Women in media are individuals who participate in media. Media are the collective communication outlets or tools used to store and deliver information or data.What is media? definition and meaning http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/media.html What is Communication Media? – Definition from Techopedia http://www.techopedia.com/definition/14462/communication-media The role of women in media revolves around the four axes of media: media freedom, media pluralism, media independence, and media safety.
Women in media face the same difficulties and threats as men, and additionally experience gender inequalities, safety issues, or under-representation. Compared to men, women are much less likely to be included in the media globally. According to research, a minimum of twenty-five percent of news on television, radio and in the press mention women as a topic. According to a 2015 survey, only 19% of news experts and 37% of reporters worldwide were women. The gender-imbalanced perspective of society has the potential to promote and perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes, as behavioral scientists study the underrepresentation of women in the workforce.
Safety of women journalists Safety of journalists is the ability for journalists and media professionals to receive, produce and share information without facing physical or moral threats. Women journalists also face increasing dangers such as sexual assault, "whether in the form of a targeted sexual violation, often in reprisal for their work; mob-related sexual violence aimed against journalists covering public events; or the sexual abuse of journalists in detention or captivity. Many of these crimes are not reported as a result of powerful cultural and professional stigmas."The United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and Issues of Impunity, 2012, https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/un-plan-on-safety-journalists_en.pdf Women working in the media face disproportionate and specialized dangers, as well as increasing offline and online attacks. The gender-based violence they face includes online harassment, sexist bullying, physical harm, rape and even murder.
Threats on women journalists Women journalists, whether they are working in an insecure context, or in a newsroom, face risks of physical assault, sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and even murder. Women journalists are vulnerable to attacks not only from those attempting to silence their coverage but also from sources, colleagues, and others.Lanza, Edison. 2017. Silenced Zones: Highly Dangerous Areas for the Exercise of Freedom of Expression. Office for the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Available at http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/expression/docs/publications/ZONAS_SILENCIADAS_ENG.pdf. A 2014 global survey of nearly 1,000 journalists, initiated by the International News Safety Institute (INSI) in partnership with the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) and with the support of UNESCO, found that nearly two-thirds of women who took part in the survey had experienced intimidation, threats or abuse in the workplace.International Media Women's Foundation and International News Safety Institute 2013.
In the period from 2012 through 2016, UNESCO's Director-General denounced the killing of 38 women journalists, representing 7 per cent of all journalists killed. The percentage of journalists killed who are women is significantly lower than their overall representation in the media workforce. This large gender gap is likely partly the result of the persistent under-representation of women reporting from war zones or insurgencies or on topics such as politics and crime.Harris, Janet, Nick Mosdell, and James Griffiths. 2016. Gender, Risk and Journalism. Journalism Practice 10 (7): 902–916
The September 2017 report of the United Nations Secretary-General outlines a way forward for a gender-sensitive approach to strengthening the safety of women journalists.UN General Assembly. 2017. The safety of journalists and the issue of impunity: Report of the Secretary-General. Available at https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N17/245/44/PDF/N1724544.pdf?OpenElement. In 2016, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers adopted recommendation CM/Rec(2016)4 on the protection of journalism and the safety of journalists and other media actors, in particular noting the gender-specific threats that many journalists face and calling for urgent, resolute and systematic responses. The same year, the IPDC council requests the UNESCO Director-General's report to include gender information.
Legal harassment is the biggest threat to female journalists, according to a report by the Coalition for Women in Journalism. So far this year, at least 72 cases of legal harassment have been reported to the CFWIJ. When the number of detentions is added, it becomes clear how the legal system can be misused to target and silence journalists, posing a serious threat to female journalists.
Another big issue is harassment, which can happen online and at work. The sexual nature of the harassment women experience is often rooted in misogyny, as evidenced by the numerous cases of rape threats and sexually explicit manipulated photos and videos that have been used to defame and disparage female journalists. The so-called "double onslaught" on female journalists is visible again: they are targeted both for their gender and their profession. For this reason, it is crucial to focus on the gendered components of the dangers to which female journalists are exposed. The harassment women journalists face, whether online or offline, threatens their right to freedom of expression and limits the diversity of opinion in the media.
Online harassment of women journalists Research by Pew Research Center indicated that 73 per cent of adult internet users in the United States had seen someone be harassed in some way online and 40 per cent had personally experienced harassment, with young women being particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and stalking.Duggan, Maeve, Lee Rainie, Aaron Smith, Cary Funk, Amanda Lenhart, and Mary Madden. 2014. Online Harassment. Pew Research Center. Available at http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/onlineharassment/.An analysis of more than two million Tweets performed by the think tank Demos found that women journalists experienced approximately three times as many abusive comments as their male counterparts on Twitter.Demos. 2014. Demos: male celebrities receive more abuse on Twitter than women. Demos. Available at https://www.demos.co.uk/press-release/demos-malecelebrities-receive-more-abuse-on-twitterthan-women-2/.
The Guardian surveyed the 70 million comments recorded on its website between 1999 and 2016 (only 22,000 of which were recorded before 2006). Of these comments, approximately 1.4 million (approximately two per cent) were blocked for abusive or disruptive behavior. Of the 10 staff journalists who received the highest levels of abuse and ‘dismissive trolling’, eight were women.Gardiner, Becky, Mahana Mansfield, Ian Anderson, Josh Holder, Daan Louter, and Monica Ulmanu. 2016. The darkside of Guardian comments. The Guardian. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/ap/12/the-darkside- of-guardian-comments.
The INSI and IWMF survey found that more than 25 per cent of ‘verbal, written and/or physical intimidation including threats to family and friends’ took place online.Barton, Alana, and Hannah Storm. 2014. Violence and Harassment Against Women in the News Media: A Global Picture. International Women’s Media Foundation & International News Safety Institute. Available at http://www.iwmf.org/our-research/journalistsafety/. Accessed 8 June 2017.
Countering online abuse is a significant challenge, and few legislative and policy frameworks exist on the international or national level to protect journalists from digital harassment.International Women's Media Foundation. 2016. An Overview of the Current Challenges to the Safety and Protection of Journalists. Available at https://www.iwmf.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/02/IWMFUNESCOPaper.pdf.
The International Federation of Journalists and the South Asia Media Solidarity Network launched the Byte Back campaign to raise awareness and combat online harassment of women journalists in the Asia-Pacific region.International Federation of Journalists. 2017. Byte Back: IFJ launches guide to combat cyber harassment in South Asia. Available at http://www.ifj.org/nc/fr/news-singleview/backpid/33/article/byte-backifj-launches-guide-to-combat-cyberharassment-in-south-asia/.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) organized an expert meeting titled ‘New Challenges to Freedom of Expression: Countering Online Abuse of Female Journalists’ which produced a publication of the same title that includes the voices of journalists and academics on the realities of online abuse of women journalists and how it can be combated.Mijatović, Dunja. 2016. New Challenges to Freedom of Expression: Countering Online Abuse of Female Journalists. Edited by Becky Gardiner. Vienna: Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Available at http://www.osce.org/fom/220411?download=true.
Media freedom for feminism
Media freedom is the freedom to participate in media, the rights of expression, and access to and production of media content. These are all issues that can be fully understood only by considering their gender equality dimensions as they often overlap, and they have been compounded by the growing complexity of the digital sphere. Across all these issues, women do not enjoy full equality with men, nor do they have their work valued to the same extent as men. In many newsrooms around the world, there continues to be a culture that makes it difficult for women to progress. In such workplaces, harassment is common, and a lack of monitoring means that even with gender equality policies in place, they are often ineffective in challenging gender discrimination. In addition to documenting violence against women, providing forums for women's views, raising awareness of women's experiences, and ensuring that biases against women journalists are addressed, the media is key to promoting gender equality and eradicating discrimination.
Under-representation of women A related challenge has been the absence of women's voices as an issue in media freedom, including in internet governance policy-making more generally. This ongoing issue appears to have stagnated in recent years. The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Dynamic Coalition on Gender and Internet Governance, which pushes for recognition of the gendered issues relating to Internet governance, reports that although women's participation at the 2015 IGF reached close to parity, women were still underrepresented in discussion and debates: only 37 per cent of panelists were women, a decline from 40 per cent the previous year.Gender Dynamic Coalition and APC. 2016. Internet Governance Forum 2015: Learnings from the Gender Report Cards. GenderIT. Available at http://www.genderit.org/resources/internetgovernance-forum-2015-learnings-genderreport-cards .