HOW UGANDAN MEDIA DEAL WITH GENDER

RELATED ISSUES IN THEIR REPORTING

Emma Were Belinda

Uganda Media Centre Office of the President

What is Gender?

 Gender refers to the socially constructed roles and relationships

between men and women in a particular societal setting.
However, feminist-sociological view maintains that the concept
of gender refers to the socially and culturally constructed
dimensions of ones biological sex.

 Women are the majority in any society and they play a key role
in the development process including participating in domestic
and economic activities and reproductive roles including taking
care of children.

How Ugandan media deal with gender related issues

in their reporting

 Uganda is very liberal and highly democratic in terms of media

freedoms and expressions. When National Resistance
Movement came into power in 1986, Uganda witnessed the
growth of a vibrant media industry that covers different interests
and views.
Following the liberalisation of the media industry in the early
1990s, the total number of licensed media outlets is over 250
including both operational and non-operational ones.

 There are cases when the government in power has had skirmishes
with the media over some alleged acts of unprofessionalism but
even then the media has continued to grow. World over, most
gender related imbalances affect women more than men and
therefore,

One of the tenets of the NRM government is promoting affirmative

action or what came to be known as women emancipation. Since
1986, there has been a deliberate action by government to promote
gender equality in Uganda and the main channel of achieving this
was making a strategic alliance with the media.

 It must be noted that one of the cardinal role of any media house in any part
of the world is the promotion of equality through denouncing any form of
marginalization and victimization. Therefore, promoting any women cause in
Uganda has become an unwritten rule that any media organization in
Uganda has to champion. Uganda has not achieved 100% gender reporting
but there are deliberate actions to accord gender related reporting enough
space.

Uganda female journalists came up with an association called Uganda

media womens association (UMWA)

 Recently, a group of Pakistanis living in Uganda sexually assaulted a female worker and her
case was not handled well by the police in terms of according her justice. Fortunately, the
media got to know about it and accorded it front-page coverage; subsequently coverage of her
case was sustained for over a month across all outlets. This was the genesis to receiving
justice and subsequent compensation.
The recruitment of women journalists in key managerial positions has also enhanced gender
reporting. For example the managing editor of Vision Group, the biggest media outlet is a lady
called Barbara Kaija who in her capacity promotes this cause.
Nation Television (NTV) is managed by Aggie Konde who is also a woman. Most lecturers in
the top Public universities teaching journalism and communication studies are women. The
likes of Prof. Nassanga Goretti, Monica Chibita, Dr Litho Patricia, Dr Kasimbazi Annette and
have made it a point to promote gender sensitive journalism which in turn has been
replicated by the practicing journalists in Uganda. These managers have made gender
reporting a core value in those media organizations.

Challenges

 It is not all rosy with Ugandan media. Cases of media dualism

are so glaring. By dualism I mean the unbalanced media
coverage between the sophisticated urban Ugandans and the
hard to access rural poor where most media outlets find it
difficult to reach.

 The other challenge is of course commercial. Like earlier

mentioned, most media houses are privately owned. There is
only one public broadcaster in Uganda, Uganda Broadcasting
Corporation (UBC).

 Internal policies within media houses have been mentioned as

limiting to gender-sensitive reporting in Ugandas mainstream
media.

Conclusion