IJMMT

hat is This About?

The Princess Basma Youth Resource Center (PBYRC) was founded by Princess Basma bint Talal. The Commission is the highest policy-making forum in Jordan on women's issues and rights, both at the governmental and non-governmental level. The PBYRC operates through affiliated mechanisms such as the NGO Coordinating Committee, the network of focal points in government ministries, the legal committee, and the professional women's committee.

Improve and expand access to information and initiate a dialogue on women’s issues through the creation of a women’s production unit in cooperation with Princess Basma’s Youth Resource Center;

Improve the capacity of women journalists in Jordan to raise awareness of political and legal rights for women, health and family, and education among other issues through training of the production unit staff at WKU;

Improve the skills and the capacity of women to manage in the media sector through training of women’s production unit administrative and marketing staff at WKU and additional training of women media managers in Jordan;

Radio Production Unit, Amman

Anticipated Outcomes: Improved and enhanced coverage of women’s issues in the Jordanian media. Quantitatively more coverage of issues that affect the lives of women. Increased skills for women in media management. Overall improvement in the skills of Jordanian journalists and the quality of journalism in Jordan.

Anticipated Outcomes: A shift to a more central position of the issues concerning women in Jordan today through increased coverage of relevant topics. Increased opportunity for women in the broadcast sector. Broadcast sector improves through diversity and plurality. New perspectives on issues provides for better understanding of issues confronting the community. Women have a louder voice in the public dialogue and debate of issue.

The radio production unit represents a significant opportunity to push the agenda for women in Jordan to a central position in the public debate. It will tackle the tough issues and provide a forum for discussion of critical topics ranging from women in politics, to economics, social change, health and education.

The development of women’s radio programming will be part of a process of raising awareness of women’s issues in the media, the role women play in Jordanian journalism and increasing the capacity of women to report on the issues of importance to this under served demographic. It will include training for women seeking careers in media management of advancement within the industry.

The production unit will be based at the Princess Basma Youth Resource Center where a state of the art production studio will be built. The production unit will produce 24 15-minute programs that will be made available to the emerging independent broadcasters and to Jordan Radio in the final six months of grant. Development of the feature program will, in part, hinge on the outcomes of the conference on Women in the Media. During the development stage, local radio and the state broadcaster will be contacted in order for the producers to have input on the design of the program. Content issues will be the sole responsibility of the team. This will be outlined in a memorandum of understanding that will be signed with the university.

A specially designed training program at WKU will be implemented for the 8 women who will serve as the programming and administrative team for the production unit. The WKU-Internews project manager in Bowling Green will lead the training following the conference, organizing a program that will tap into the resources of Western’s Public Broadcasting and the School of Journalism Broadcasting. The nearly four-week training will provide grounding for staff in production as well as marketing of the program.

The WKU-Internews project manager will return to Amman to assist with the launch of the production unit. A follow-on training will take place in Amman for the journalists as part of the program’s continuing support. Program funds will underwrite the production team’s salaries and provide a modest travel stipend to allow reporters to cover stories outside the capital. The marketing director will be responsible for seeking out other underwriting or direct sponsorship opportunities for the program. The WKU training will help prepare the marketing director for this task.

It is expected that the capacity building for journalists and managers will dramatically improve the coverage of women’s issues in Jordan. In addition, the enhanced production and marketing skills of the staff will give them a stronger position and increased opportunities in the emerging independent broadcast sector.

To further the role of women in the media sector, especially for those women seeking management positions or currently in management and seeking to advance, training will be provided as part of an expanded follow-on to the women’s production unit. This training, in the first quarter of the second year, will focus on the business of media and, more specifically, how women navigate in an industry that has tended to be dominated by men, not only in the Arab world, but in the West as well.

Internews will convene a two day conference on Women in the Media in the third quarter. The conference will address a variety of factors including:

how women are portrayed in the media,

how their issues are covered,

how coverage reinforces stereotypes,

what steps can be taken to address these issues,

what barriers exist to women accessing media as a forum for their issues, and

what barriers exist to women in the media business or those seeking a career in media.

The project will commission a series of research papers on women and the media in Jordan. These papers will be presented and discussed at the conference.