Report on a presentation by Hoda Badran, Community Media Network, Jordan

Made at WACC's Congress 2008 in Cape Town

The directory is the outcome of recommendations at a training workshop on gender and media advocacy for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The workshop was one in a series of regional training seminars organised in the context of the follow-up to the 3rd Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) held in 2005. The MENA workshop was coorganized by WACC and Community Media Network (formerly known as AmmanNet) in Jordan in December, 2006. Participants from gender and media organisations in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria attended.

The GMMP found that expert opinion in the news is overwhelmingly male. Women barely make the news as authorities and experts. Men constitute 83% of the experts in the news and 86% of spokespersons. By contrast, women appear in personal capacity as eye witnesses, giving personal views or as representatives of popular opinion. Women's opinions from their standpoints as professionals are silenced in the news in as much as the women are invisible as experts.

Such reporting has implications at the individual, the family and societal levels. It constitutes a structural barrier for women's progress as professionals and negates their contribution and participation in societal development.

The directory of women experts is intended to mitigate these gaps by making available a reference tool for journalists and reporters committed to producing gender-equitable news content.

Badran explained that the directory would be a reference tool for journalists and reporters as well as increase the number of women offering advice and information on different issues in their capacity as experts.

Community Media Network in collaboration with a local information technology (IT) company developed a bilingual (Arabic/English) website to host the online directory. Populating the directory entailed innumerable telephone calls to women renowned in their fields to lobby for their support by way of agreeing to be included in the directory. The women as well provided additional names of other women to be contacted and facilitated links with the new contacts.

The website was launched in July, 2008 and an email with the link to the site was circulated to all the contacts in the directory. While the website is already live, it is also a work in progress. It is searchable by country and its functionality will be improved by making it searchable by theme as well.

Efforts to popularize the directory in media houses in the MENA region are underway to ensure the directory becomes an indispensable tool for gender-conscious media practitioners committed to producing gender-fair, genderbalanced media content

Please try visiting the directory of women experts.

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