STATE OF PRESS FREEDOM IN SOUTHERN AFRICA REPORT 2021 20 the most targeted people are women and girls, human rights defenders, activists, politicians, journalists, social media influencers and celebrities, and politicians. The above mentioned report, supported by Meta, which was initiated by consulting agency NamTshuwe Digital and conducted through various partners, further indicates that not only are prominent women and girls more often than not the victims of ICT enabled violence, it also emphasises that even ordinary women and girls in society are suffering from violence online. This article provides an analysis of how ICT enabled violence manifests in the media in Southern Africa, with particular emphasis on gender. Its findings are based on the above-mentioned report supported by Meta Southern Africa Public Policy set to be published by the University of Pretoria in the near future. Through a birds-view approach, this article shares diverse case studies from the eight countries of focus, with the aim to present the multi-faceted manifestation and impact of ICT generated violence in the media industry from a gender intersection. This article is aimed at shedding light on this unfolding social crisis facing women in the media. ICT ENABLED VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN THE MEDIA It has been acknowledged that there is a dearth of literature on ICT enabled violence in Africa. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that the vice mimics real world violence that journalists face offline. The full extent of online violence against female journalists remains, for the most part, unknown, particularly in Southern Africa. This is partly because of conservative practices that female journalists and women sources have been subjected to and treated in an industry that is characterised by oppressive patriarchal cultures that inhibit individual women from speaking out, and limit women, girls and marginalised groups from accessing and utilising the internet and its associated technologies. Notwithstanding the wellknown fact that digital inequality is endemic in Africa, including Southern Africa, women and girls are increasingly becoming more active on the internet and social media platforms, which consequently has resulted in them facing violence online in the forms of cyber harassment, trolling, stalking, body shaming and non-consensual creation of sexual images through artificial intelligence. These are perpetrated by violators, who take advantage of technical affordances of the internet and social media platforms, by hiding under the cloak of anonymity to inflict harm on vocal and visible female journalists, activists and politicians, confirming the globally acknowledged evidence that the violence online is gendered. While it’s crucial to emphasise that the scourge of violence is gendered, men and boys also fall victim to this emerging practice. In general, there are several concepts that are often used synonymously to refer to ICT enabled violence. The commonly identified ones are cyber harassment, cyberbullying, hate speech; cyberstalking, non-consensual pornography — or imagebased sexual abuse, or nonconsensual sharing of intimate images, is the distribution of sexual acts in video or picture format without the individual’s consent; trolling and doxing (4) (5) (6) (7) EVIDENCE OF GENDER-BASED ICT ENABLED VIOLENCE AGAINST FEMALE JOURNALISTS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA The 2021 report by UNESCO and ICFJ highlights that ICT enabled violence is highly complicated, due to its intersectional nature and the evidence provided in this section supports this position by presenting the myriad of ways on how women in the media are experiencing the violence online. From abusive online comments and cyber harassment, to the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes through social media and online imagery, this section details incidents collected from online sources including opinion and editorial pieces, news reports and research studies collected to inform this report. The evidence here supports findings of the UN Women in their report on online and ICT facilitated violence against women that not only are women and girls disproportionately affected, women in politics and the media are at higher risk due to their public personas and nature of work. (8) It is reported that the violence online often becomes worse when women in the media belong to LGBTIQ and other disenfranchised groups. Below