The Role Of The Media In Promoting Women Emancipation In Uganda: A Case Study Of Ntv Uganda

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research questions, scope of the study, and significance of the study. 1.1 Background of the study The mass media have been found to play a critical role in maintaining the gender-power imbalance, passing on dominant, patriarchal and sexist values. But such a situation is not inherent in the nature of media. They can instead be agents of development and progress if guided by clear, socially relevant policies. Their hoped-for positive contribution to women’s advancement will only take place in the context of a framework that clearly defines policy objectives, maps out actions and decisions which comprise the particular policy, defines the minimum standards to be met by all participants in the process, and provides mechanisms for assessing progress towards policy objectives (Walch et czl, 1999). The media, as an important agent of socialization in the modern world, either support or contest cultural conceptions, and have a significant impact on the social construction of gender. The media’s effects operate at the level of gender belief systems, affecting individual beliefs and opinions about males and females, and about the purported qualities of masculinity and femininity. Race, class and gender are the main axes of social differentiation, with gender being the most recently recognized perspective for academic investigation, including policy studies. However, gender still receives little recognition in the analysis and formulation of all types of policy, 7 particularly at the State level. Because of the economic hardships suffered by many developing countries in the 1970s and 1980s, Governments had to change their development focuses and State policies in order to redress the shortage of foreign exchange available to service debts. But structural adjustment policies redirected resources away from programmes which are people-centered to those which are profit-centered. Women were hit hardest by the redirection of resources made necessary by structural adjustment, (UNIFEM-WAR0, 1999). Therefore, as in other areas of policy, it is useful to conduct gender-focused analyses of what impact there has been on the process of creating, allocating and using communication resources to achieve the goals of the system.