A recent report in The New York Times, For Many in Pakistan, a Television Show Goes Too Far, flags a raging controversy that “could well be the beginning of a media consumer rights movement” in the country

Now that it is well past midnight EST and I’m no longer keeping new content off of WIMN’s Voices as part of the SOPA Strike against online censorship, I can finally post my favorite thing on the Internet on Jan. 18.
Hipster puppies? A perennial favorite, but no. A video of the Muppets edited to […]

WHAT: “Women, Media, Revolution,” the 2011 Women PeaceMakers Forum
WHEN: October 5 - 7, 2011
WHERE: University of San Diego, Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Theatre
COST: None; Events are free and open to the public and the media.
When I founded Women In Media & News in 2001, it was with the core principle that […]

Reading Carolyn Byerly’s recent post, “Keeping two eyes on the Global Report on Status of Women in News,” reminded me to post — way belatedly — my live blog of the IWMF plenary panel last March on news-organization best practices around the world. I was privileged to attended the IWMF conference as a volunteer, […]

The trick for feminists has long been to keep one eye keenly fixed to the deeper problems afflicting us while letting the other eye see signs of progress. The prickly but familiar dialectical relationship of progress and recalcitrance have left many of us cross-eyed through the years.

So it is again with the findings in the Global Report on the Status of Women in News Media that was published earlier this spring by the project’s sponsor International Women’s Media Foundation.

The 4th Gender and Media Summit ended in Johannesburg on Friday with a strong statement linking the findings of recent global and regional studies on the representation of women in the content of news media with issues relating to freedom of expression, democracy and citizen participation, and pointing out that, while more blatant forms of censorship may be subsiding in southern Africa, the region’s media daily silence large segments of the population, notably women.

The most recent example of that comes from the BBC website where a story about an Internet survey has the title “Mothers ‘Harder on Daughters Than Sons’, Poll Suggests.”

The survey, carried out by a U.K. website called Netmums, is based on self-selection, not a random sample. This means that the results cannot be generalized beyond the respondents of the survey, but that is exactly what seems to be happening, from the BBC to Fox News!

But that’s not all that is wrong with the popularizations of this survey or the survey itself. The most glaring error:

More than half of the 2,672 mothers questioned (55%) said they had formed a stronger bond with their boys

Let’s have a look at the actual study results:
2. What gender are your children?

* All girls - 23.2%
* All boys - 30.8%
* Both girls and boys - 46%

9. If you have children of both genders, did you find it easier to bond with one of your children than the other(s)?

* Yes - 27.8%
* No - 72.2%

10. If yes, please specify whether you found it easiest to bond with your:

* Son - 54.9%
* Daughter - 45.1%

I wrote this article on media literacy for On The Issues Magazine’s Spring ‘10 edition, published today. To explore the theme of this edition, “The Feminist Mind,” contributors look at ways readers can enhance their understanding of feminist and progressive values.
Media Literacy: Piercing Content and Who Controls It
by Jennifer L. Pozner
On The Issues magazine, […]

In every competition, there’s a winner and a loser.
The open Internet protections being debated by the Federal Communications Commission right now will determine who wins and who loses in the fight over whether big companies or regular people will control the Internet. I want everyday people to win.
In the fight over who will control the […]

Less than a quarter of the people heard, seen or read about in mainstream broadcast and print news worldwide is female, according to a new study.