Women in the News: Strengthening the Voice and Visibility of Women in the African Media's Coverage of Elections, Politics and Governance

This toolkit, published by Inter Press Service (IPS) Africa, is a product of the multi-faceted "Strengthening the Voice and Visibility of Women in Elections in Africa" project funded by the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) and administered by UNIFEM in Africa. Through linked communications and training activities the project aims to achieve higher visibility of female candidates in the media during election processes. To assist with this objective, this toolkit seeks to provide a framework for training that is designed for women politicians and the journalists who cover them.

The handbook has six chapters, each focusing on a different topic relevant to gender, politics, and the media.

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Media and rights - The objective of this chapter is to lay a foundation for understanding some of the key gender and media issues.
• Chapter 3: Understanding why gender equality in politics and political processes is integral to democracy - This chapter is designed to build capacity of women politicians to speak on democracy and political processes, and increase media's understanding of why gender equality in politics is so important.
• Chapter 4: Women, Politics, and News - This chapter outlines for the media and women politicians some of the gender biases and prejudices that influence the media's coverage of women in politics and the public sphere.
• Chapter 5: Framing issues from a women's rights and gender equality perspective - This chapter is aimed more at women politicians to help them understand the important role they can play in framing all issues they speak on from a women's rights and gender equality perspective, and how to do this. It also seeks to help the media understand how conflicting messages can be conveyed if their coverage is gender neutral or gender blind.
• Chapter 6: Understanding how to engage with the media - The objective of this chapter is to build knowledge of women politicians on how to work with the media.

The toolkit also contains editorial checklists at the end of chapters two - four to provide some pointers to the media. Text boxes throughout the chapters contain discussion points and information that can be used to facilitate training sessions with women politicians, the media, or both groups together. A list of resources is also provided to guide the media and women politicians.