gmmp report

8/8/2019 Gmmp Report

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Global Media Monitoring Project 2009-2010

Pakistan

National Report 2009-2010


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GMMP 2009 in Pakistan

Table of Contents

Preface

Executive Summary

A Day in the News in Pakistan

News Subjects

What NewsAnalyzing Each Medium

Compiling the Analysis

The Way Forward

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GMMP 2009-2010 andSome Observationsfrom Pakistan 9


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Preface

The growth of electronic media is a vast phenomenon in Pakistan. The mushrooming of

channels can be traced back to the early 2000's when dozens of private channels in

English, Urdu and regional languages started capturing the attention of a large number

of audiences. These channels both news and entertainment- generated and continue to

generate massive media content but this content generally goes un-monitored for lack

of ethical guidelines, gender sensitivity and gender balance. Keeping in mind that a

large segment of Pakistani masses are un-educated and for them media is the only

source of information and entertainment and they do lack the ability and vision to

question the media messages/ content. As far as the regularity authority and governing

body for media is concerned the check and balance mechanism despite its existence is

mainly in action whenever the content is 'perceived' as anti-government and the

consequences could range from blocking the channels to pressurizing the channel

owners for removing such 'objectionable' contents. However, the way women are presented, portrayed or projected, the connotations, jokes and humour that have

women as the 'centre piece' go totally unnoticed. It is primarily for this lack of gender

sensitivity, blindness and bias, that Uks started with its own mechanism of media

monitoring and content analysis and sharing it with the media for feedback and feed

forward.

It is essential to mention that in 2002 Uks became the first Non-Governmental

Organization in South Asia to compile and disseminate A Gender Sensitive Code of

Ethics for Print Media in Pakistan, it addresses journalistic codes and ethics for

gender-just reporting for the media.

Over the years Uks has monitored a representative sample of ten media outlets serving

each city. These include television stations and news publications in English, Urdu, andregional languages. This is done using the methodology developed over more than ten

years of monitoring media on gender sensitivity, gender balance and gender-just

reporting. Uks is also maintaining a Print Media Database since 1998 to date. This huge

data is used by not only the Uks team but also the researchers to make comparisons,

find patterns and to study and analyze the trends in the media content over the years,

and now that this is available on-line, makes it an easier process.

In 2009 Uks took the initiative of making Pakistan a part of the Global Media

Monitoring Project for the first time. This provided the Uks Media monitoring team an

excellent opportunity and platform to exercise their skills and learn about the gaps and

issues in the current media setup in the country through the well established

methodology and guidelines shared by the GMMP.The media monitors were trained before the actual monitoring day on both the

qualitative and quantative parts of analysis. The well structured and systematic

analysis exercise and the clear instructions given in the supporting documents

explained in detail by the Master trainer Ms Tasneem Ahmar. The training of monitors

made it very easy for them to carry out the actual activity.

The relevance of issues in GMMP 2009/ 2010 could easily be mapped to the gender and

media concerns in Pakistan. Almost all the gender and media concerns in Pakistan's

current media scenario were covered. The issues were fairly relevant because gender

blindness and missed opportunity was generally prevalent in the media as far as the

women issues were concerned.

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Executive Summary

thOn the day of monitoring ( November 10 2009) there were a total of 20 monitors who

were present at the Uks office in Islamabad where three groups were working on their

respective medium on three different floors of the office building. The monitors were a

blend of the Uks internal media monitoring team and students from Quaid-e-Azam

University's Gender Studies Centre.

The duration of monitoring was 10:00 a.m till 5:00 p.m. The media content included 4

television channels, 2 radio channels, and 4 newspapers.

For Television Geo TV, Aaj TV, Express TV and Dawn TV were selected. Geo is the

largest 'Urdu' language private tv channel in the country. Urdu is the national language

and the channel is therefore widely viewed all over the country. Dawn was the first

'English' language channel of the country and has great viewership and popularity. The

other two channels selected are also very popular among the masses.For Radio National Broadcasting Service (NBS) and FM 97 were selected. NBS is

heard all over the country and FM 97 is quite popular among the listeners of all ages.

For Newspaper Jang, Express, Nation and Dawn were selected. The reason for this

selection was adequate circulation all over the country and popularity among the

readers. The news selected in national language was also transcribed into English and

transcriptions were shared along with coded sheets with the GMMP team.

This is the first time Pakistan has participated in GMMP.


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A Day in

the News in

Pakistan:

The News agenda in Pakistan on the monitoring day was primarily defense and

political news content in all the mediums. Other than the dominance of defense and

political themes the main stories were:

Gilgit-Baltistan Elections (Politics)

Bomb blast in Charsadda- (Terrorism)

Sugar Crises in the country The Nuclear Issue

National Reconciliation Ordinance

It can be safely said that no dramatic event that could possibly have an impact on the

news day was missed out.

A total of 43 news presenters were featured in the survey of whom 25 (58%) were

female and 18 (42%) were males. Out of a total of 35 reporters featured 3% were

female 31 % were male and the remaining were not known.

In surveying the presence of women and men in the news in Pakistan as news subjectsthe total of 261 subjects included 70 (27%) females and 191(73%).

The survey of presence of female and male news subjects by medium found that on

television 68% were males and 32 % were females. In Radio the ratio was 90% males

to 10 % females. In newspaper 81 % of the subjects were found to be male and 19%

were female.

News Subjects


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What News

Analyzing Each Medium

The survey on the presence of female and male news subjects in Pakistan. by story

topic found the following: as a percentage of all female news subjects, the largest

number of female subjects (28%) was in the social and legal category, followed by

crime and violence (25%) , ( 21%) were in the politics and government category

(20%) in the celebrity art, media and sports category; 6% in science and health and

none in economics category.

1. Television:

During television monitoring the news story about the tussle between two femalefootballers was presented in a negative way. This particular news item was also

analyzed by Uks monitors through the case study templates provided by the GMMP.

Women were presented in a stereotypical way where the anchor explained how

females are always in the habit of showing their weakness through fake tears. The

language and expressions used by the anchor to explain the incident was not very

suitable, the way was rather insensitive. The footage was also shown over and over

again and this news item was also made part of the headlines. This served as a clear

example of blatant stereotypes.

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There was a news story about the non-availability of courier service for the last two

years in Khurram Agency. Views from the affected people of the community were

taken but these didn't include female opinions or even female presence at all. The

problems that they might have faced or were facing were not even highlighted.

Similarly presence/ representation of women from general public or even the political

parties in the news report about the election campaign for Gilgit Baltistan Elections

was missing.

Considering that media plays an important role to bring gender justice to the society

women should've given space to comment through the media or express their views,

opinions or feelings. On contrary the male counter parts views and opinions were

taken but the story missed out on the women view point.

The story about internally displaced persons was about the family living in a

makeshift house in Dera Ismail Khan. Keeping in view the fact that in a Pakistani

society it is the female who has to perform the major chunk of not only the domestic

work but also the related chores, the opinion of females regarding the problems that

they were facing in the current situation was a must but their problems and concerns

were not discussed or highlighted throughout the story however to project a balance a

minor girl was shown.

The above two case studies are examples of missed opportunities or gender blind

stereotypes.There was news about Pakistan Fashion week that took place in Karachi. The concept

was that in the tough times when Pakistan was facing political and security crises such

events will help give a peace message to the world. But the footage of the fashion

week consisted of female models objectified and commodified to attract the attention

of masses in a way that the society particularly the males who could consider them as

objects of pleasure and anxiety release. The male models were also part of the event

but were never shown in the footage. This shows how media projects and presents

women. This news story was blatantly stereotyped.


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2. Print:

In newspaper analysis the monitors came across derogatory news headlines

especially in the urdu language newspapers. For example titles like ' Raid on

brothel, 4 people including 3 arrested' the names of females is also

mentioned in the news item. Which is against the code of ethics the fact that the

arrested persons included women was highlighted and the overall impression that

this news item gives is that women are the objects of sex and have everything to do

with brothel houses. This is an example of victimization of women through media.

A news story explains what the lady speaker (Fehimida Mirza) has to say about theth

National Poet (November 9 was the poet's birthday). Ms. Mirza is the first female

speaker of the country but she is portrayed in media in a rather feminine way. Themedia always tries to bring forward the soft aspects of her personality rather than the

important work she does being the first female in an important position in this male

dominant society. Also the space and importance given to the news item containing

her was given less coverage than a male counterpart who got his news printed on the

front page. This clearly depicts the glass ceiling that the females have to face being

in a male dominant world

Similarly there was a story in the newspaper about a famous and popular Top model

and one of the best performing actresses in the country. The story highlights the fact

that despite her achievements, she is 'still a single' the news story explains that she

will be playing the role of late Prime Minister Benzair Bhutto. The reporter's focus is

on asking the actress about when the she plans to tie the knot. This story gives theimpression that no matter how well settled a woman is in her career and no matter

how high she aspires to go she ultimately needs a male in her life to have a safe and

respectable standing in the society. Reading

between the lines helps analyze that her being

married tells the society that she is not 'available'

and no one can harass her or make a pass on her.

However in the newspapers monitored onth

November 10 2009, there was surprisingly one

story found and analyzed as a case study that

challenged stereotypes. The story revolved

around Ms. Naheed Khan (Secretary to latePrime Minister Ms. Benazie Bhutto) her strong

statements against the investigation of the Prime

Minister's murder and the selection of party president were openly explained in the

story. This was an attempt at depicting the powerful role of women in Pakistani

politics that is a positive thing. The noteworthy thing is that her husband who is also

a Senator was referred to as 'her husband' which is unusual because successful

women are usually introduced as some ones 'wife, daughter or sister'. Therefore it

was concluded that this story shows the empowered dimension of women and

challenges the stereotypical image of women in the Pakistani society.

women


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3 Radio:

For Radio it was observed that generally the news revolved around national & local

government elections and politics. In the entire day there was only one women

central news item. It was about a development initiative taken for them. This news

item explained that the Federal Minister for Population Welfare has announced safe-

mother homes and multi-purpose centers for women all over the country. This was

the only positive news item about women.

There news item about the developmental projects in the country where the Prime

Minister was announcing them while addressing the public procession in Gilgit

Baltistan Elections, It was observed that the news had no opinion of the female

population neither did any plan concerned women.

Women could have been made part of the news item by highlighting the

government's agenda for women development. They may have been encouraged to

cast their vote via this particular news item. But unfortunately all of these things

were missing. Therefore we can clearly say that this news story was a missed

opportunity or gender blind.

The analysis work was spread over duration of 2 weeks with at least one hour on

average dedicated to analysis activity every day.

Therefore approximately 10 hours were spent on the analysis of each part of coding.

There were a few problems faced during the analysis compilation like:

The categories for subjective analysis were broad and they needed to be more

specific. Although the guidelines were clear but still it was difficult to understand

and relate with the examples given in the training material. It was suggested to the

GMMP team via the feedback form that for future exercises it will be good to add

examples from the Asian Media.

Compiling the Analysis:


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Uks Research Centre on Women & Media is already a Media watch group and for theUks team both the staff and students, it was a great learning experience. The fact that

we were part of a global activity all happening the same day and date was indeed a

thrilling experience.

Uks has also tried to incorporate the GMMP style of Media monitoring and analysis

in its own media monitoring methodology.

The feedback form, Contextual information form, the transcriptions, the coded sheets

for each medium and the clippings etc were all shared in both hard and soft form with

the GMMP team


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GMMP 2009-2010 and Some Observations from Pakistan

What the GMMP 2009-2010 cannot encompass in one day?

No doubt the Global Media Monitoring Project is a step forward towards theimprovement of current media scenario in the participating countries as it brings outdata based on qualitative and quantitative content analysis on one day in almost 130countries around the world. It was indeed an honour for Uks Research Centre -a

pioneer in media monitoring and analysis in the Pakistan- to participate in thisactivity. As the first timer, Uks research team found the exercise both challengingand exciting. There were, however, some observations that may suggest wayforward for the 2015 GMMP and also for media content analysis in Pakistan.

The big question for Uks is: whether one day's monitoring is enough to gauge themedia's blindness, fairness, support or bias towards women as subjects and sourcesof news content? For example, in Pakistan, monitoring the media on November 10,2009 has not indicated much towards media's gender sensitivity or lack thereof, asthere were no such reports that could bring out these elements. So, the results may bemild or normal and may give an impression that the Pakistani media does not havemuch gender bias in its news and current affairs content. This could be correct forsome days, events or happenings but cannot be presented as a representative picture.There are biases at various levels, from selection of news stories on women to how itis presented, who presents, writes or produces it, what does the tone of the newscaster suggest and how the pictures or visuals are selected. It has also been observedthat whatever the medium, whether on radio, TV and newspapers wherever opinionsare needed the trend is to start with the male voice and at times to forgo the femalevoice at all. During the national budget it is a routine to solicit women's opinionsstrictly as housewives rather than in a professional capacity. There are women whoare expert economists but their voices are severely under projected. So unrelentingis our lack of acknowledgement of women and their issues that even their number iserroneously reported as being at 52% of the population when the census puts it at 48%. Women are still not given their due place either in newsrooms or in news stories.The two factors are directly proportional to each other. It is fact that more women areneeded in the news room to get a fair projection of women related issues howevermedia projection of women in a healthy and productive light is important to shiftsocietal attitudes in favour of women working in the field. Regrettably it is men who

decide what news, views and visuals are to be heard, read and seen. While there aremore women today in the media in the capacity of reporters, camera persons, subeditors, news anchors producers and directors the actual reflection of women's

problems on the airwaves and in print has been hazy to say the least.This male domination of our newsrooms becomes overwhelmingly prominentduring news coverage of disasters or crisis. The October 8, 2005 earthquake inPakistan is just another example of how the media continues to be heavily maledominated. No wonder then that most of the news coverage was devoid of anygender sensitivity, presenting women as mere helpless victims. While men were

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were projected or presented as brave survivors, helping other, media's bias for

reporting sob stories of women survivors was more than obvious. Rather thanbringing up stories of how courageous most of these women were in the givensituation, the focus was more on establishing that women were so dependent ontheir biological completeness, including their eligibility for marriage and ability to

procreate that now since so many had been rendered disabled, many found ituseless to live on.This is just one example. But our media is full of many more citations of gender

biases and blindness. There is a need to address this gender insensitivity. There isalso a need to address some other crucial but hidden (or not so prominent) issues ofharassment at work places and other discriminations meted out to women media

persons. This is why Uks has always felt that it is essential that there be more space

for women's voices and concerns in the media. We have always focused that there isan urgent need to bring forward women's issues and give women and their concernsa proper place in the mainstream media.Keeping in mind the justified or self created limitations that the media is so oftencomplaining about, there is a need to find a way out for making women more

prominent in the media coverage-be it print, electronic-including the internet. Wealso realize that space for - women issues- is shrinking in the media and there is avisible preference for politics, business, sports, entertainment and show business.Another related issue is the Glass Ceiling Effect or the extremely low percentage ofwomen in top media positions.Then we have the gap between the number of female students in departments of

Mass Communication and their visibility in media. All major universities inPakistan have Mass Communications departments with high representation offemale students. In some universities they outnumber male students, yet when itcomes to entering the practical field, we find very few women in the media,especially in the newsrooms.Another important issue is Night Shifts. Women are not put on night shifts becausethat would mean providing transport facilities etc. But women journalist says thatthis is just one way to justify keeping women out of serious journalism.Sexual harassments, unwanted advances, indifferent managements, professionaldemotion, personal vendetta, uneasy relations, generation gap, constant irritantsand character assassination are no less important issues.Thus it is felt that there is an urgent need for regular interaction and networkingwith decision-makers in national publications/production houses, to bring out inthe open the support of like-minded journalists in the media and most important,that of the public.

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The Way Forward

For the 2015 GMMP, Uks would like to suggest a regular media content analysis bythe participating countries through a mutually agreed format. This could be based

ston a one-day every month, for example every 1 of each month, or any othermethodology that would have a relatively bigger sample and include more analysisthan one-day's.Between now and 2015, a regular monitoring of the media is carried out to analysethe media content on how various governments/countries are progressing (orfailing to progress???) on meeting the Millennium Development Goals would helpGMMP in compiling a comprehensive report on the role of media inhelping/supporting policy makers and governments in achieving the MDGs. The

media is growing powerful, especially if we look at the expansion of television andFM radio in many countries, especially in the global South. It is this power that themedia can use to hold governments accountable because achieving the MDGs is

basically a question of governments acting upon their promises, responsibilitiesand obligations to their people. For this the masses must be made aware that it istheir right to know how and what their government is doing to achieve the goals. Itis the media that must play the desired role of continuing informing the publicabout the development goals and how forward or backward the governments are inachieving these. The next step of this monitoring would be to look at the mediacontent through the gender lens.

Similarly, media should also be monitored regularly on what ever happened to

Section J of the Beijing Platform For Action (BPFA) after governmentsadopted it and committed themselves to implementing the recommendations.The 2015 report may include a section of regular monitoring of each partnercountry on the status, profile and progress of women in/and media in theircountry. If we look at the Pakistan scenario, as things stand today, not muchhas been done at the government level to incorporate the clauses in Section J.It is only at the level of media monitoring groups that have been raising theirvoices and concerns on the existing and persisting gender biases in thePakistani media. The National Plan of Action, for example is still way

behind in implementing what it had promised in its last report.Another area that has not really been discussed is how women are portrayed or

projected by the foreign or international media in a country. For example, inPakistan, most of the images that go out as representing or reflecting Pakistaniwomen are majorly faulty. If one were to only depend on the foreign mediaworking in Pakistan, the world will have images of fully veiled women,abused and battered women and women who are paper dolls. The reality,though underrepresented is that women of Pakistan are progressing against allodds. They are making a difference in their lives and impacting upon others.The world never gets to see Pakistani women who are fighter pilots, who are

patrolling officers on highways, who run industries, are heading multi-

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national and even at the grass root levels they are coming forward. This

ignorance, bias or indifference could be witnessed in many countries-howforeign media depicts women of a country.There is need for more intense and comprehensive training and recruitment of

volunteers (media monitors) through collaboration with the partner institutions

must be done well in advance for the next media monitoring activity. In this was the

accuracy of survey can be ensured

GMMP must also look at addressing the following issues through advocacy and

campaigns.

Positive portrayal of women in the media

Better/more representation of women in all tiers on the media

Highlight cases of harassment and discrimination against women in the

media

Provide strength and support to women in media

Initiate open dialogue and critique of media trends that are damaging to

women of and in the media

Promote professionalism, ethics and social responsibility in media

Bring forward success stories of women in the media

Share information and resources

Create awareness on the glass ceiling effect

Endorse gender equality and justice within the media and society

Facilitate a platform for media women and (supportive) men

Support and promote more women inducted in the media

Support and promote better environment and facilities for women working

in the media

Support and promote women breaking the glass ceiling and reaching top

positions

Ensure there is positive and equal coverage of women

Initiate a regular media watch group

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House # 51-A, Street # 63, F- 8/4

Islamabad

Ph: 0518365900, website: www.uksresearch.com,

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