Women’s media: Challenging the status quo

Abstract

While there is a need to challenge mainstream media to improve their portrayal of women in contemporary Pacific society, there is also a need to counter factors affecting and inhibiting women’s engagement with that media. This not only requires the incorporation of gender equality policies in mainstream media policy but by ensuring that women are able to develop, produce and distribute alternative information and communications. For such advocacy to be successful, this commentary argues for capacity building and training for young women and rural women to make the connection with policy makers through their local programme productions so they can challenge personal, institutional and systematic barriers to their development and empowerment.

Keywords

• gender
• development
• Development communication
• empowerment
• media policy