A study by Uganda Media Women’s Association (UMWA) has observed a 4% increase of women as news sources as subjects in news media of Uganda as of 2022. Hence, a 28% representation from 24% as of 2020 Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) findings.
Supported by the Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI), twelve media outlets from print, television and radio were assessed with concentration of the first fourteen publications of each newspaper and limitation to only talk shows.
Margaret B. Sentamu, the Executive Director of UMWA stated that whereas the numbers still reflect a low and imbalanced representation of women as compared to the males, there is a staggered progress. This was during the dissemination of the findings; 2022 Gender Responsive Analysis report on Friday 25th November 2022 at UMWA offices in Kisaasi through a press conference
“As a focal organization for gender media monitoring in Uganda and an organization that advocates for gender equality and equity through enhanced women visibility in media, we observe a slight increase that staggers the numbers from 24% of 2020 to 28% in 2022,” said Sentamu
The study further realized a gender selective reporting where there is a relationship between the sex of the reporter and the proportion of female and male news subjects appearing in print news stories. Female reporters covered more female news subjects and quoted more females in their stories as opposed to the male reporters. In equal measure, male journalists gave more audience to male sources but also within talk shows of purely male presentation, women suffered a low engagement under similar likelihood.
Stories by female reporters had a 35% representation of female news subjects and 65% male, while those by male reporters had a 27% representation of female news subjects and 73% male. As sources, it was found that female reporters are more likely than males to directly quote more female news sources than their male counterparts. Overall, the stories by female reporters had a 36% representation of female news sources and 64% male, while those by male reporters had a 30% representation of female news sources and 70% male.
From the talk show representation, with 100% male moderation across all eight programs, the study found that 30(%) of guests were female and 70 (%) male. It was also realized that Television had a higher representation of females (34%) than radio (26%).
Whereas females were 30%, findings from study further highlight that women guests were only seen contributing to the topical discussions at 21% as opposed to their male counterparts.
Visually, the camera concentration on a female panelist in a television talkshow while speaking is only 22% and 46% while not speaking.
Joseph Higenyi, the Gender Analyst of UMWA and analyst of the monitoring study assessed that the visual comparative of appearance, contribution and camera concentration on female panelists as irregularly seen in the numbers reinforces erroneous and common stereotypes of, “women are to be seen but not to be heard“
The Executive Director, Margaret Sentamu in her dissemination remarks of the report further called upon the media to be a social actor for challenging such stereotypical depictions of media content packaging and presentation that persists women inferiority and marginalization.
“It is common that we see and seek women as media to speak on domestic role-based topics as opposed to thematic topics that contribute largely to development processes of this country. It is not enough for women to appear on talk show programs but rather, how many of them are appearing and what are they being equally and equitably being sought for to the discussion,” said Sentamu
One of the reporters during conference remarked that perhaps the least talking of women in programs and even in general news reporting is because of their unavailability and hesistancy.
Clothilda Babirekere the Program Gender Officer at UMWA emphasized that equipping newsrooms with gender sensitive reporting skills would enhance and enable practitioners to have increased women participation through their voices in news media.
Who delivered the news?
The study indicates that female journalists who delivered news stories constituted only 19%, a majority (81%) being male and for talk shows, all hosts were male (100%; F – 0%). This demonstrates a 3% increase of female journalists delivering news from the average representation of 16% as of 2021.
Article 33 of the Uganda Constitution guarantees for equal and fair representation of both women and men across all sectors and stipulates for affirmative action to enhance women participation in development.
The international conventions to which, Uganda is signatory, particularly the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action necessitates the media to enable equal participation of women in decision making processes through the diverse medium. This is in consortium with the Sustainable Development Goals 5: Gender Equality.
Recommendations
Government
- Mainstream, Enforce, and monitor the implementation of gender equality laws and policies in Media Training Institutions, Media Houses and Media products.
- Increase its funding to the Ministry of Gender for it to efficiently implement the available gender policies and laws”
Media Training Institutions
- Institutions offering media studies at all levels should mainstream gender in their day-to-day operations. From Board level, staffing to the curricular offered. In the latter case, adopting and operationalizing the Course Unit on Gender developed by UMWA is highly encouraged.
Media Houses and Journalists
- Just like Media Training Institutions, Media Houses should mainstream gender in their day-to-day operations right from the board level, staffing training and exposure to presentation of a media product.
- In particular media managers and practitioners should adopt and apply the Advocacy Strategy for Mainstreaming Gender in the Media developed by UMWA as well as the Gender in Media Checklist (generated by UNESCO) during content generation and packaging, as well as presentation of media products. This way, the issue of negative stereotyping, derogatory language or disproportionate sourcing would be dealt with.
- Media managers should also allocate resources and assignments equitably to both female and male journalists while at the same time ensuring that all new ‘staff’ are oriented into gender equality ethos, and regular refresher sessions are done for the staff, already at work.
In particular, Individual Journalists should:
- Scrutinize how they write and present news stories so that they are devoid of language and images that are derogatory, sexist, discriminatory or stereotypical.
- Ensure that both female and male voices are heard in equal proportions, by sourcing information from both women and men
- Create an atmosphere / environment that is acceptable, comfortable, and conducive for both women and men who are potential sources of information so that they can freely say what they wish to say, without any undue reservations.
Media Rights and Gender Equality focused CSOs
- Engage media houses and other relevant stakeholders on the need and importance of gender mainstreaming in the media.
- Facilitate capacity enhancement of media managers, owners and journalists in advancing the gender agenda in the media.
- Strengthen the capacity of women especially those seeking or already in leadership positions (at all levels) in effective media utilization, underlining the influence it can have on their lives and that of the communities they serve.
Media Consumers
- Apply gender lenses at every media product, and when / where necessary, with the use of the law and international instruments, lodge a complaint to the media house or the relevant regulatory authority, such as Uganda Communications Commission.
Development Partners
- Provide support to the relevant Government Agencies, and / or media rights / gender equality focused CSOs in mainstreaming gender in the media; and building capacity of women in its effective utilization.
- Facilitate Uganda Media Women’s Association as a focal organization on gender and media to among others: Undertake regular Gender Media Monitoring (both Field Studies and Desk Reviews) and share results, to show the magnitude of gendered differences in media coverage, and to make recommendations for improved coverage. Also, to build a larger pool of researchers to respond to the ever expanding field of, and evolving methodologies in, Gender Media Monitoring. Finally, to publish Gender Media Monitoring findings to not only enable the wider International Community access them, but also appreciate the status of Gender and Media, especially in Uganda.
how can we access this study?