Abstract
This chapter discusses the trajectory of women, gender, and feminist issues within IAMCR, highlighting research themes that were the focus of the work of the Gender and Communication Section. The engagement of women and feminist scholars in IAMCR with gender and communication issues within global policy debates is also discussed, demonstrating how knowledge and scholarship have been used to advocate for change.
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Notes
- 1.
This was also a landmark election, in which two of the three candidates were women, with Divina Frau-Meigs polling in second place.
- 2.
Less than a year later, in April 1969, Irene Tetelowska tragically died in a plane crash near Krakow.
- 3.
All cited IAMCR presidential letters in this chapter are available at https://iamcr.org/node/10510. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 4.
Much later, Peggy Gray’s immense contribution to IAMCR would be publicly acknowledged. In 2007, at the 50th anniversary Conference in Paris, she was appointed an honorary member of the association; at the 2016 Conference in Leicester, she received the IAMCR Distinguished Contribution Award (see Chap. 34 in this collection).
- 5.
The title was one of several study themes proposed by an International Advisory Panel on Communication Research set up by UNESCO in 1971. The panel and its work, which continued until 1975, is described in Nordenstreng (1994).
- 6.
See IAMCR Presidential Letter, December 1976.
- 7.
The Caracas Conference was typical of IAMCR Conferences at that time. For instance, the presidential letter of November 1980 reports that all eight papers at the plenary sessions were presented by men.
- 8.
- 9.
From the outset, the newsletter was designed to reflect a broader constituency than IAMCR itself. It was a truly international resource on women’s/feminist communication scholarship. Each of the 13 issues—some of which ran to more than 70 pages—included reports on research projects, books, meetings, and conferences from around the world.
- 10.
See IAMCR Newsletter, Sex-Roles Within Massmedia, November 1984, p. 12.
- 11.
Discussion on the merits of this move actually began three years earlier in the December 1986 issue of the newsletter.
- 12.
The paper (Gallagher, 1984)—one of several presented in the first plenary session after the main address by Johan Galtung—was invited at the suggestion of Olga Linné, Chair of the Sociology and Social Psychology Section, and a member of the Conference Planning Committee.
- 13.
IAMCR Newsletter, October 1992, p. 9.
- 14.
IAMCR Newsletter, March 1997, p. 7-8.
- 15.
For instance, the Conference Committee for the 1996 Sydney Conference announced its intention that “women academics play a prominent role in the plenary sessions as speakers, moderators, chairpersons, or all of these”: IAMCR Newsletter, November 1995, p. 1.
- 16.
Details of the conference are reported in IAMCR Newsletter, November 2002, p. 14.
- 17.
IAMCR Newsletter, November 1996, p. 11.
- 18.
Comparison is made with the 2019 Madrid Conference as the extenuating circumstances of the virtual conferences in 2020 and 2021 meant the Section hosted only one video session of papers, with members invited to upload conference papers to an online portal for others to comment on.
- 19.
The number of joint sessions with other WGs and Sections has waned in tandem with the Section’s growth. The latest joint session was held in 2015 (Montreal) with the WG on Global Media Policy.
- 20.
Conference programs, calls for abstracts, and IAMCR newsletters were collated, and a database of session titles and paper presentations was produced. Due to a lack of available material, session titles for the following conferences are not included in the quantitative analysis: Budapest, 2001; Porto Alegre, 2004; Cartagena, 2017. In several cases, individual paper titles were instead available and the overall analysis draws together the broad picture provided by session titles with a more nuanced perspective available from the diversity of paper presentations.
- 21.
Stop words were removed and the frequency of some similar words (for example, “women” and “women’s”) were combined to provide a summary of the general themes of conference session titles.
- 22.
IAMCR Newsletter, November 1997, p. 26.
- 23.
IAMCR 2009 Mexico City Conference program. https://iamcr.org/sites/default/files/PROGRAMME-IAMCR2009-MEXICO.pdf Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 24.
IAMCR Newsletter, November 2002, p. 21.
- 25.
IAMCR Newsletter, November 1996, p. 11.
- 26.
This WG was in existence during the 1990s.
- 27.
IAMCR Newsletter, November 1996, p. 11.
- 28.
- 29.
From the Forum booklet and agenda, p. 2.
- 30.
Points on the agenda included overview of GAMAG and UNESCO’s role, research agenda, key initiatives, communication guidelines, GAMAG Action Plan, GAMAG structure, GAMAG legal character, and financial responsibilities.
- 31.
The mandate of the Research and Policy Committee was to establish an online clearinghouse and knowledge community as a central repository on gender and media; to connect other existing platforms; to commission and disseminate research to aid the development of action, including gender indicators to account for the participation of women and girls in the communicative environment; to create regional observatories; to monitor the safety of women working in the media; and to constitute a think tank that would develop and put forward a research agenda in relation to media and gender which develops new areas for investigation in response to challenges emerging from contemporary changes in the media environment.
- 32.
Some of these projects have been funded by the UNESCO International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC).
- 33.
The Network is currently co-chaired by IAMCR members Aimée Vega Montiel and Claudia Padovani, together with Lisa French (RMIT, Australia). The network website is accessible at http://www.unitwin.net. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 34.
See https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000228399. Accessed 15 June 2022. The publication was crucial in outlining ideas on emerging research topics. The main themes were violence of gender, media, and information; women’s access to media and information; gender media policies and strategies; and gender, education, and media information literacy.
- 35.
The project was designed and coordinated between 2017 and 2019 by IAMCR members Karen Ross and Claudia Padovani, and the resulting platform includes a database of good practices, a set of learning units, interviews with professionals and experts, and a global interactive map of relevant organizations. All materials are accessible at: https://www.agemi-eu.org. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 36.
The GEM project was developed by IAMCR members and ran between 2017 and 2020. The resulting volume edited by Monika Djerf-Pierre and Maria Edström (2020) is available at https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publikationer/comparing-gender-and-media-equality-across-globe. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 37.
The UniTWIN Network on Gender, Media, and ICTs held it meeting on July 4; the GEM project invited a number of participating scholars to its first public presentation on July 6; and the Advancing Gender Equality in Media Industries (AGEMI) team organized a hands-on workshop to teach how to make use of its online platform and resources on 10 July.
- 38.
Both volumes are available on UNESCO website at https://en.unesco.org/gamagandunitwin. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 39.
The position paper was the basis for two caucus meetings: one with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive-Director of UN Women; the second with Saniye Gülser Corat, Director of UNESCO’s Division for Gender Equality, both of whom supported the GAMAG position. The paper also allowed GAMAG to make a political statement during the side event on Gender and Media held during the 2015 CSW and to call for media and ICTs to be moved to the core of the gender equality agenda.
- 40.
The Official Agreed Conclusion can be read at https://press.un.org/en/2018/wom2145.doc.htm. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 41.
This included a Report in 2019 on “Violence against women journalists” addressed to the special rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences, and a petition in support of Philippino journalist Maria Ressa; a ‘Shadow Report’ to the 9th Periodic Review of the Mexican Government before the CEDAW; and the coordination of two official sessions on the BPfA Section J at the Generation Equality Forum in Mexico (March 2021). All GAMAG documents can be found at https://gamag.net. Accessed 15 June 2022.
- 42.
A series of national position papers was then prepared, spanning Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Ecuador, El Salvador, Italy, Ireland, Morocco, Romania, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela. All national reports can be accessed on the GAMAG website at https://gamag.net/2020/01/22/beijing-25-gender-media-and-icts/. Accessed 15 June 2022.
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Gallagher, M., Luxton, L., Padovani, C. (2023). Women, Gender, Feminism: Status, Scholarship, and Advocacy. In: Becker, J., Mansell, R. (eds) Reflections on the International Association for Media and Communication Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16383-8_7
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