30 Jan 2012 Global: Achieving Gender Equality

Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP)
€ 330,000
 
The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) has since 1995 documented changes in gender representation and portrayal in the world news media. Implemented in 5-year cycles, the GMMP begins with research followed by actions to accelerate progress in the rate of change towards gender-fair, gender-balanced news. The current (Fourth) cycle began in 2009 when thousands of volunteers from over 100 countries monitored their local media for selected indicators of gender bias, inequality and discrimination. The research results published in ‘The Global Media Monitoring Project 2010 Report: Who makes the news?’ (WACC, 2010) found a slow but steady progress, however, women continue to be severely under-represented in the news. Yet visibility and audibility in the news is crucial in order to influence national and local policy agendas. Further, women continue to be depicted in stereotypical, sexist, prejudiced and biased ways, in turn contributing to societal worldviews that discriminate against and subordinate women. In view of the GMMP research results and the need to bring media accountability to the struggle for gender equality, WACC and the GMMP network partners worldwide are implementing several constitutive projects at national, regional and global levels. The work until December 2013 concentrates on five broad activity areas, namely:

• Advocacy for gender-responsive media and communication policies;
• Developing resources to support the work of women’s grassroots groups, associations and allies in media pursuing gender equality and women’s rights in and through media;
• Mobilizing communities to interface critically with media from a gender perspective; working with media to build capacity for gender-responsive practice;
• Building civil society capacity for effective engagement with media on gender equality and women’s rights concerns;
• Strengthening the national, regional and international networks of gender and communication groups worldwide.

The GMMP brings cohesion and strategic direction to the otherwise isolated efforts of gender and communication groups operating in different regions across the world. The work provides unparalleled support to gender and communication groups worldwide that have remained committed to seeing through the implementation of Section ‘J’ on ‘Women and the media’, including the implementation of national and regional action plans emerging out of Section ‘J’.