Lindiwe Sola

• Mass media has an enormous power to shape gender realities for it is one of the principal sources of our knowledge and experience of the world. As the South African Media and Gender Institute has said, “The media is well placed to influence our opinions, beliefs, attitudes and standards, as well as our notion of self, so that our idea of who we are as female and male is influenced by value-laden media messages.” These messages are often from select viewpoints and experiences and do not necessarily offer a ‘window on the world’ but rather express the priorities and values of those who create them.

Media content frequently projects women as objects rather than active subjects with the result that “In a world in which the media increasingly provide the ‘common ground’ of information, symbols and ideas for most social groups, women’s representation in the media helps to keep them in a place of relative powerlessness.”(Gallagher, 2001). When media persistently represent women and men in particular ways these representations become accepted as the norm.  Media coverage which stereotypes, under/misrepresents, ignores, excludes and fosters prejudices and uncritical opinion result in serious gender inequalities.

• Increasingly, the problem is no longer just a lack of representation of women’s points of view or perspectives, but that even when women are present in media coverage, their representation is fraught with the biases and assumptions of those who define the public and media agenda – a field
• mainly dominated by men. Although there are now more women in media professions, this alone cannot achieve a wide scale social and political transformation of media content which in turn will help to redress gender inequality worldwide for these women have frequently not attained decision-making level positions, nor do they serve on the boards and bodies that govern media policies. The spread of satellite communication has further complicated the struggle against gender inequality in the media.

We now live with a global communications network which transcends national boundaries and impacts public policy, private attitudes and behaviour. With the introduction of large numbers of channels into numerous countries, the power of the media to influence ideas and behaviour at all levels of society globally has increased significantly. Women have always been a big selling point in commercial media, and with the proliferation of media players has come greater competition with the result that gender sensitivity is frequently sacrificed for sales. Negative and degrading images of women proliferate in media communications; there is a marked absence of balanced pictures of women’s diverse lives or their contributions to society. It is crucial to address such imbalances, for just as media can impact negatively on society, equally it has great potential to make a contribution to the promotion of gender equality.

Whilst no single strategy can accomplish this, monitoring of the media has a crucial role to play in this process. Media monitoring allows a systematic surveillance of media performance in order to describe and critically evaluate it. Monitoring helps in detecting changes in media over time and therefore changes in cultural habits that have the potential to lead to the redressing of gender imbalances. Prejudicial media practices are far more likely to change once quantifiable evidence can be supplied in a clear and critical manner.

Media monitoring is also crucial in moving from criticism of the media to dialogue with them. As Gloria Bonder, Co-ordinator of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 1995 in Latin America has said, “Monitoring is a project on the political side, because it’s not just the collecting of data - it’s the process of involving the audience in the process of acting to change women’s images in the media. We have discussed and complained in the past, but this systematic methodology provides proof of the problem, and involves people in education and citizens’ rights.”  This is particularly important given that criticism of the media has often resulted in outcries from the media against curtailment of freedom of speech with those expressing concern about the media’s representation of women branded as fanatics or feminist extremists. The data gathered through monitoring enables a move beyond one-sided complaints to constructive dialogue with the media. The results of monitoring activities illustrate absences and imbalances in straightforward terms to which the media can respond. The information generated adds weight and authority to criticisms that can otherwise be dismissed as personal and unsubstantiated points of view  (Gallagher: 2001).

• The question remains: is media monitoring achieving what it sets out to rectify? Change is a very slow and time consuming process but the development of codes and policies, successful complaints procedures, workshops and discussions with the media industry and training in critical media analysis are examples of inroads that have been made. The facts and figures resulting from media monitoring are undeniable evidence of the imbalance in representations of women and men in the media and act as a wake up call to the media industry, which has then contributed in some countries to small changes in media representations of gender. The fact that there is an awareness that gender representation in the media is something to be questioned rather than taken for granted has a transformative potential and whilst media monitoring may not be the whole solution, it is certainly a vital part of promoting gender equality in the media.

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