Inclusion, Issue 04 (April-June, 2022)
Inclusion (Bulletin Both in English & Bangla Language Based on Monthly & Quarterly Gender Media Monitoring)
South Asia Center for Media in Development (SACMID)
Introduction & Method Media reports cover current issues and events, provide information to the general people for interpretation, mobilize their idea and reshape the culture and the society. Media can play an important role in promotion of gender equality by breaking the patriarchal gender stereotypes. But most of the time they portray women as a sexual object or portray according to society's common gender norm. SACMID is monitoring different media contents of Bangladesh to investigate the representation of men and women in media. It will help to decrease gender discrimination and also contribute in bringing gender equality in media by revealing the gender situation of media in Bangladesh. This 'Inclusion report of South Asia Center for Media in Development (SACMID) has shown that women are portrayed as the victims of sexual or physical violence when they are the subjects of the news items.
A disproportion between male and female representation in all types (print, electronic, online) of media has been found. 'Inclusion' is a part of the PRIMED (Protecting Independent Media for Effective Development) global project in Bangladesh, where SACMID is the local partner of FPU in Bangladesh, working to improve gender sensitivity among Bangladeshi media outlets and to increase the gender diversity of their contents. Moreover, SACMID is also working on capacity building of the journalists and awareness raising of the concerned media-house authorities at a later stage of the project. PRIMED is a project under a global consortium of BBC Media Action, Free Press Unlimited, International Media Support and Media Development Investment Fund, supported by FCDO. SACMID, being the partner of FPU in Bangladesh has been engaged in PRIMED project from April 2021.
SACMID has developed a gender monitoring tool through month long consultation with FPU and on the basis of existing GMM (Gender Media monitoring) tools which constitutes 16-19 variables. For sampling, PRIMED committee has pre-selected three media houses through background research (media-outlet assessment), these are Bangla Tribune, Jamuna Television and Gramer Kagoj. Later SACMID has selected three outlets of the same category as non-PRIMED samples to see whether any changes happen after interventions of PRIMED project.