Журнал массовых коммуникаций и журналистики

Media Analysis of Women’s Participation in Politics

Abstract

Shafqat Munir, Hassan Shehzad and Aoun Sahi

Media and politics go hand in hand as both depend on each other for their respective functioning. With opening up of democratic political space in Pakistan, media got added space and role to push for an increased political participation of non-traditional political segments of society, civil society, academia, women and minorities. Since 2002, women’s political participation apparently went up with the increase in number of reserved seats for women in parliament and assemblies and 33% quota in local bodies. Independent electronic media and print media too got opportunities with more space to operate. During last 10 years (2002-2012), expansion in media (outlets and space) in Pakistan with 24/7 coverage pattern created opportunities for many to claim their share of news coverage. Since more women came to politics during this decade, so they were exposed to media space for their respective political activities.This research paper on ‘Media Analysis of Women’s Participation in Politics’ aims to explore changes taking place in media patterns and messages vis-à-vis women in politics and their impact on society covering a decade from 2002 to 2012. The paper finds that coverage of women politicians by media was increased after 2008 when the PPP led democratic government replaced the Musharraf led government. But this increase could hardly influence acceptance of women politicians in society because media largely and generally portrayed women politicians as fashion celebrities or in television debates as non-serious politicians.The paper finds that though media provided expanded space to women politicians, it could not contribute as desired in terms of breaking barriers of gender, class and personal clout. Though some women politicians having clout and from the affluent class did get space in media but generally there have been limited opportunities for women politicians from the lower middle class and with less glamour to get their due share in politics and society projecting through the media.Though the media did give space to women parliamentarians elected on the reserved seats on nominations of their parties, It could not bridge the gap between society and these women parliamentarians as they did not have their constituencies and were not answerable to the masses/society. That is why society and people hardly took them as influential in politics and decision-making and media too gave them coverage for the sake of coverage. The women who were directly elected to the parliament have a different case. So, the study finds that media could have adopted such strategies that would have engaged talented woman politicians in healthy social-building dialogue, which it could not.