Threats from within the media By Raashied Galant Project Coordinator, Gender and Media Advocacy Program, Cape Town, RSA F or the past two years – 2006-2007 – media freedom in South Africa has experienced a sustained onslaught. Part of this onslaught has come from a combative judiciary (or perhaps the courts that have been riled into action by powerful parties eager to run to the courts), resulting in judgements that have often weighed significantly against the media. The other part of the onslaught has come from political forces either in the form of lawmakers changing tune or taking chances to impose controls, or from the ruling party and its attitudes and policy considerations around the media. The most recent being the proposal of a media tribunal by the ANC. Nevertheless, seething under this onslaught from above, and perhaps even contributing to it, is the persistent erosion of the public’s trust and support for the media and its dominant discourse of freedom from any legal regulations. This erosion of trust is not the result of popular political posturing but growing anger and resentment at the media’s indifference and failure to respond to or effectively engage with public sentiment about its content, particularly with respect to gender representation. Here my experiences in doing gender activism work and specifically in the Alerts & Complaints programme has been most instructive. The Alerts & Complaints programme involved a series of critical media literacy workshops with members of the public, with the specific aim of developing the capacity of participants to use the media regulatory mechanisms to respond to gender-related issues in the media. The programme was implemented by the Gender Advocacy Programme (GAP) in mainly the Western Cape late in 2006, and continued into 2007. Among the first things that strikes you is the absence of clear guidelines on gender representation in voluntary media codes except in the all-encompassing provisions on hate speech and disclosure of the identities of survivors of rape and sexual assault. Following that we have sophisticated blocks that prevent all but the very educated or very media savvy from actually engaging with the self regulating mechanisms. These include either complicated procedures for lodging complaints, the lack of publicity of actual codes of conduct, the maligning and abusive dismissal of those actually taking up complaints relating to gender, and the failure to openly engage with the public around the make-up of tribunal structures and their codes. The impression thus is that these are media-packed structures aimed at glossing over ethical violations or stalling any meaningful challenge to the media’s approach and practice with respect, particularly, to the representation of women. And here no doubt the issue is about the continued objectification of women in daily papers and vulgar and offensive language often accompanying articles and reports on gender issues such as women’s health and lifestyle. For gender activists involved in the Alerts & Complaints programme, the media are acting with impunity and more and more their sympathies are So This Is Democracy? 2007 -8- Media Institute of Southern Africa