Closing the Gender Gap? DCU takes part in the 5th Global Media Monitoring Project 2015
Closing the Gender Gap? DCU takes part in the 5th Global Media Monitoring Project 2015
On Wednesday 25th March 2015, a team of researchers from DCU School of Communications, headed up by Ireland’s National Coordinator, Dr. Debbie Ging, joined thousands of volunteers in more than 130 countries to gather news from TV, radio, newspapers, internet and social media for the fifth Global Media Monitoring Project, the largest and longest longitudinal study on the gender in the world’s media.
Over the coming weeks, an international team of researchers, made up activists and academics from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, will be analysing the material that has been gathered using a universally agreed coding system. This data effectively tells us who “makes the news”, both in terms of who is doing the reporting and who is being reported.
GMMP is the largest organisation in the world that advocates for changing the representation of women in the media. Every five years since 1995, the GMMP has taken an ordinary-day snapshot of the world’s news media. This research shows that women are consistently underrepresented in news media across all participating countries. In 1995, it revealed that women made up only 17% of the people heard, read about or seen in the news. However, there has been some progress between 1995 and 2010, during which time the percentage of female news subjects rose from 17% to 24% and the percentage of the world’s news being reported by women rose from 28% to 37%. In spite of this, the rate of progress is relatively slow. As Scotland National Coordinator Dr. Karen Boyle commented, “at this rate of change, it will take at least another 40 years to achieve parity.’
The results generated from GMMP 2015 are vital, therefore, in keeping the spotlight on gender inequality in the news media. As well as being used to advocate for change in media policy and practice, this data helps media educators to sensitize new generations of journalists to the need for ongoing awareness and intervention. The research will also provide important information about media at national level and will determine whether there are any significant differences between online and traditional news media. It will be interesting to see, for example, whether the recent growth in the number of online feminist websites and blogs has had a positive impact on closing the gender gap.
Commenting on the day’s success, WACC General Secretary Karin Achtelstetter said, “March 25 – the global media monitoring day in 2015 – was not an end in itself, but the start of worldwide activities that aim to challenge and change the policies of media enterprises all over the world.” National reports and the final consolidated report will be available in September 2015. For updates from monitoring groups around the world visit: www.whomakesthenews.org and www.waccglobal.org. You can also watch a video animation about the GMMP here. The members of the DCU GMMP team are Dr. Debbie Ging, co-coordinator Dr. Jane Suiter, PhD researchers Aileen O’Driscoll, John Moran, Marie Bohan, Brenda McNally, Niamh Kirk and Grace McDermott and audiovisual technicians Damien Hickey and Dave O’Callaghan.