Gender and Media Handbook: Promoting Equality, Diversity & Empowerment

This handbook aims to help journalists and media professionals in Cyprus and internationally to be sensitive to gender issues such as negative portrayals of women in the media, the lack of women in leadership positions in media organisations, etc., and to provide practical help for people who want to see things change. The handbook is divided into five parts.

• Part one deals with why gender is an issue and with the relationships of gender, gender issues and gender inequality to the workings of the media in general, as well as specifically in Cyprus.
• Part two provides conceptual tools which allow a rethinking of gender, media power and social change in such a way so that gender inequality, and the roles of the media in supporting it, can be better and more systematically understood and challenged. This part also presents and discusses gender sensitive practices in media production, both in news and fiction, and the ways in which they can help to promote gender equality.
• Part three focuses on the associations or networks of professional women in the media around the world, and the many ways in which they help and support women and work against gender inequality in the workplace. It also includes information on the efforts and initial steps taken to create such a women's network of media professionals in Cyprus in 2004.
• Part four provides an overview of various forms of women's media, and gender and media organisations throughout the world; and discusses their goals, activities, the obstacles they have overcome and their achievements in working for gender equality.
• Part five contains eight appendices with information on how to use this handbook for training purposes as well as practical resources, tools and contacts, articles on gender and the media, and a bibliography for further and in-depth reading on the issues discussed throughout this handbook.

This handbook is the final stage of a year long project entitled Gender, Conflict and the Media: Working Towards Egalitarianism and Peace, undertaken by the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies. It is the culmination of a year's worth of activities which aimed to promote public awareness and discussion of gender inequality and the ways that the media can support or challenge it; to foster change in the ways the media represent women and gender issues; and to work toward gender equality in the Cypriot media workplace.