chapter indicate that while access is increasing and content is abundant, media pluralism remains inhibited in important ways. Disempowered and marginalized peoples continue to have great difficulty reporting their stories or having their stories fairly reported on, large numbers of people remain digitally unconnected and women remain unequal in the media. Furthermore, a limited number of large players, particularly algorithm-driven internet companies and the rise of mobile apps, are increasingly structuring how users may or may not be able to reach specific information.
The dominance of large players is also affecting traditional media, newspapers above all, which have been unable to reap the benefits in the increasingly profitable market in digital advertising and have struggling to compete with other content, including ‘fake news’.
TRUST IN NEWS MEDIA is seen to have declined in some regions
INCREASED DEPENDENCE ON government and corporate subsidies is linked to disruptions in business models
INCREASED SELF-REGULATORY EFFORTS BY INTERNET
INTERMEDIARIES are promoting media and information literacy, counteracting ‘fake news’ and tackling online abuse
SELF-REGULATORY BODIES, which can support the exercise of professional standards while maintaining editorial independence, have grown in post-conflict and developing countries
BROADCAST LICENSING continues to be driven by political and commercial interests
RISE IN CRITICISM OF THE MEDIA by political figures is encouraging self-censorship and undermining media’s credibility