South Africa: MMP Challenges Media On Women's Month - AllAfrica.com

Issa Sikiti District Attorney SilvaCape Town

August is Women's Calendar Month in South Africa. As usual, mass media mercantile establishments - broadcast, black and white and digital - across the state have got already started dedicating full pages to 'women's issues'. However, SA's mass mass mass mass media watchdog, the Media Monitoring Undertaking (MMP), have challenged the media to travel away from simply debating those issues and start doing 'the right thing': celebrating the accomplishments and image a positive picture.

"Instead of the media merely concentrating on so-called 'women's issues' and only on the jubilations that are put to take topographic point on 9 August 2007, we dispute the media to fill up their papers, radiocommunication broadcasts, telecasting agendas and news programs with women making parts to their communities and drive societal change," MMP executive manager director William Bird said.

Often unnoticed

In SA, women's positive part towards community development more often travels unnoticed, ignored by the mass mass mass media and swept under the carpet.

And a few good works that acquire fourth estate insurance are mostly those that are done by high-profile female personalities.

But this year, the MMP is calling upon the media to concentrate not only on so-called celebrities, women in concern and government, but rather on 'ordinary' women and the function they are playing in effecting societal change.

Suggestions

The followers are some of the MMP's suggestions that tin aid the media to lift to these challenges:

Use women as beginnings in every story, Let women engaged in societal alteration enterprises to state their ain narratives fill up full news bulletins and newspapers editions with parts from women do women editors for the twenty-four hours (it worked with Mandela, why not his wife?).

Use the same news agenda, but use a woman's position to each point narratives that reflect the diverseness of functions that women throw in all sectors of society, from concern to academe to sports. Include women commentators, teachers, doctors, lawyers, community leaders, among others promote advertizers to participate.

Advertisers can utilize this chance to be originative and come up up with different, positive portraitures of women diversify mental images and photos of women utilize exclusively women photographers, designers, producers, talking show hosts, DJs and managers and lastly, attack celebrated and so-called 'ordinary' women to be invitee authors for National Women's Day.

Relevant Links

Furthermore, Bird said that an yearly monitoring exercising on mass media insurance conducted by the MMP over the past eight old age during the time time period in and around the National Women's Day demoes that there have been a consistent addition on 'women's issues' for the period preceding the memorialization of the day.

"While such as insurance be givens to give women some of the recognition they deserve, much of it still neglects to observe and stand for the diverseness of women in SA," he concluded.

Issa Sikiti district attorney Silva is a independent journalist and short narratives author whose work have been published in local and foreign publications, both in English Language and French. He lends to Bizcommunity.com arsenic a news writer.