Workshop co-ordinator: Irene Léon,
ALAI (Agencia Latinoamericana de Informacion - Area Mujeres), Quito, Ecuador

Workshop Co-ordinator Irene Léon introduced the workshop by stating its focus on the challenges to the dissemination of information on feminist issues in the media. She stated one of the women's movement's ultimate goals: to gain more space for women in systems of information and world communication, and thereby to increase women's presence in public space.

Ruth Ojiambo-Ochieng of ISIS-WICCE in Uganda was the first presenter. Her presentation focused on print and electronic media in Uganda. She described how media contributes to women's marginalization on a daily basis, but also how women use these same media to challenge a male-centered status quo.
Ojiambo-Ochieng described how the Ugandan media sexualizes and belittles women, using their bodies to sell magazines, and depicting them in stereotypically domestic and sexualized roles. She asserted that Ugandan women activists need to challenge this portrayal of women in media, in order to transform their position in society.
The role of women journalists is to disseminate gender-conscious information, Ojiambo-Ochieng stated. She listed two ways to foster this. First, women journalists need to build ties to the women's movement; and second, women's journalists need to make links between mainstream and alternative media, to strengthen women's voice in mainstream media.

The second presenter was Mylene Sol Cruz, delivering a paper for Chat Garcia Ramilo, of Isis International-Manila in the Philippines. Cruz described the work of Isis International-Manila in counteracting media depictions of violence against women. Part of this work was the paper read by Cruz, a report on the status of women and media in 9 Asian countries (copies of the paper are available on computer disk from Cruz).
Cruz stated that Asian mass media portray women as subservient, use their bodies to increase sales and profits, and frequently depict violence against women. Cruz asserted that this portrayal is linked to the concentration of media control in a few (private, corporate) hands. Asian media, she stated, exists within a global market that alienates women and limits their access to media. The result of this corporatization is the continued predominance of a male perspective in the media.
Cruz proposed that women redefine the meaning of freedom of expression, as a way to challenge this predominance of a male perspective in the media. This redefinition would involve advocating a code of conduct for the media's depiction of women, and developing a tool to analyze media depictions of women, using human development indexes. Doing this, Cruz asserted, would show how media images still perpetuate discrimination against women.
To finish, Cruz presented a video, produced by Isis International-Manila, that showed recent positive images of women in advertisements.

Muthoni Muriu of ENDA-SYNFEV (Synergy Gender and Development, Environment and Development of the Third World) in Senegal was the third presenter.
Muriu began by posing the question of how women can use the internet as another available media tool. Tough "Web-phobia" prevents many from using the internet, she stated, women need to be just as vigilant of their representation on the internet as they are in any other medium, and aware that greater exposure and wider dissemination of information is possible on the internet than in other types of media.
Muriu identified internet networks and co-operatives (like Women'sNet of southern Africa) as a good way to gain access to the internet for women and groups who might not have the opportunity to publish on the Internet by themselves. She identified the internet as a "last link" to amplify women's voices and broadcast them around the world.
The discussion was then brought to the workshop floor, where several participants described their own experiences in the media. Some emphasized the importance of supporting the work of women journalists, and righting the gender balance in the perspectives heard in the mass media. Others identified corporate control of media as a central limiting factor to women's access to, and freedom to express their perspective in the media. Another participant asserted the importance of multi-lingual publication on the internet, to make it accessible to more women. The workshop participants then stopped for a fifteen-minute break.

The next presenter after the break was Zoila Hernandez of Consultoras Tres in Peru.
Hernandez spoke about the publication of Las Capullanas, a women's newspaper published by her organization. The newspaper was started two years ago as an alternative to other Peruvian publications. It is added as an insert to larger newspapers, but has full editorial autonomy. Hernandez stated that the goals of Las Capullanas were to develop the gender awareness of both women and men. , and to encourage women's newspaper readership. She described the newspaper's two-part distribution strategy. First, the paper is inserted into larger newspapers; and second, it is distributed to groups of professional women, university women, and rural women.
Hernandez described Las Capullanas' main challenge: to change society through publication of the newspaper. She described the publication as a challenge to the owners of larger newspapers. She asserted that it raises gender awareness by demonstrating women's ability to do great things (like publish newspapers).

The final presenter was Filius Charo Jere from Women and Farm Radio Fora in Zambia.
Jere described the work of his organization in reaching rural women in Zambia through radio. He stated that radio, as a technology that is available to a large number of people, and in particular to people with few resources, radio is a good tool for development. In 1993, Jere's organization conducted research that documented Zambian radio broadcasting with negative messages about women. The research project also identified social taboos that limited rural Zambian women's access to radio broadcasting.
In a slide presentation, Jere illustrated how rural women's work within the household economy and their position in rural Zambian society limited the time they spent listening to radio. He described how his organization used its research to plan radio broadcasting that addressed the realities of rural women's lives, and that could get around the factors that limit women's radio listening. For instance, his program organized women's radio-listening groups. Jere identified the main strategy for making media accessible to rural women: finding out their needs, and structure media around those needs.

The workshop was then ended with no further discussion, because the time was up.
minutes taken by Sarah Wilson