Overview and goals
The Advancing Gender Equality in Media Industries (AGEMI) project takes an innovative and integrated approach to combating gender stereotypes and promoting an equal, diverse and inclusive media sector.
It has three primary elements:
- a Resources Bank of good practices
- a set of learning resources
- and encounters between media and journalism students and media professionals.
It has been developed by a group of researchers and practitioners from three universities (Newcastle, Padova, Gothenburg) and two associations of media professionals (EFJ and COPEAM).
Working together in an interdisciplinary team of educators and media professionals has enabled us to produce materials and resources which benefit both students and media professionals.
We know that the media industry, as with all other professions, have not achieved gender equality in terms of access, representation or decision-making, but we also know that there are many examples of good practice which have been initiated by individual media organisations in an effort to respond to the problem of inequality.
By raising awareness of both the problems of gender inequality but also the range of good practices which have been developed to address them, media and journalism students are encouraged to develop strategies which will support them in developing a gender-sensitive practice when they enter the industry.
AGEMI also recognises the importance of interactions between students and media professionals and includes different types of encounter, for example we organized a summer school and internships to enable mutual learning and we have collaborated with other projects - Erasmus Virtual Exchange and the UNESCO UniTWIN Network on gender Media and ICT - for knowledge exchange.
This approach maximises the potential for transformative changes in attitudes (through awareness-raising), behaviour (through professional practice) and culture (through sharing and implementing good practices).