Marginalization of women in the media: what the United Nations should do.

The media, as an important agent of socialization in the modern world, either support or contest cultural conceptions, and have a significant impact on the social construction of gender. The media's effects operate at the level of gender belief systems, affecting individual "beliefs and opinions about males and females, and about the purported qualities of masculinity and femininity". (1)

The mass media have been found to play a critical role in maintaining the gender-power imbalance, "passing on dominant, patriarchal/sexist values". (2) But such a situation is not inherent in the nature of media. They can instead be agents of development and progress if guided by clear, socially relevant policies. Their hoped-for positive contribution to women's advancement will only take place in the context of a framework that clearly defines policy objectives, maps out actions and decisions which comprise the particular policy, defines the minimum standards to be met by all participants in the process, and provides mechanisms for assessing progress towards policy objectives.

The United Nations is ideally placed to assist various types of institutions to establish the policy frameworks needed to prevent the marginalization of women in the media. This will have to begin at the most fundamental level, in the sense that there is a dearth of policies in existence. This is true whether the media policy exists at the State level in the form of legislation and institutional arrangements, or at the level of media organizations' operational policies and systems, or even of professional associations' and groupings' codes of practice and accepted guidelines.

There must be serious groundwork for building relevant policies through consultation and collaboration with those responsible for policy formulation and implementation. There is a need to ensure the involvement of policy makers in the formulation of strategies for the greater participation and access of women to the media. Too often, the discussion about the absence of necessary policies takes place in the absence of legislators, regulators, State administrators. managers and front-line professionals--the policy makers themselves. The United Nations can bring together these policy makers in literal and virtual fora, which can provide an opportunity for discussion and development.

Such groupings should be targeted as part of the effort to place gender-fairness and the use of the media for the advancement of women on the global agenda. Race, class and gender are the main axes of "social differentiation," (3) with gender being the most recently recognized perspective for academic investigation, including policy studies. However, gender still receives little recognition in the analysis and formulation of all types of policy, particularly at the State level. Because of the economic hardships suffered by many developing countries in the 1970s and 1980s, Governments had to change their development focuses and State policies in order to redress the shortage of foreign exchange available to service debts. But structural adjustment policies redirected "resources away from programmes which are people-centred to those which are profit-centred". (4)

Women were hit hardest by the redirection of resources made necessary by structural adjustment. Therefore, as in other areas of policy, it is useful to conduct gender-focused analyses of what impact there has been on the "process of creating, allocating and using communication resources ... to achieve the goals of the system".

In response to the absence of gender from the majority of policy-making in all areas, including communication and media policy, the United Nations can help bring focus to the development of mechanisms for mainstreaming gender within the policy-making process. The engine for such activity is the national civil society organizations, whose mandate includes lobbying and monitoring existing policy-making centres. The United Nations can assist such entities, particularly with technical assistance in monitoring strategies.

The ongoing endeavour to have a gender impact on policy development and formulation requires different kinds of skills from those that traditionally have been found in these activist groups. The specialist capacities that these lobbyists require include the ability to understand and analyze policy-making structures and to assist with the formulation of policies that encompass gender concerns.

There is also a need for new research that moves beyond the existing pattern of gendered media studies, which are largely limited to descriptive assessments of the portrayal of women. Studies need to relate the issues, such as problematic portrayals of gender, to national media policy in a way that provides for recommendations for feasible policy amendment The United Nations can identify and assist in this research.

An examination of the history of the media reveals continuous efforts to control and limit the sources, nature and volume of content disseminated through print or electronic avenues.

Sonia Gill is Assistant Executive Director of the Broadcasting Commission, Jamaica's media regulator. She started working as a broadcast journalist with the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation in Barbados, having studied law at the University of London and carded out a doctoral research on communication policy at the University of the West Indies.

Without descending into authoritarianism, all societies should develop a framework for media regulation. Activist agencies concerned with gender equity should be assisted in opening a dialogue with professional media associations and national regulatory bodies on setting and monitoring compliance with standards which speak to the gender awareness of media entities.

The national policy stating who might have access to the means of production and dissemination inherent in owning and operating media enterprises is usually expressed in the licensing policy. This sets out the criteria for license eligibility, the application process, standards for evaluation and the method for grant or revocation of licences.

There are a number of unspoken but critical assumptions inherent in any licensing policy. Particularly in these times of communication liberalization and denationalization, it is assumed that applications will originate primarily in the private sector, from applicants driven by a financial objective. Therefore, the eligibility criteria are likely to be biased towards facilitating the establishment and operation of media houses as profit motive-driven businesses.

One of the most important rationales that could inform the licensing process could be increasing the number of opportunities for the voiceless sectors of society to contribute to discussions on topics that affect them and the setting of the agenda for legislators. There is also a dearth of avenues for dissemination of information that can improve the lot of marginalized groups, as well as women. The United Nations can give technical assistance to agencies responsible for formulating and administering licensing regimes, providing them with models on how to make the process sensitive to the needs of social groups outside the business sector. Modern history is replete with examples of efforts by the powerful in society to restrict the media through the use of mechanisms that set limits on who may and what they may publish.

In most instances, these activities have been thinly veiled attempts to impinge on freedom of expression, and quite rightly media professionals have staunchly resisted such efforts. However, unlike medicine or law, there is usually no consistent standard of practice for the media professions, especially journalism, and this presents a real difficulty in getting the media to comply with codes of practice. To address this situation, the United Nations, in partnership with private sector entities, should sponsor awards for media professionals whose work best exemplifies the recognition and promotion of gender issues while demonstrating the highest quality of work.

Policy approaches can only be successful in addressing the marginalization of women if it is understood that policymaking is a deliberate process comprised of a web of decision-making and actions. Policies will not spring up to fill the existing vacuum just upon the recognition of their absence. Rather, the same deliberate effort, which has fostered over time the current level of awareness of the existence of gender issues, will also be required The United Nations has a vital role to play in ameliorating the marginalization of women in the media by encouraging the development of policies that recognize and redress such marginalization.

Notes

(1) Deaux, Kay, and Mary E. Kite. "Thinking About Gender". In Analyzing Gender, Ed. Beth B. Hess and Myra Marx Ferree. Newbury Park: Sage, 1987.92-125.

(2) Van Zoonen, Liesbet. "Feminist Perspectives on the Media". In Mass Media and Society. Ed. James Curran and Michael Gurevitch. London: Edward Arnold, 1991.33-54.

(3) Mills, C. W. "A Comment on Class, Race and Gender--The Unholy Trinity". In Race, Class and Gender in the Future of the Caribbean. Ed. J. Edward Greene. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1993. 111-14.

(4) Antrobus, P. "Crisis, Challenge and the Experience of Caribbean Women". Caribbean Quarterly 35, 1 and 2 (June 1989): 25-26.