"The online harassment of female journalists is a rising concern around the world and also in South Asia. Bangladesh, a South Asian country, recently, has experienced an increasing number of harassments against female journalists online. Various studies explored the online harassment, mostly from th
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e Western perspectives. Scholars have argued that the online harassments may negatively affect the freedom of expression. But little is known about Bangladesh. Drawing upon feminist theory, this study investigated the experiences of online journalists in Bangladesh. The objectives were to explore the nature and forms of online harassment and to find how this experiences of harassments affect the freedom of expression of the victims. Data were collected through content analysis, semiotic analysis of the uncivil comments available in the online news feedback and in-depth interviews. Results of the study indicate that online harassment is a frequent phenomenon where the victim journalists feel vulnerable in the ‘unsafe' online ‘patriarchal' environment." (Abstract)
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"[This publication] is a manual aimed at enhancing women’s participation and reducing gender inequalities in all aspects of the operations of community radio stations in India. This gender-sensitivity manual is an outcome of a project granted by the International Programme for Development of Commu
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nication (IPDC), UNESCO, to the UNESCO Chair on Community Media at the University of Hyderabad. As the name suggests, the overarching objective of the manual is to foster and reinforce best practices, policies, and programmes concerning gender in community radio (CR). It also seeks to ensure that the editorial content of CR stations remains gender sensitive at all times. The impetus of the project is also that the use of this gender-sensitivity manual by CR stations will contribute directly to the achievement of the key targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially the stand-alone Goal 5, which aims to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.” (About the manual)
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"The article argues that community development work, in the form of feminist pedagogy and community radio, can engage more women in technological roles, aid women’s confidence and mental health and possibly, improve diversity in mainstream media. In UK media, corporations are heavily criticized fo
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r their under and misrepresentation of women and, in general, their inability to engage with excluded groups. The BBC’s strategic aim is to improve inclusion and diversity by 2020. The article asserts the value of community development methods in efforts to address this. It explores concepts of voice poverty and empowerment through analysis of the narratives of twelve female community radio volunteers in Northern England.
Using Freire’s (1972) notion of ‘culture of silence’ and against the backdrop of gender inequality, the article clarifies the nature of community radio and employs a variety of literatures to understand how a feminist pedagogy (hooks, 1994) and an intersectional approach (Crenshaw, 1989) might be useful in media. It builds from Stuart Hall’s contention that media and cultural spaces can be powerful sites of social action.
Analysis of participant accounts indicates that community radio is a site of diverse identities, laughter, dialogue, raised consciousness, and conflict. This confronts not only the orthodoxy of young white, male-dominated media but also challenges romantic notions of community harmony and happiness by recognizing inherent tensions within prevailing conceptions of womanhood and within and between communities.
The article foregrounds evidence from the majority world, where community radio is well documented as giving voice to invisiblized women, and concludes with an argument for further exploration of this highly symbolic dimension of empowerment, whereby women overcome technological fears and break their silence by broadcasting diverse voices. The project challenges UK commercial and public broadcasters to learn from the global south that community radio is an effective method of development with potential to enrich the mainstream media world." (Abstract)
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"The Venezuelan government has been instrumental to implement different types of gender-based violence and discrimination. Reports demonstrate that women have been killed, that their economic power decreased, and that they experienced problems related to access to education, health services, jobs, e
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tc. This reality affects all women; however, there is not updated and systematized information about the problems faced by Venezuelan women journalists. This chapter uses Mohanty's theory and Hernandez's approach to illustrate the situation. It begins with an overview of the Venezuelan context, highlighting cases of gender-based violence and discrimination experienced by women. It also considers cases of economic exploitation, exclusion, disempowerment, cultural imperialism, and direct violence between 2018 and 2019. The chapter demonstrates the deteriorating situation and reveals patterns of oppression experienced by female journalists in Venezuela." (Abstract)
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"In the Philippines, sexual harassment is among the threats and attacks women in media face. While Filipino women journalists experience being sexually harassed by colleagues and sources, several have opted not to report such incidents for fear of being blamed and fear of retaliation from the accuse
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d. This case study research documents six Filipino women journalists' experiences. Findings were analyzed using thematic analysis, guided by the framework of the spiral of silence theory by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. The findings show that interviewees did not report sexual harassment and related issues because they perceived these cases as part of the reality of working in the news industry. Other factors for staying silent were uncertainties about how their employer will respond, the fear of losing sources, and the fear of being isolated from colleagues. The interviewees proposed strategies, however, on how cases of sexual harassment against women journalists should be addressed in the future. Suggested practices and policy recommendations are presented." (Abstract)
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"A diverse range of international and interdisciplinary scholars take a closer look at how gender and sexuality have been essential in the evolution of comics, and how gender and sexuality in comics demand that we re-frame and re-view comics history. Essays cover a wide array of intersectional topic
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s including Queer Underground and Alternative comics, Feminist Autobiography, Re-drawing disability, Latina testimony, and re-evaluating the critical whiteness and masculinity of superheroes in this first truly global reference text to gender and sexuality in comics." (Publisher description)
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"Journalism can be a dangerous profession, but it is often doubly dangerous for women because of the risk of sexist and sexual violence to which they are exposed. Of the 112 countries where journalists were polled for this report, 40 were identified as dangerous or very dangerous for women journalis
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ts. The dangers are not just to be found doing traditional reporting in the field. Women journalists also encounter danger in the new virtual reporting domains, on the Internet and social media, and even in places where they should be protected, including their own newsrooms. Three years after RSF produced a report on the difficulties for journalists – male and female – covering women’s rights, its new investigation is based on an analysis of responses to a questionnaire that was sent to all of its correspondents throughout the world, and to journalists specialising in gender issues. The results confirm the trends already detected by RSF’s staff, including the fact that the Internet has now become the most dangerous place for women journalists (reported by 73% of the respondents). Rana Ayyub, a well-known Indian columnist and investigative reporter is an authority on this problem as she receives constant rape threats and death threats on social media. Following the Internet, it is the workplace that the most respondents (58%) identified as the location “where sexist violence has been perpetrated.” This perception has been reinforced by the #MeToo movement’s spread throughout the world and the fact that women journalists are now daring to denounce sexual attacks or sexual harassment in such countries as the United States, Japan and India." (https://rsf.org/en/news/rsf-publishes-report-sexisms-toll-journalism)
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"The late Asenath Bole Odaga, one of the pioneers of women in publishing in Africa and founder of Lake Publishers & Enterprises Ltd in Kenya in 1983, in an account of her early experience as a publisher, wrote1 that she found it to be an uphill struggle initially, and was confronted by male colleagu
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es who suggested that publishing was a complex business, best left to men, and that it might be rather more appropriate if she were to set up a restaurant instead of a publishing house! Happily, such blatantly chauvinist attitudes are now largely a thing of the past, and it would probably be true to say that much progress has been made in gender equality in African publishing in recent years. This has seen the emergence of a whole new generation of agile, visionary, and enterprising women publishers, as well as many other women who have provided leadership, and have made significant contributions in the African book world." (Abstract)
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"This research confirmed an upward trend in number of women journalists working in newsrooms. Over 30% of the journalists employed in the seven surveyed media houses are women. Women are however disproportionately represented in managerial (15%) and editorial decision-making positions (26%) compared
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to men. Most female journalists report on so-called “soft news” topics compared to hard news. Historical and informal preferences for men reporting on certain topics, the gender bias of supervisors, and the personal interests of some women journalists appear to be the key factors determining this. However, in some newsrooms as many women report on hard news topics compared to soft news, while men also work on entertainment, cultural and children’s programming. This suggests that the editorial roles in the newsrooms surveyed is not always strictly gendered. Most newsrooms lack a gender desk to co-ordinate reporting on women’s issues, or to respond to the needs of women journalists in the newsroom. While several newsrooms have adopted gender-sensitive guidelines developed with the help of UN Women, the extent to which these had been applied in a practical way in newsrooms was unclear. Gender-sensitivity training for journalists in newsrooms is also limited without outside intervention." (Executive summary)
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"Journalism schools have being witnessing an increase in female enrollment in Nigeria, but this is not proportional to the number of women who work in media organizations. For the women who eventually get employed as journalists, they experience various safety challenges which affect their advanceme
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nt and continued presence in journalism. This chapter looked at safety challenges faced by female journalists in selected media organizations in Kano state of Nigeria. The study was hinged on spiral of silence theory to show how female journalists keep mute about the challenges they experience and prefer to report the so-called soft news. The study used focus group discussion and in-depth interview as the research methodology. Four sessions were held with each group consisting of eight female journalists. Findings show that majority of the participants had experienced threats, attacks, harassments, marginalization, and discrimination. In addition, most media organizations do not have laid down safety policies except for a few safety measures when the need arises." (Abstract)
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"We illustrate the principles and processes of gender transformative communication by presenting a case study of a long-running social change initiative spearheaded by Minga Perú, a community-based organization in the Peruvian Amazon. Applying a gender and power lens, we illustrate how communicatio
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n transforms existing gender structures. Specifically, we analyze the monumental shifts that are occurring in roles, norms, hierarchies and relationships between women and men in the Peruvian Amazon emanating from Minga’s gender transformative approach. Our analysis highlights gendered shifts at the individual, family, community and institutional level. Through our analysis we outline a communicative process for gender transformation, highlighting how the Minga approach contributes to multiple gender-related outcomes across health, violence, participation, agency and decision-making. We argue that each component of Minga’s process is essentially communicative in nature. Simply put, communication serves as both a means and an end to achieving gender transformation." (Abstract)
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"In 2017, following the #MeToo movement stirred by the public outing of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, the safety of women at the workplace became a prime agenda for international news media. Although far from being truly inclusive, the #MeToo movement rapidly spread to other parts of the worl
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d. Women of different nationalities, backgrounds, and race shared their stories of abuse and survival using the #MeToo hashtag and its variants. In 2018, women within the news media industry in India joined the movement and called out prominent editors, filmmakers, and artists on social media for perpetrating and abetting acts of sexual harassment and abuse against them. As an immediate result, several accused were made to resign from their organizations and dropped from prestigious public posts. However, a backlash to the movement followed soon after, most evidently in the form of victim-shaming and defamation lawsuits against women. Based on the theory of epistemic advantage, the study explores the perception of sexual harassment among journalists in India using in-depth interviews." (Abstract)
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"Journalism is a two-faced mirror that both generates and reflects social inequalities: Both people's experiences within news organizations and the content published by them make the gender inequality visible. We can define journalism, just like all other patriarchal institutions, as an institution
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that generates gender inequality. In order to get a clear understanding of this problem, we have to address the actors, means, processes and conditions that generate this inequality in journalism first, and then we may suggest solutions based on real-life cases. Indeed, knowledge building is, as always, a priority in order to make working conditions safer for women and LGBT journalists. This chapter aims to support the struggle for gender equality in journalism within this context." (Abstract)
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"Based on the needs assessment, a high proportion of women in Cameroon face online violence and are increasingly concerned about their safety in digital spaces. However, many of these respondents are unaware of any legal protections offered to them. Additionally, they believe that they lack the appr
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opriate knowledge to protect themselves in these digital spaces. Results from the needs assessment show that there is a significant need for training programs aimed at building digital security awareness and digital hygiene skills." (Conclusion)
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"This survey-based case study explored members' motives for using a closed Facebook group specifically for women journalists. Particularly, we explored a motivation based on the feminist ethics of care and members' experiences of harassment, job satisfaction, and confidence in discussing safety issu
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es with supervisors. Results indicated that gender-specific professional support and the ethics of care were primary motives for group use, and the ethics of care motive positively predicted job satisfaction. Additionally, those who experienced in-person harassment were more likely to be motivated by ethics of care, and the gender-specific professional support motive was related to confidence in discussing safety threats." (Abstract)
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"Comprising 39 chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into six general themes: Gendered identities; Visualizing gender; The politics of gender; Gendered contexts and strategies; Gendered violence and communication; Gendered advocacy in action These sections examine
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central issues, debates, and problems including: the ethics and politics of gender as identity, impacts of media and technology, legal and legislative battlegrounds over gender inequality and LGBTQ+ human rights, changing institutional contexts, and recent research into communication and gendered violence. The final section links academic research on communication and gender to activism and advocacy beyond the academy." (Publisher description)
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"International media monitoring organisations have continually called for commitment of critical actors of free expression and media freedom to ensure the safety of journalists in their strive for open societies. Another dimension to this call is the need to draw attention to the issue of gender-bas
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ed threats and discrimination in the media industry and its implications for free expression and media freedom. This chapter explores discrimination, gender equality, and safety risks in journalism." (Abstract)
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"This guide uses the STEPS Facilitated Film Screening Methodology to give facilitators the tools to encourage male to male conversations based on the Learning Cycle. Although the main focus is on male engagement, discussion guidelines and activities can also be adapted to mixed gender groups. Facili
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tated film screenings can be used to challenge existing social norms, attitudes and actions that reinforce traditional gender roles and maintain inequalities between men and women. As change agents, men and boys should be encouraged to speak out and act against physical, sexual or emotional abuse being committed by other men. This guide covers the following: the learning cycle; films and selected scenes; discussion questions and activities; the role of a facilitator; setting up a facilitated film screening for in-person or online audiences." (Introduction)
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