Literature review & case studies
Here you will find the relevant resources and case studies for the PRIMED Workshop on February 28
PRIMED Learning Briefs
PRIMED Gender Equality in the Media Learning Brief
This brief seeks to answer the following learning question: “What business and management models/ organisational and team structures, competencies and processes have the potential to improve gender equality in the workplace, gender-sensitive programming and engagement with diverse audiences?”
To try to do so, Free Press Unlimited (FPU) focused on the experiences of three PRIMED media partners that actively engaged in mainstreaming gender issues across different areas, and in very different contexts and institutional realities. These partners are Gramer Kagoj, a regional newspaper in Bangladesh; African Renaissance Television Services (ARTS TV), an independent TV station in Ethiopia; and Classic Radio, a small independent broadcaster in Sierra Leone.
Gramer Kagoj case study
To improve workplace diversity, Gramer Kagoj used a combination of gender-sensitive human resource management, appointing gender champions and creating an internship programme exclusively for women.
To improve gender inclusivity and sensitivity in its content, Gramer Kagoj benefited from the drafting of gender-sensitive guidelines, training in gender-sensitive reporting and external gender content monitoring provided by SACMID. SACMID also made a Women’s Experts Database available to Gramer Kagoj, which the outlet updated and started using.
Despite all these efforts, evidence of positive change in this media outlet’s content is not as clear cut as in its workplace. According to SACMID, Gramer Kagoj stood out as the outlet that presented the greatest number of stories challenging gender stereotypes (27% of the total number of stories). However, Gramer Kagoj’s data did not reflect improvement in the percentage of women quoted in its stories, either generally or as expert sources.
Significantly, audience research also uncovered the fact that people would not pay for news content in Bangladesh’s current culture, and do not feel it is their responsibility to support a newspaper. This important issue needs to be taken into consideration when developing a content monetising business strategy, and when assessing the potential impact of improved audience representation on the sustainability and viability of any media outlet.
Classic Radio case study
In the area of gender equality in the workplace, Classic Radio aimed to progress towards gender parity among its staff. In order to achieve this, the station implemented a series of gender-sensitive human resource management strategies, such as equal opportunities for professional development, policies against sexist language and flexible working hours for nursing mothers. The outlet also started to advertise volunteer positions exclusively for women.
To produce more gender-sensitive media content, Classic Radio focused on increasing women’s voices, using the 50:50 Project gender content monitoring tool to both drive and assess its progress. The station also benefited from gender-sensitive reporting training provided by PRIMED. In addition, Classic Radio set up a dedicated gender desk and appointed a gender champion.
While the station did not achieve its ambitious goal of 50% representation of women in its content, this increased substantially from 27% to 42%, which was attributed to proactive measures. Audience members noticed hearing more women’s voices, although men were still perceived as better represented in the station’s content.
Classic Radio credits its journey towards financial sustainability (moving from dependency on the owner’s f inancial support to self-sufficiency) to cultivating strategic partnerships with NGOs working in the region, which has been made possible by the station’s perceived greater independence and improved commitment to gender equality, and overall inclusiveness.
ARTS TV case study
To improve gender representation in the workplace, ARTS TV implemented a series of gender-sensitive human resource management strategies. With the support of the PRIMED programme, it incorporated protocols to address sexual harassment, launched a whistleblower policy and made sure these documents were shared with new employees.
ARTS TV made less progress in producing more gender-sensitive media content. It did not implement the BBC 50:50 Project approach because of operational changes and was unable to set up any gender-sensitivity content monitoring systems to source real-time data that could be acted upon to balance gender representation in its programming.
Improvements in the overall financial sustainability of ARTS TV are anchored in its management’s willingness to introduce changes in its structure and workflows and take critical steps to improve the outlet’s editorial and production processes. As a result, ARTS TV has realised substantial growth in its digital presence and public engagement. A noteworthy increase in its subscribers and followers across various social media platforms could be furthered by increasing the gender diversity of the outlet’s digital content and audiences. A stronger sales and marketing department, essential for sustainable growth, could potentially attract new advertisers and secure consistent revenue streams by more effectively promoting ARTS TV’s gender-sensitive programming.
Recommendations
Secure buy-in from media outlets’ senior management to enhance gender equality across areas including the workplace, content creation and audience engagement.
Ensure a shared understanding of gender goals and potential pathways for change (and its implications) through collaborative processes with media outlets.
Consider facilitating financial resources to cover the costs associated with key interventions, and to increase the impact of training and technical support. Effective approaches that media organisations should attempt and/or be encouraged to try could include:
Appoint gender champions in the organisation to advocate for gender equity and equality across key areas
Address human resource management aspects to become a more attractive employer for all, with a focus on women
Establish opportunities to attract women and members of other marginalised groups to the organisation
Enhance the visibility of women in the media outlet, across various roles and responsibilities
Conduct continuous gender-sensitivity analysis of the content produced and monitoring progress consistently
Invest in methodologies to gain insights into audience preferences, ensuring the use of gender-sensitive language and the production of targeted content for women
Make sure goals and targets are measurable, and that monitoring progress does not impose undue demands on media partners.
In case of budget cuts, offer space for experiments and adapt the programme’s success indicators accordingly.
Access the full version of the learning brief here:
PRIMED Coalitions and coalition building to support media freedom Learning Brief
Between 2020 and 2023, members of the PRIMED consortium of implementing organisations documented and compared the experiences of media coalitions in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, the Middle East and North Africa, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Findings
This process identified the following factors that seem to influence the ability of locally driven coalitions to emerge and thrive through externally supported media development efforts:
The context – all the coalitions examined formed and evolved in response to events that presented short-lived windows of opportunity to improve or protect the media ecosystem.
The clarity and focus of coalitions’ purpose, role and objectives and how these resonate with the interests and priorities of their members.
How coalitions’ architecture suit their context and purpose.
While leadership approaches vary, the willingness of members to make proactive contributions to a coalition and stand up for its goals are key determinants of success.
Coalitions evolve in different ways, but the best results seem to come from taking an incremental approach towards a long-term objective by setting short-to-medium- term goals that allow them to respond to opportunities and challenges as they arise, and to learn as they go.
As funders and advisors, international partners such as media development agencies and donors yield considerable and often unhealthy influence. Yet their ability to initiate and, if necessary, drive new coalitions can be crucial. From the outset, they should ensure that coalition members set the agenda and can gradually take over the reins once they have the confidence and capacity to do so.
A coalition’s sustainability is closely linked to its ability to remain relevant to its cause while keeping overheads low and relying on members' contributions as much as possible – whether in-kind, material and/or financial.
Including stakeholders representing diverse interests is the guiding star of coalition building. A coalition needs to draw on different perspectives, approaches and expertise to achieve its objectives, but these diverse interests need to coalesce around a shared objective.
Findings suggest that media coalitions have an ambivalent relationship with governments and ruling elites, and often operate with one foot inside and one foot outside circles of power.
Access the full version of the learning brief here:
Gender Equality in the Media
Gender Equality in Media Regulation
In May 2022 Fojo Media Institute (Fojo) and Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) organised a webinar for knowledge exchange on how media regulation can support gender equality in and through the media. Presentations by member organisations from research or practical work in this field. Learn more here:
The Missing Perspectives of Women in News
To elevate the issue of gender equality in the news media and in support of the Generation Equality Forum, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation commissioned Luba Kassova, director of international audience strategy consultancy AKAS Ltd, to research the performance of a set of gender equality indicators and provide benchmarks for them. These benchmarks could then be used by news providers globally to drive gender equality within their institutions at the level of organizational resources, newsgathering and news coverage.
Global Media Monitoring Project. Who makes the news? 6th report.
The emergence and rapid proliferation of Covid-19 made the 2020 implementation of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) the most extraordinary since the initiative’s inception in 1995. Yet, despite the pandemic, the number of participating countries, media and stories monitored was the highest ever. GMMP 2020 was implemented in 116 countries and covered 30,172 stories published in newspapers, broadcast on radio and television, and disseminated on news websites and via news media tweets.
Access the full report here.
The Chilling: A global study of online violence against women journalists
This UNESCO-ICFJ ground-breaking three-year global study on gender-based online violence against women journalists represents collaborative research covering 15 countries. It is the most geographically, linguistically, and ethnically diverse scoping of the crisis conducted up until late 2022. The Chilling illuminates the evolving challenges faced by women journalists dealing with prolific and/or sustained online violence around the world. It calls out the victim-blaming and slut-shaming that perpetuates sexist and misogynistic responses to offline violence against women in the online environment, where patriarchal norms are being aggressively reinforced.
The State of Women in the Media
One of the challenges the media industry is grappling with today is diversity in newsrooms and media leadership. Studies have shown that gender representation in human resources in several sectors is skewed in favour of the male gender. In the media industry, the skew is consequential given that media coverage of issues in the society potentially legitimises interpretations that might privilege certain discourses at the expense of others.
To address these challenges and anchor the interventions on empirical data, the Aga Khan University’s Graduate School of Media and Communications (GSMC) undertook a study titled - The State of Women in the Media: Representation, Coverage and Framing of Women in East African Media and the Implications on Equity and Progress.
Global Study: Gender Equality and Media Regulation
This study is unique in its attempt to map both law and policy (regulation and self-regulation) and identify measures to promote gender equality in the media and women’s freedom of expression. The study covers policy instruments adopted at international, regional, national, industry and media house levels in over 100 countries. Parallel to the global study, case studies have been developed in a sample of countries in which Fojo Media Institute is active: Armenia, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Somalia, Sweden and Zimbabwe.
Gender Equality and Media Regulation Study: Bangladesh
This study seeks to provide new knowledge and analysis about gender-equality-related provisions in regulations, self-regulatory frameworks and policies concerning media in Bangladesh. It also explores their implementation and monitoring aspects.
It seeks to provide clear recommendations and cite best practices that can assist stakeholders including law and policymakers to promote gender equality in and through the media without compromising professional independence. For clarifying the contextual situations and ground realities, it also seeks to provide qualitative reflections accumulated through the research process.
Barriers to Women Journalists in Sub-Saharan Africa
Barriers to Women Journalists identifies obstacles hindering women in sub-Saharan Africa from entering, progressing, and/or staying in journalism. The main objective of this study is to assess the status of women in journalism in sub-Saharan Africa. This report identifies a number of obstacles hindering women journalists and locates possible strategies, responses and interventions that might increase the number of women journalists in sub-Saharan Africa, at various career levels. This study is a joint publication by Fojo Media Institute and Africa Women in Media (AWiM), part of the project Consortium for Human Rights and Media in Africa (CHARM), funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
Barriers to Women Journalists in Rwanda
Barriers to Women Journalists in Rwanda is a study that identifies obstacles hindering women from entering and progressing within Rwanda’s journalism industry. The findings of this report identify the strategies and interventions that will promote gender equality for women journalists in Rwanda, at various career levels. This study was commissioned by Fojo Media Institute under the project “Capacity Building of the School of Journalism and Communication, University of Rwanda and Strengthening of the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency as a Public Service Media Provider,” with funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and has been conducted by African Women in Media (AWiM).
Gender Sensitive Reporting in Southeast Asia
The Public Media Alliance conducted a project on Gender Sensitive Reporting in Southeast Asia which aims to create an ongoing collaboration between gender-focused CSOs/NGOs and media institutions in five Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. The project aims to enable CSOs/NGOs and the media to work collaboratively together to produce more transparent, relevant, responsive, and accessible content on gender issues, especially addressing Violence against women and girls (VAWG).
Where are the Women? Insights from across Asia on the barriers to including women as sources and journalists in environmental reporting
This report expands upon a pilot study the Earth Journalism Network conducted as part of Reflect Reality,1 a methodology Internews launched in 2019 to increase women’s visibility in the news media. This report looks specifically at how journalists who’ve received grant support and mentorship from EJN include women in their reporting or fail to do so. It aims to identify how reporters think about gender, what potential barriers they face when seeking to include women’s voices in their stories and how social and cultural views of women create challenges to inclusion. It also offers recommendations for how journalists can achieve a better gender balance in their stories and the types of training, resources and support that could be useful in raising awareness about the need for gender inclusion in the news
Gender equality and media
This report by the Gender Equality Commission Steering Committee on Media and Information Society explores the progress made since Recommendation CM/Rec(2013)1 on gender equality and media 2019. Data prepared on the basis of an initial analysis carried out by Pamela Morinière, media expert
Journalistic Self-Regulation for Equality: The Role of Gender Editing in Spain
Despite journalism’s commitment to ethical principles such as accuracy, humanity and diversity, compliance with the gender perspective in content is still minimal in approximately one hundred countries. This inequality reinforces misperceptions, imbalances, and perceived differences between men and women. To address this situation, from 2010 to 2021, eight Spanish media companies appointed a new editorial position responsible for self-regulating gender equality. This qualitative study by Maria Iranzo-Cabrera,Mònica Figueras-Maz and Marcel Mauri-Ríos focused on 10 journalists who currently exercise or have exercised that job, to detect, describe and propose the implementation of this new professional role. This study suggests that gender editing has advanced equality in the parity of sourcing and the presence of women in the opinion sections, but implementation of equality in overall content is more difficult. Gender editors’ daily work is hampered by a lack of management support and an absence of independence in editorial decisions.
Why Are Women Journalists Leaving the Newsroom in South Korea? Gendered and Emerging Factors that Influence the Intention to Leave
The purpose of this study by Na Yeon Lee and Changsook Kim is to examine whether and to what extent traditionally gendered factors of newsroom culture as well as emerging factors that originated following the introduction of the new media environment are positively associated with South Korean women journalists’ intention to leave newsroom careers. In addition, this study explores what roles career generation gaps play in the relationship between traditionally gendered factors, the new media environment, and women journalists’ intention to leave. By analysing data from a survey of members of the Korean Women Journalists Association, the most authoritative and representative organization of women journalists in South Korea, the findings of this study showed that not only traditionally gendered factors but also emerging factors were positively associated with the resignations of Korean women journalists.
Locally driven media coalitions
Coalitions for Change: Collective Action for Stronger Media Ecosystems
It was presented in July 2022 during the session which was a co-production between the IAMCR Media Sector Development Working Group and the Global Forum for Media Development. Coalitions for Change: Collective Action for Stronger Media Ecosystems presentation is available here:
In addition, please find other literature and research relevant for coalitions:
Confronting the Crisis in Independent Media: A Role for International Assistance
This CIMA report by Nicholas Benequista argues that complexity is no excuse for inaction. Solutions to this crisis will require that political agency rise to the daunting level of the challenge and that the structures of international cooperation—forged as the global response to World War II—are now put into motion to safeguard the foundations of independent media. Based on input from media actors, freedom of expression activists, implementers, and donors, the report puts forward three interrelated objectives that, if achieved, would help to international cooperation in the media sector.
Mapping Coalitions: Mapping Out Coalitions, Collaborations, Partnerships and Networks for Media and Civil Society in Sub-Saharan Africa
This CHARM study by Haron Mwangi and Martha Njiiri focuses on mapping out coalitions, collaborations, partnerships, and networks for media and civil society in sub-Saharan Africa. It seeks to engender a deeper understanding of the architecture, relevance, and needs of media organisations and civil society organisations (CSOs), as well as their institutional capacity, level of influence, powers, and limitations. The study has been published as part of The Consortium to Promote Human Rights, Civic Freedoms and Media Development (CHARM) project in sub-Saharan Africa, which seeks to protect and expand the civic space for CSOs and human rights defenders and to nurture and enhance the effectiveness of independent media and journalism in the region.
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