Objective
For my term paper I have chosen the topic, 'Impact of globalization in the female participation in media." The face of media and its content has been changing with the change in time. Similarly the core topic like women and media has also been in the phase of changing due to modernization. Women's involvement in media is the key topic to discuss in the field of mass communication. It is because they have always been regarded in terms of minority. Talking about the issues few years back, when we watch women in television, they are always assigned easy jobs, like reading the lines and reporting of their male colleague. Very few can be seen in the field doing the reporting, but these days the context is different. We find women in the field as well, with pen and paper, camera. There's nothing as such that women cannot do in the present day. Still the question arises, why don't we get enough and active participation from women if the scenario has changed?
My paper will thus try to touch these questions and find reasons behind less involvement of female in media. It will also try to see the direct and indirect role of foreign media to change the perspective of people to
MethodologyIn order to make my paper authentic and readable I took information from write ups of various scholars. I also took the views and thoughts of women journalists who have been working in the newsprint and radio for more than decades. I asked the general people and their thoughts regarding my research. I took some of the famous scholars thoughts from the journals related to female participation in media. Various scholars and their views on globalization and issues relating female participation is also kept into consideration.
DiscussionWorldwide diffusion of practices, expansion of relations across continents, organization of social life on a global scale, and growth of a shared global consciousness is what is referred as globalization. Today, shared global consciousness has brought about change in the field of active participation of women in media. The scenario few years back was not like this. We could hardly see any women participation in national dailies, radio, television and other forms of media. Some way or the other, condition is still the same. There is participation of female, but not in the mainstream media.
We lack women's participation in the editorial board in the national dailies. The participation of women in the editorial departments of the Nepali news media is pathetic. The situation was even worse a decade ago, given the fact that there were only two and government owned broadsheet daily papers published till the early 1990's. There are now more than 10 broadsheet daily newspapers published from Kathmandu. Still, we don't see any active participation in the editorial board. But the promising and good part of the change is that we have seen female reporters, issues related to female and as a whole there is some involvement in the print media.
Similar case is with the television station and FM, radio. Private television services are a recent development; private FM radio stations are about a decade old. There are rarely very few number of participation of women. With the arrival and expansion of FM, radio and television services in the private sector, the number of women involved in the news media has increased. Many women are restricted to reading the news for radio and television. Be it in the newspapers or in the broadcast media, women are rarely given "important" beat such as political parties, prime minister's office and foreign ministry. Women columnists in newspapers were almost non-existent, but now days we can see that there are very good writers who have really proved themselves with their writing.
There are, however, miles to go before actually raising the level of women's participation in the Nepali news media sector. Beena Kharel, one of the journalists says: "Workplace discrimination against women is a well known fact, particularly those concerning inequalities in pay, unequal distribution of quantity and quality of work, obstacles to upward movement through discriminatory promotion policies and the physical design of the workplace not suited to promote gender equality. The Nepali problem of workplace discrimination regarding women is huge. Since women journalists are themselves 'marginalized', incentives and effective media policy are needed to bring them into the mainstream. As we have seen that there is sudden change going on regarding female participation in media, we can still hope for great changes, the change of providing the mainstream journalism to female as well."
Although media professionalism in the last several years has improved, there are still many miles to traverse. Ram Krishna Regmee says: "A lack of uniformity in the norms, values, processes and styles followed by the people involved in the profession is also making it difficult for journalism to take shape of a completely developed profession. The situation of having to always define Nepali journalism arose due to the absence of a tradition of taking persons who have a long experience in the field as examples, and the reluctance to take the substantive works done in the field in the past as a guide to the future."
In the wake of sweeping changes in the Nepali political spectrum since April 2006, there are hopes that women's participation in the media will increase significantly. With rising emphasis on filling in at least 33 percent of the seats with women in various representative bodies, the Fourth Estate might also be positively affected in larger media organizations where the editorial departments are structured reasonably well.
There are complaints that the case and cause of women journalists has been adequately raised in public for positive consideration chiefly because of absence of professional organizations taking up the issue extensively and persistently. Rekha Shrestha, a correspondent at The Himalayan Times said: "There are NGO's for women in Nepal. They conduct research on women in journalism and the media, raise all manner of issues related to women, and sometimes organizes interactions. They are opinion makers when it comes to formulating plans and policies regarding women. These organizations however are more concerned in mainstreaming women's issues in the media. In other words, they are focused on how to get more and better media coverage on issues related to women. There is no professional organization constituted by working women journalists to interact and share their experiences."
To Shanta Thapaliya: "A section of the traditional media has always downplayed women's right. In fact, they underestimated the potential of women."
Conclusion/suggestionWomen were and are still being used as a means of branding in media. They are in state of rising.
References
Adhikary, Nirmala Mani, Communication, Media and Journalism An Integrated study, Kathmandu: Prashanti Publication, 2008
Kharel. P, -----------------, Kathmandu: Supravaha Publication (P.) Ltd., 2006
मास्के, सुसन. नेपाली सञ्चारमाध्यम र महिला सक्रयता. अस्मिता. जेठ, असार. वर्ष ११, अङ्क ४९, पृ. ७–१७, २०५५
थपा, मञ्जु. पत्रकारितामा महिला प्रश्न. पहिलो संस्करण. काठमाडौँः इन्द्रेणी अफसेट प्रेस. २०५९.
