It has already become a tradition that Tbilisi Conference follows interregional actions of CaucAsia, International Gender Journalists’ Coalition, set up at the First International Conference held in 2003. Prior to the second Conference, the authors from 9 countries prepared Woman and Elections, the collection of print articles. For the Third Conference, authors created Women’s Opinion as Reflected by Media, materials of media monitoring, which studied national newspapers of 8 countries. During one year, since the Third Conference, CaucAsia worked in several directions: Women and Civil Society, new international book was published; internet magazine CaucAsia was set up as regular monthly publication; publishing of international network regional magazine Women’s Dialogue was arranged. This work was organized by the GenderМediaCaucasus Journalists’ Association from Georgia in close cooperation with CaucAsia International Coalition. The results of the work will be reviewed and future plans will be discussed at the Conference.
DEAR
COLLEAGUES!
WE INVITE YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PRESENTATION OF:
• The Fourth International Conference of Journalists;
• The international journalists’ publication “Woman and Civil Society;”
• Photo Exhibition “Women of South Caucasus” (UNIFEM);
• CaucAsia on-line magazine, 6 issues of 2006;
• Women Dialogue International Magazine, N3, 2006;
• The joint project of South Caucasus countries: “Social Activities of Women in XIX–XX Centuries; the publication supported by the Women’s Program of the Open Society Institute Georgia, Women’s Program of the Open Society Institute Armenia, Women’s Program of the Open Society Institute Azerbaijan
Journalists’ awarding ceremony for the best article on the activities of the Coalition of Women’s NGOs of Georgia will also take place at the presentation
Date and Time of the Presentation: July 1, 2006, 7 p.m.,
Kopala Hotel, 8 Chekhov Street, Avlabari, Tbilisi
For more information please contact:
Lali Nikolava, Press-Secretary: 899 41 46 01, nikolavalali@yahoo.com
Galina Petriashvili, Project Director: 899 90 11 24, galapet@ip.osgf.ge• The Conference’s Information Support:
The First Channel of the Public TV of Georgia; Inter-Press News agency, News Georgia agency, Radio Imedi, Green Wave radio, Imedi TV channel, Rustavi-2 TV channel; newspapers: Rezonansi, Georgia Today, Argumenti i Fakti – Tbilisi, Komsomolskaya Pravda in Georgia, Svobodnaya Gruzia, South Caucasus Gender Network web-portal
Association of Journalists invites those journalists to cooperate who are open to the idea of gender equality and ready to implement it through mass media
Who Makes The News?
Three
Global Weeks of Action on Gender and the Media
in
GEORGIA
THE WEEK ONE
· 16 February
Start presentation in OSI national Women network Program office. The findings of The Global Media Monitoring Project and the Who Makes the News? Campaign presentations.
Participants: Monitoring team, local journalists, women NGO activists
· 17 February
Work Meeting of Women’s NGO Media Group members and experts from Estonia, Round Table Women’s NGO members Reet Laja and Leena Blum: planning of Media Group activities in frame of local elections in Georgia (planned for the end of 2006), preparing of media support to women candidates.
The findings of The Global Media Monitoring Project and the Who Makes the News? Campaign presentations
· 18 February
Working Meeting with women leaders from 11 regions of Georgia. Planning and consultations regarding the local elections in 2006. Discussions on cooperation between regional NGOs and journalists.
· 21 February
Seminar for Radio journalists from South Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) including Tskhinvali and Nagorny Karabakh conflict zones participants.
The findings of The Global Media Monitoring Project and the Who Makes the News? Campaign presentations.
· 21 February
Sexism in the Parliament of Georgia. Press Conference. Organized by Women NGO Initiative Group regarding the parliament discussion on Domestic Violence draft law. Women’s NGOs protest against some MPs’ sexism language during Parliament hearings.
· 23 February
Business Lunch for Organization Group for Women’s NGOs Coalition’s International Conference (scheduled for May, 2006). Participants: Organization Group members, experts partners from Estonia Reet Laja and Leena Blum. Planning of the Conference media support
· 24 February
Who Makes the News? Campaign Weekly Meeting for young journalists in GenderMediaCaucasus Journalists’ Association office. The findings of The Global Media Monitoring Project and the Who Makes the News? Campaign presentations.
What
is the Global Media
Monitoring Project (GMMP)?
The
Global Media Monitoring Project was born out of the
1994 international Bangkok conference on “Women Empowering Communication”
organised by WACC in conjunction with two other international women’s
networks, the International Women's Tribune
Centre and Isis International,
Manila.
There, hundreds of gender and communication activists called for a one-day
study of the media’s news coverage to be undertaken worldwide with the
aim of documenting the participation and portrayal of men and women
in the world’s news media, creating a research instrument and establishing
a benchmark which would serve as a standard for measuring future change.
Until the present, the project has had the following three editions:
GMMP
1995; GMMP
2000; and GMMP
2005.
The first GMMP took place on 18 January 1995 and was organised by the
NGO MediaWatch Canada. Over 15,000 news stories were analysed by hundreds
of volunteers in 71 countries.
In 2000, five years after the first GMMP, the WACC Women’s Programme
coordinated a more extensive and qualitative GMMP study.
GMMP 2000 aimed not only to assess changes in worldwide representations
of women and men by the media since 1995, but also to improve and build
upon the original study by involving more organisations in the research
and by making the study more contextual.
The actual monitoring day on 1st February 2000 generated tremendous
excitement and solidarity among the hundreds of participating groups
in 70 countries which generated over 50,000 data records from some 16,000
news stories.
For one day in 1995 and again in 2000, men and women in 70 countries
came together to scrutinise the portrayal of women and men by the world
news by monitoring stories in newspapers, TV and radio.
On 16th February 2005, the experience was repeated in 76 countries
It took almost one year to gather and analyse all the results
from around the world
GMMP 2005 is co-ordinated by the World Association for Christian Communication
(WACC), an international NGO which promotes communication for social
change, in collaboration with Margaret Gallagher, consultant for the
project and the data analyst, Media Monitoring Project (MMP), South
Africa.
The data for GMMP 2005 was collected through the collective voluntary
effort of hundreds of organizations including gender and media activists,
grassroots communication groups, academics and students of communication,
media professionals, journalists associations, alternative media networks
and church groups.
The GMMP 2005 national coordinator In Georgia – Galina Petriashvili and volunteer group of GenderMadiaCaucasus Journalists’ Association. National media monitored in Georgia: two TV channels (Rustavi 2 and the First Channel), one Radio (First State Channel) and 3 Newspapers (24 Saati, Dge, Rezonansi).
The volunteer monitors team:
Tsitsino Julukhidze,
Diana Petriashvili,
Maya Goshadze,
Maka Ldokova,
Lali Nikolava,
Galina Petriashvili
How much media was
monitored around the world?12,893 news items on television, radio and in newspapers
The findings of The Global Media Monitoring Project will be announced on February 15, 2006, launching the Three Weeks of Action to challenge news media worldwide to ensure that both men and women ‘make the news’.
Why focus on the news media?
News media is a key source of information for the general public
Media-generated information influences perceptions and understanding about what happens in the world.
However, the news media selects what is covered, how it is covered, the time allotted to each item and the order in which they are presented
These editorial choices are often made from select viewpoints and experiences and do not necessarily offer a “window on the world” but rather express the priorities and values of those who make the editorial choices
“News media owners and news editors are overwhelmingly male and they routinely decide what news women should hear and read. What is the impact on all of us when the news is constantly reported from a male point of view? Keep in mind that media leaders are not just leaders in that industry, but have the power to shape society's attitudes.” (mediachannel.org)Why focus on gender?
Women make up 52% of the world’s population - but only make up a tiny fraction of the world’s news story subjects.
. On one day in 1995, women were 17% of news subjects
. Five years later, women were only 18% of news subjects worldwide
In the subsequent years, these figures have been supported by research at the international, national and regional level
Research over the last 30 years supports the findings of GMMP 1995, 2000 and 2005.
Whilst some countries perform better than others, these figures show that everyone can do better to ensure women are fairly represented in and through news media
Don’t women have a story to tell?
What are the goals of “Who Makes The News?”
The Who Makes the News Campaign seeks to promote gender equality in the media. To do so the campaign is challenging leaders of the news media, editors, media owners and journalists worldwide to show their commitment to this issue by taking substantial and immediate action to ensure that the news media represents women and men in a fair and balanced way.
Additionally, WACC and its partners worldwide join with UNESCO in offering a challenge to all media producing daily news to give editorial responsibility to women editors and journalists to direct the news on 8th March 2006, International Women’s Day.
This March 8th gesture of goodwill by media management is considered a first step towards promoting gender equality in and through the media in both media generation and coverage.
Three Global Weeks of Action on Gender and the Media is supported by UNESCO and UNIFEM.What will happen and where?
15th February 2006: the global GMMP 2005 report containing global, regional and national quantitative and qualitative results will be released in London at the Foreign Press Association, 11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AJ
Launch partners include UNESCO’s Women Make the News Initiative, Amnesty International’s Violence Against Women Campaign, Article 19, the International Federation of Journalists, the Media Diversity Institute, The Stanhope Centre and UNIFEM.
16th February – 8th March 2006: national launches of the global report and activities relating to the promotion of gender equality in and through the media will take place in many of the countries that participated in the research in 2005.
GMMP website will promote all partners’ activities and will offer opportunities for dialogue though blogs, etc. to monitor media coverage of women during The Three Weeks of Action
The GMMP website will also encourage all interested throughout the world to become involved through this website in challenging the media globally to fulfil their democratic responsibility to represent women and men in a fair and balanced way, such as sending letters to local media managers to take up UNESCO’s invitation on March 8, 2006.
IN GEORGIA
Galina Petriashvili galapet@ip.osgf.ge GenderMediaCaucasus
Journalists’ Association17 Ioris Str. Tbilisi, 0103, Georgia +995 99 90 11 24 +995 32 00 11 53 www.gmc.ge Monitoring team, national journalists,
editors, media managers, women NGO activiWhat form will the event take?
GMMP results presentation (16 Feb);
-2 weekly discussions in GenderMediaCaucasus
office;
-final seminar connected 8 March-OSI national Women network Program,
Tbilisi (starting presentation);
-GenderMediaCaucasus office, Tbilisi (weekly)
-OSI national Women network Program,
Tbilisi (final seminar)16 February 2006 (starting presentation),
23 February 2006 (weekly discussion),
2 March 2006 (weekly discussion),
7 March 2006 (final seminar)The information about GMMP and its results will be provided
- on the Web GMC (in Russian, Georgian and English) http://www.gmc.ge/images/news.html
- in Women Dialogue international magazine (in Russian)
- in CaucAsia internet magazine February issue (in Russian and English)
How can I get involved?
WACC and its partners are eager to welcome everyone’s contribution to the “Who Makes the News? 3 weeks of Action on gender and the media”. You can keep informed by subscribing to our information listserve, visiting the website or contacting us by email:
Subscribe to the Who Makes the News list serve: Who Makes the News Information List or email at:
whomakesthenews-subscribe@gn.apc.org
General Queries: info@wacc.org.uk
Press queries:Sheila George: sg@wacc.org.uk
