wfn.org | United Methodist Women will monitor global media

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Jan. 25, 2000   News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212)870-3803·New York
10-21-71B{029}
 
By Kelly Martini*

NEW YORK (UMNS) -- The world's media will come under scrutiny for a day in
February, as groups in about 80 countries monitor the portrayal and
representation of women in the news on television, radio and in newspapers. 

At its October board meeting, the Women's Division of the United Methodist
Board of Global Ministries agreed be one of the monitoring organizations. It
is urging the 1 million members of United Methodist Women to participate.
The results of the project will be presented at the review of the Fourth
United Nations World Conference on Women in June, and will be published
later in the year in print and on the Internet.

The Global Media Monitoring Project 2000 is the second of its kind. United
Methodist Women members participated in the first, which was held in January
1995 and organized by MediaWatch Canada. It involved hundreds of volunteers
in 71 countries contributing 49,000 data records. The project resulted in a
report entitled "The Global Media Monitoring Project: Women's Participation
in the News."

This second monitoring effort is being organized by the World Association
for Christian Communication (WACC) in collaboration with Erin Research,
MediaWatch Canada and media specialist Margaret Gallagher. It aims to assess
changes that have occurred in half a decade. It will provide insight into
the role of women in the media in the 21st century and in the context of the
advancements made in media technology. 

Five years ago, the first monitoring project revealed that while women
accounted for 43 percent of journalists, they represented only 17 percent of
interviewees, and 29 percent of those were victims of accidents, crime and
similar events. In stories about politics and government, only 7 percent of
interviewees were female.

"With this second global initiative, women will reveal how far the world's
media have moved since 1995 towards reflecting diversity," said Gallagher,
who has acted as a consultant to WACC throughout the process of organizing
the 2000 project.

WACC is an international, ecumenical organization with some 800 corporate
and personal members in 115 countries. Its main focus is to promote
democratic structures of communication. The 2000 project's long-term
objective is to create more gender-sensitive media that reflect the diverse
roles of women in society. It also hopes to encourage media organizations to
develop policies that would give women greater opportunity to influence
media content.  

United Methodists interested in participating in the project can contact
Gloria Dharmaraj, the Women's Division's executive secretary for justice
education, at (212) 682-3633 or by e-mail at gdharmar@gbgm-umc.org.  

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*Martini is executive secretary for communications with the Women's
Division, United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.

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United Methodist News Service
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