In cooperation with the OSCE Mission to Serbia, WPN organised the round table called “Women in the Media” in the National Assembly Building. The round table served as a platform to present the findings of the survey on the position of women in media called “Who Makes the News”, conducted within the GLOBAL Media Monitoring Project in 2015.
The Chairing Coordinator of WPN Vera Paunović listed the achievements and the goals that the WPN had achieved in the past three years, motivated by the principle of promoting women’s solidarity, knowledge and expertise.
“The women MPs have established WPN whose priority is to encourage women to partake in the political and public life. Today, WPN continues to operate in its second term, and each year, it broadens the range of its activities and improves its work,” said Vera Paunović. She added that the Network had organised three National Conferences so far, as well as one Regional Conference, and many smaller events aiming to empower women. As one of the Network’s biggest results, she underlined the adoption of four out of six submitted amendments to the Budget Law for 2016 and to the Law on Amending the Law on Budgetary System.
Zorana Mihajlović, Head of the Gender Equality Coordination Body and Deputy Prime Minister, said that, when one mentioned gender equality, the most frequent topics were gender-based violence and economic independence of women. This meant that our society did not speak enough about the position of women in public life. “Together with the media, our aim is to try to present women in public life in a different manner and make them more visible,” said Zorana Mihajlović. She emphasised that the questions asked to men and women in public life were dramatically different, which meant that this field needed more work.
Snežana Milivojević, professor of the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, presented the findings of the survey “Who Makes the News” conducted within the GLOBAL Media Monitoring Project in 2015, which was implemented every five years. Ms. Milivojević said that this was the fifth time this survey was conducted, now in the same year in which we marked the anniversary of the Beijing Gender Equality Declaration. The aim of the survey was to analyze the presence of women in a very specific part of public life – the media. The one-day monitoring included eighteen media outlets and 258 articles. In articles on political topics, women were the active subject in only 14%, whereas in the news 7% of active subjects were women experts.
When it comes to news creators, on the day of the monitoring, 71% of them consisted of women, but men were still on managerial positions, the survey showed.
Stefana Miladinović, one of the Coordinators of WPN, opened the discussion with the representatives of the media and the MPs. The event was also attended by Brankica Janković, Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, and Jan Lueneburg, Head of the Democratisation Department of the OSCE Mission to Serbia. The following media outlets have covered the event:
http://www.tanjug.rs/full-view.aspx?izb=219270
http://www.tanjug.rs/full-view.aspx?izb=219261
http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/sr/story/125/Dru%C5%A1tvo/2140951/Istra%C5%BEivanje%3A+%C5%BDene+su+subjekti+u+manje+od+%C4%8Detvrtine+vesti.html
http://niskevesti.rs/index.php/drustvo/item/7258-nezavidan-polozaj-zena-u-medijima-u-srbiji
http://www.alo.rs/zene-u-medijima-manje-zastupljene-od-muskaraca/24043
http://www.danas.rs/danasrs/drustvo/zene_prave_vesti_muskarci_rukovode_.55.html?news_id=312880