10. Journalism and Gender

This session gives a brief introduction to how the media cover gender issues. What are the challenges? 

This session focuses on gender, women’s rights and how the media cover gender issues. Walter Lippmann’s concept of gatekeeping (Lippmann, 1922) is still relevant, and from this perspective the media can be observed as mediators between various social groups, political authorities and institutions. Gender issues continue to be a crucial topic in media stories and the media serve as shapers of public opinion. When journalists are to write well-prepared stories on gender issues, they should be aware of the fact that gender stereotypes influence society in a profound way, and that they can lead to discrimination and human rights violations. The history of the women movement illustrates, however, that it is possible to counteract stereotypes and to strive to improve the situation.

The session commences with a discussion in pairs, followed by a plenary reflection and then a lecture held by the session leader on gender, women’s rights and the media. In the last part of the session, the students will prepare to write stories on gender issues. The various educational elements can be worked on consecutively or may be split into parts with intervals of varying length between each element.

 LEARNING GOALS

The students shall 
  • understand the main concepts relating to gender issues and how human rights are relevant in this context
  • gain insight into the history of the women’s rights movement
  • acquire knowledge of cases on how the media covers gender issues
  • reflect on gender issues using the whole range of available data: opinions, facts, history of the issue, relevant documents and so on
  • know how to implement there knowledge in practice and how to write stories relating to gender issues while aiming for objectivity and reflecting on their own work

 

Description

Time
About four hours

Requirements
A large room with ample space for group work, paper (size A2), highlighters, pens and paper for taking notes, notebook with Internet access, projector

Preparation
Lecture “Gender, women's rights and the media”


Session

 Educational elements

 

Author:
Tamara Gromova, Phd. School of Journalism and Mass Communications, St.Petersburg State University (Russia)

An online manual on intercultural understanding, ethics and human rights to be used by teachers and students in journalism education. Read more.

Email : post@journalism-edu.org

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