11 Jun 2025 New WACC intern wants to help highlight voices of those otherwise unheard

Esta Yee, a fourth-year undergraduate student in sociology and psychology at the University of Toronto, has recently joined WACC for a summer internship as a project and research assistant with the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP).

During the eight-week internship Yee is assisting with coordination of the GMMP network in more than 100 countries, including helping to prepare findings from the 7th GMMP monitoring day in May for use in country and regional reports. She is also supporting data quality control for the GMMP 2025 Global Report and an analysis of gender-based hate speech.

Yee, who is interested in migration issues and hopes to pursue a career as a social sciences researcher, says she was intrigued by WACC’s presentation of communication rights as part of advocacy for women’s rights.

“While I’m familiar with the ideas such as gender stereotyping and gender ideology as something really entrenched into the fabric of our world, women’s communication rights specifically was something fresh and new to me, and I was eager to learn more about it.”

Yee is gaining understanding of the importance of communication rights, which she says might not be obvious at first glance, and their connection to self-determination particularly for marginalized communities.

Communication rights are not simply about representation, she observes, “as representation does not mean anything if it is inaccurate and non-inclusive, but it is about accessible tools for people to let their voices be heard and amplified, to be able to connect with others, and a chance to raise awareness on issues that may go under the radar.”

Her work with the GMMP thus far has already given the sociology student insight into underrepresentation of women in the news media as an issue of women’s communication rights – and gender equality more broadly.

Yee believes that the disparity in stories about women in news media that has been documented in previous GMMP editions reflects not only gender inequality when it comes to news coverage but also the deeper “culture of misogyny that influences what is ‘newsworthy’ or not.”

She notes that the longitudinal data of the GMMP is important for tracking progress over time. “We can see how far we’ve come and how much more we need to work on and to inform ourselves what aspects are lacking gender equality and provide us with benchmarks for action.”

Yee is confident the internship with WACC will build on her past experiences as a research assistant while bringing new skills and knowledge for her future work as a researcher – work that she hopes will “positively impact society by highlighting the voices of those who are otherwise unheard.”

“I’m very grateful for this opportunity, as I get to work with such a diverse and international setting, gaining valuable skills working alongside such experienced people, and most importantly contributing to such a meaningful project.”

Yee’s internship was made possible with support from the Canada Summer Jobs program.

WACC summer intern Esta Yee at the Undergraduate Research Day at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus, where she presented research on racial disparities in layoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Courtesy photo.