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Main Objectives
The “Women in Media in Europe” project aims to
contribute towards achieving equal opportunities for men and women
in Europe, and to promote a societal vision of roles destined for
changes in sex roles or gender stereotypes in general. The principal
aims are to:
- Investigate underlying gender stereotypes in the
media, especially national television news, culture, information,
current events and drama produced by national television networks
-
Collect and compare legislation, processes and methods used in
different European countries to overcome stereotypes: commissions,
procedures and internal/external sanctions both foreseen and
effective; complaint management systems (access, monitoring and
feedback); governing and monitoring bodies; ratings systems;
Charters and Codes of Conduct; legislation and directives; etc. This
will produce a list of governing bodies, Commissions, with addresses,
emails and websites, to help those who wish to complain or to make
comments in any way
- Analyse best practices favouring elimination
of gender stereotypes in media: human resource selection; training
and awareness raising in internal commissions, quality boards,
women’s leadership. Again a complete address index will be prepared.
- Prepare a “White Paper” that clarifies the status quo in the
actual European legislation on the issue in order to promote
discussion in Member States, and, at the same time provide
guidelines for national networks, quality commissions, equal
opportunity boards and women leaders. This should become a Vademecum
to enable better communication between consumers and governing
bodies, a “direct line” between regulators and regulated, to improve
clarity, transparency and debate.
The above objectives should help
the increasing awareness of existing legislation and best practices
in the various European countries, and should allow all involved to
render the question public, in order to open to open public and
institutional debate in the different countries, non merely to
undertake theoretical analyses and complaints, but to provide
opportunities for the rethinking of the current legislation in order
to uphold a realistic and essential equal opportunity culture.
This
project will be undertake by means of a close and ongoing
collaboration among all partners involved, with the additional
presence of part of the international network of the International
Fondazione Adkins Chiti: Donne in Musica (International Adkins Chiti:
Women in Music Foundation) in a series of countries which have
geographical proximity to Italy (Albania, Serbia, Montenegro,
Slovenia, Austria and Spain) and the main institutions involved,
first of all the “Communication Authorities”, then other governing
bodies including Communication Ministries, commissions for
application of behaviour codes, quality commissions, national
consumer councils, all of whom will further promote awareness and
the circulation of the White Paper.
Results will also be promoted
through a special web site for the project which will linked to all
the participating partners, the international network and the
relevant authorities, governing bodies and consumer and viewer
association web sites in each country.
A final European conference
will be organised.
Detailed project description
The way in which
women are represented in the media, and especially on television in
many European countries, may be considered decidedly one of gender
stereotyping: women (preferably young) are represented as sexual
objects of desire (in shows and through television publicity), or as
a potential consumer (overbearing, sickly sweet mothers, brainless
newlyweds, man-hungry singles, storybook grandmothers), or as the
objects of family conflict (here the older women are often
considered only to be homemakers and housewives without any interest
in culture, politics or social questions) in reality programmes and
talk shows. This misleading, humiliating, vulgar and debasing way of
presenting women on television, especially in the field of popular
entertainment (which is the main money-maker and opinion leader for
many broadcasters), has accustomed the public to expect little else.
The effect on adolescent girls, whose only television role models
are starlets, under dressed nymphets and “dumb waitress stage
presences” can already be seen in their statistically researched
changing ambitions and in the rising number of aspirants for any
kind of audition. Sadly, in some regions, there are even full time
courses to prepare young girls for auditions in order to become
“veline” (the half naked nymphets seen on some programmes) that are
paid for with funding from the European Social Fund.
This
situation seems to be considered “almost normal” in many European
countries, and especially in Italy, where it would appear that the
real social and cultural growth and evolution of women would appear
to be ignored. The resolution of this problem and situation requires
a complex strategy involving legislative and legal experts, opinion
leaders, researchers, the media and the national associations
working on behalf of women, children and consumers all working
together to raise an awareness of the situation and how it may be
resolve. It is particularly important to involve women themselves at
all levels of society. The message to be spread is that we must
convince and force the media to project a more accurate image of
modern woman (which must include the various ethnic communities
present in our countries, the professions and occupations that women
undertake, the way in which women are present at different levels of
society and their educational levels). This ongoing project should
help us to overcome the distorted image that the television screen
reflects back on us.
The target groups are: institutions, public
opinion, the media, women and women’s associations.
Approach: We
intend to:
- Reveal the possibility and democratic need to act using
the current codes of conduct and legislation on the issue (looking
at the way in which other groups, such as minors or minority ethnic
groups, from which some interesting examples may be taken, face
their problems).
- Raise initial awareness among European
institutions through the creation of a European database on the issue.
Project activities:
- content analysis on the representation of
women in television
- Collection and comparison of legislation in
different countries
- Comparative analysis of best practices
- White
paper
- Initial seminar
- Halfway evaluation meeting
- Final seminar
- Final conference
- Monitoring
- Evaluation
- Intermediate and final
report
Expected results and outputs:
- Increase in the awareness of
the Media
- Institutional awareness raised
- Public opinion awareness
raised
- Women’s awareness raised
- European best practices
publicised and promoted in the countries with greatest problems in
this areas, as well as within the new Member States.
- Promotion
through the Authorities in each country (Councils, Equal Opportunity
Committees, Journalist associations) of the possibility for the
general public and television consumers to demand changes and to open
debates.
- Reduction in violation of Codes of conduct as monitored by
Commissions
- Contribution to a change of direction in current way of
representing women and a move towards a more modern and correct way
of presenting all that women are and stand for in the media,
especially on television. |