Global Media Monitoring Project ( GMMP )

Abstract

The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) seeks to bring news media accountability into the struggle for gender equality and women's human rights. In five‐year spurts since 1995, it has generated global, regional, and national comparative time series data and analyses on gender equality in news media content. It is a feminist applied media research project born out of concern about the lack of respect for the integrity and dignity of women in the mass media. Referred to as “one of the most far‐reaching collective enterprises of the global women's movement” (Gallagher, 2014), the GMMP has attracted a vast network of volunteer media monitors in more than 100 countries who are concerned about women's freedom of expression and communication rights. The GMMP's statistical findings since 1995 have been remarkably stable: Women's severe underrepresentation has persisted as has their relative invisibility in the news in contrast to men. The outcome of underrepresentation is an imbalanced picture of the world, one in which women are largely absent. The monitoring research has equally shown a dearth of women's voices in contrast to men's perspectives in news journalism, resulting in content that presents a male‐centered view of the world. GMMP findings from 1995 to 2015 attest to a snail's pace rate of change toward news media content that reflects the reality of women's presence and participation in society. Some transformations have resulted from the critical awareness and evidence emerging from the GMMP.