[Image by Sylvia Nalubega, UGA, Oct/2021, via AWDF/AfriRep]
Who broke-the-story-first?
Violence is a form of expressing power — whether it is exercised by individuals who wield power or those seeking to reclaim it. Thus, in unpacking all forms of violence, we cannot divorce the two – violence and power.
Journalism is able to perpetuate violence against women because it is a socio-political construct through which information, experiences, beliefs, values and thought processes of individuals, communities and societies are reproduced, relayed to a vast audience which in turn often relies on the medium as readers, listeners or viewers. This, in itself, makes journalism and its channels of engagement powerful. Media practitioners assert this power through tools like language, often revising it to fit an intended narrative that mostly aligns with a socially acceptable discourse around critical issues affecting targeted communities and populations.
As we saw in part one of this blog, violence against women does not happen in a vacuum. At its root is a patriarchal system that reinforces unequal power relations between sexes, providing a conducive environment for the reproduction of different forms of violence. In this second part of the blog, I argue that journalism operates within this system, and media practitioners are not exempt from that patriarchal conditioning. And, because of the power journalism holds as it administers its core responsibility of passing knowledge to the public, it has an ability to impact virally, shaping perspectives, and by extension, attitudes among consumers. It is therefore critical that women’s rights organisations and activists insist on journalism practice that aids prevention of violence against women, rather than one that reproduces, approves and normalises it.
Re-traumatisation of survivors, and language as a tool of violence in the media
As seen in part one, many a time, media practitioners have utilised journalism fluidly based on the politics of the day and of the issue being disseminated. In the next paragraphs, I use reflections from feminist journalists to engage on re-traumatisation of survivors, and language as a media tool to narrate the stories of violence experienced by women on the continent.
Feminist journalist and scholar, Wunpini F. Mohammed notes that the problems with media coverage and representation on violence against women are structural. She adds that newsrooms in Ghana parade survivors of rape, and domestic abuse for news consumers with little thought to how these representations will affect them (survivors).
“Ghana’s National Media Commission has a lot of work to do in monitoring insensitive reportage and sanctioning media organisations accordingly. Media organisations also need to do the work of providing more training in gender sensitive reporting to ensure that survivors of violence are not re-traumatised through harmful media narratives.”
Mohammed raises urgent issues for capacity strengthening that target raising consciousness among media practitioners and regulation by overseeing media practice as an institution for accountability to ethics such as ‘do no harm’. These are a great starting point for advocacy and engagement by women’s rights organisations and activists.
On language, Ugandan feminist journalist Jacky Kemigisa says: “language can be weaponised in reporting, as well as in accountability.” Referencing a harassment case in Uganda in which a publication adamantly refers to harassment texts as “love messages”, Kemigisa explains this in contrast with how corruption is reported. “If someone stole money, they would never refer to it as donations to accord the offender the benefit of the doubt. But here, it did not matter that the court charge sheet read harassment. The language switches to perpetuate violence, as a reflection of reporters’ held patriarchal biases against women.”
For a recommendation, Kemigisa notes that the way to counter that structural problem is if media houses have frameworks in place that counter the misogyny that seeps in [to reporting].”
Scaling what we have
It is worth noting here that feminist activists, women’s rights organisations and media houses alike have provided alternative language and methods of reporting. Moreover, they continue to invest in capacity strengthening activities that target media practitioners to raise their consciousness around sociocultural belief systems, patriarchy and implications for disseminating knowledge on violence against women.
Premising on the findings of a report on gender-based violence data in South Sudan which highlights the gap in media coverage of violence against women around protection of survivors, Ayen Achol Deng, a journalist in South Sudan, underscores the impact of journalist training programmes. Deng refers to trainings conducted by internews to highlight the difference made within the sector arguing that “education is paramount in bridging the gap that patriarchal stereotypes and illiteracy have left.”
Activists and women’s rights organisations seeking to undertake the internews approach can consider combining media practitioners and activists to harness intersections from both fields with a focus on gender-based violence. The approach uses mock sessions for media tools like press conferences to allow activists or women’s rights organisations and media practitioners to exchange questions and reflections on critical issues like the ethics of narration.
In South Africa, Gender Links, a women’s rights organisation carries out research and supports media training; providing cross-learning opportunities and small grants for journalists. In addition to advocating the mainstreaming of gender in media studies, their approach offers an adaptable training module that activists and women’s rights organisations can use to engage media practitioners.
Similarly, the GBV Prevention Network which works in 18 African countries has created a 10-page training module for organisations that advocate for better media coverage of violence against women to guide synergies with media practitioners on the continent.
These efforts are one way to address the gap of inadequacy of training tools highlighted in Part one of this story. Yet, perhaps in addition to many more other efforts needed, training modules need to expand beyond a homogenised look at violence against women. Violence leaves devastating effects on most marginalised groups like gender non-conforming persons, and women living with disabilities.
Without inclusive tools and resources that deliberately address the unique challenges faced by women across the board, the conditioned homophobic violence in mainstream media rages on and hinders the shared quest to liberate all women from all forms of violence.
Edna Ninsiima is a Uganda-based young feminist writer and Communications Consultant. This blog is part of a series following the joint launch of the Evidence Generation Guide and in [French] on prevention of violence against women in September 2021 by AWDF, Raising Voices and the Sexual Violence Research Initiative. Read the first blog in this series and access all launch resources here.