The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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End News Media Sexism

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"A campaign to remind news media of their responsibility to uphold professional ethics on fair coverage, balance, accuracy and non-discrimination."

With an eye to ending news media sexism by 2020, the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) Network, and other partners launched the End News Media Sexism campaign on Human Rights Day, December 10 2016. The campaign start date is meant to underline gender equality in the media as a human rights issue, challenging media outlets to take professional ethics for gender-fair practice seriously.

Communication Strategies

The campaign is using interactive online tools in the effort to encourage and assist national advocacy to change media policy and journalistic practice. The campaign aims to support and highlight intensive efforts in several countries with the hope that new evidence will emerge on strategies that work to bring about fair and equal representation of women and men in the news media.

The End News Media Sexism website offers various tools - some in French and/or Spanish - for audiences to gain a critical awareness of gender issues in media content and to engage with their local media. The tools available here include: a quiz on sexism in the media that one can then share on social media; a scorecard on which media is rated on their performance on key indicators of gender-sensitive reporting; an Instagram campaign to share good practices in real situations using the hashtag #endmediasexism; a solidarity bracelet; a letter-writing campaign to lobby policymakers for gender-fair, gender-balanced media; online puzzles and games; a gender and media advocacy training toolkit (see Mission Possible in Related Summaries, below); and other resources.

Development Issues

Gender, Rights

Key Points

The campaign is informed by the results of media monitoring research by the GMMP network in 114 countries. Conducted over a 20-year period, the research found persistent severe disparity between news media portrayal and representation of women and men. On several key indicators of gender equality in the media, the research revealed that progress had either slowed down or ground to a halt.

Sources

"WACC Launches 'End News Media Sexism' Campaign", WACC, December 9 2016, and End News Media Sexism website, both accessed on January 13 2017. Image credit: Brad Collicott