How should the mass media treat gender-based violence?
What can mass media, and television in particular, do to eradicate gender-based violence? How can marginalisation of so-called "feminist" journalists be avoided? These are some of the questions journalists, researchers and activists will be discussing on Thursday 16 and Friday 17 June at an international seminar in Barcelona.
"This seminar will serve to discuss what mass media can do to help raise social awareness of gender-based violence", says UAB lecturer Xavier Giró.Last year alone, over 120,000 women in Spain reported being victims of gender-based violence. Since 1999, over 1,000 women have died as a result of gender-based violence, and a large majority of these were murdered by their current or former partner or spouse.
"This seminar will serve to discuss what mass media can do to help raise social awareness of gender-based violence", explains Xavier Giró, lecturer in Communications Studies at the UAB, organiser of the seminar and director of the Observatory for Conflict Coverage.
The international seminar entitled “Mitjans i violències masclistes en la parella heterosexual” (Media and Gender-Based Violence in Heterosexual Couples), which will take place on 16 June, there will be three round tables which will deal with how to prevent violence by introducing affective-sexual education in primary and secondary schools; the functioning of the violence cycle, the tasks and situation of organisations and resources specialising in attention, accompaniment, recovery and reparation, as well as specialised courts; and a discussion will be held on the tasks which can help to transform the opinions of society and those around us in order to turn us into agents of change, as well as the role mass media can adopt to help raise awareness on gender-based violence.
On Friday 17 June, the seminar will focus on police circuits and protocols, shortcomings in the legal system, and protection measures and psychological accompaniment. The first debate will question whether reporting violence to the police and putting the problem in the hands of the justice system is the best solution. The seminar will end with a debate on how to make the perspective of gender present in all training and coverage sectors, and how to avoid the marginalisation of journalists who define themselves as feminists.
Speakers will include UAB lecturers and researchers as well as professionals from other centres, activists and technicians, lawyers, psychologists, police members and journalists.
The seminar is open to journalists, media companies, activists, university students and the public in general. It has been organised by ORIGEN (Observatori Regular per la Igualtat de Gènere en Noticiaris), a project by SUDS and the Observatory for Conflict Coverage, funded by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation.
ORIGEN, a project seeking to contribute to the eradication of gender-based violence
With the aim of helping eradicate gender-based violence, ORIGEN intends to work on the improvement of coverage in the news offered by six television channels (TVE, TV3, A3TV, T5, Cuatro and La Sexta) with regard to local, national and international cases.
Every week, ORIGEN publishes constructive criticism from a gender perspective - ‘Apunt’ - on the information available in this subject, and offers an exhaustive view on a specific case and features one or two highlighted aspects. These are them submitted to the media, journalists, persons and groups working towards the eradication of gender-based violence.
SEMINAR PROGRAMME
Dates: 16 and 17 June
Place: Seu de la La Fede - Carrer Tàpies 1, Barcelona
Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.