"The second day saw intense debates over the more sensitive and
controversial issues. The three sessions and workshops of the day were on the
role of the media in women’s development and empowerment, the role of the media
in child and youth development and the role of the media in environment
development and protection.
Wafa Al-Rushaid, development consultant, set
the stage on the issue of women by speaking about women in the media. First she
said that Saudi women in general live between three discourses: the political,
which is mostly theoretical, the religious, which relies on instilling fear, and
the media, which treats women as a commodity. She then spoke about the reality
of women in the media: there are few women in leadership positions, women are
depicted in typical roles and images, women issues are presented with hesitation
and the headlines on women are usually negative. "
Role of a Responsible Media Hotly Debated
Gulf News - 02 December, 2006
Empowering women, better education, attention to youth and
protecting the environment are some of the issues that were hotly debated at a
recent seminar on the role of the media in assisting in the implementation of
the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.
At the UN Millennium
Summit in 2000, 149 heads of state, including Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques
King Abdullah — who was crown prince at the time — and government
representatives of 180 countries adopted the Millennium Declaration. By the year
2015, all 191 UN member states pledged to meet eight goals: eradicate extreme
poverty and hunger, promote gender equality and empowerment of women, improve
maternal health, ensure environmental sustainability, achieve universal primary
education, reduce child mortality, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases,
and develop a global partnership for development.
Organized by the UN
Development Program in Riyadh in coordination with the Ministry of Information
and Culture, the two-day seminar and workshop was held under the auspices of
Prince Faisal Bin Salman, chairman of the Saudi Research and Publishing Group.
Over a hundred academics and media personnel participated in the
seminar; the majority of them were women. In his opening speech, El-Mostafa
Benlamlih, UN resident coordinator in Riyadh, said that the Millennium
Declaration has a set of 18 targets with a corresponding 47 indicators that
could be translated in reality within a timeframe, but success requires the
participation of everyone.
“The question is: How do we put indicators
and capacities applicable to Saudi Arabia and how can we create the human
capacity to achieve these goals?” said Benlamlih.
Human development was
the key issue in the development goals and the focus of the seminar. Prince
Faisal said in order to speak about the role of the media in human development
we need to speak about developing human resources and talent in the media.
“The problem is the quality of the supply, and this problem is the
result of poor training, the implications of which could be the reduction in the
development process and production output,” said Prince Faisal.
While the
Kingdom’s higher education system offers courses in media communications (which
emphasizes public relations and marketing) there are no colleges dedicated to
journalism at any Saudi university.
Abdullah Al-Jasser, deputy minister
at the Ministry of Information and Culture, pointed to another obstacle. He
admitted in his speech that there is a lack of media research in Saudi Arabia
that would allow us to know the obstacles facing the media toward achieving the
eight development goals. He also pointed to the role of the private media
institutions in being responsible too for achieving these goals rather than
focusing on commercial gains.
Following the opening speeches on the first
day there were presentations and discussions on the role of the media in
education and AIDS.
The education presentation had a lively and long
discussion with former Education Minister Mohammed Al-Rasheed who tried to
defend the ministry, its policies and how best it can cooperate with the media.
He stopped short of outwardly blaming the media for its constant criticism of
the ministry and the education system in hampering and disheartening all reform
efforts.
One of the presenters at the AIDS session was Dr. Sana Filimban,
director of King Saud Hospital, which is the center for caring for HIV/AIDS
patients in Jeddah. She emphasized on the need to have positive coverage of the
topic in the media rather than spreading fear and inaccurate information. After
the sessions, three simultaneous workshops were held on the role of the media in
achieving the millennium goals, the role of the media in education development
and the role of the media in combating AIDS.
The second day saw intense
debates over the more sensitive and controversial issues. The three sessions and
workshops of the day were on the role of the media in women’s development and
empowerment, the role of the media in child and youth development and the role
of the media in environment development and protection.
Wafa Al-Rushaid,
development consultant, set the stage on the issue of women by speaking about
women in the media. First she said that Saudi women in general live between
three discourses: the political, which is mostly theoretical, the religious,
which relies on instilling fear, and the media, which treats women as a
commodity. She then spoke about the reality of women in the media: there are few
women in leadership positions, women are depicted in typical roles and images,
women issues are presented with hesitation and the headlines on women are
usually negative.
Following 9/11, which was a turning point in the
media’s history according to many, Al-Rushaid said she believes that among the
people who were victims of the attacks in the United States were women, because
with the increased focus on Saudi issues following the twin tower attacks, the
media failed to take an appropriate, fair strategy in presenting the situation
of Saudi women.
Syrian director Hatim Ali and writer Dalaa Al-Rahbi
talked about a TV drama series they worked on together about the rights of women
in civil law, Sharia law and in society in general. Ali noted that although
there was some censorship, most of the criticism and objections were from the
public, particularly women. He gave some research statistics from Arab countries
that showed how women are marginalized in television, stereotyped and
subjugated.
Al-Rahbi, who is a lawyer by profession, gave a moving and
rational religious and social account of women’s place in society as it is and
as it should be and how the media have failed in presenting a realistic
impression of women.
Ahmed Abdullah, a program host on Al-Arabiya
satellite channel, caused uproar after presenting scenes from an episode of his
program on the issue of divorce in Tunisia.
Tunisia is considered the
most progressive Arab country when it comes to women rights to the extent of
going against Sharia law. (Tunisia has a ban on the hijab for women state
employees.) The episode tried to be balanced in showing both sides of the
argument but it raised the question of whether granting women equal rights can
go too far.
The second session was on children and youth. Ahmed
Al-Sheqairi, who hosts a program on MBC focusing on youth issues, urged the
media to be responsible because it is influential and inspiring. He also said
that in order to persuade the youth to turn away from watching sensational
programs we have to provide them with an alternative that is of good quality,
entertaining, engaging and speaks their language.
Amr Qura, chairman of
El-Karma Production for education and entertainment, spoke about the concept of
edutainment for children and showed scenes from his company’s production of the
popular children program Sesame Street in Arabic as an example.
Dr.
Maysara Taher, a psychiatrist and a television host of a program for youth, gave
some frightening statistics on the number of hours Saudi children spend in front
of television and the psychological impact that has on their mental growth and
communication skills.
The third and final session was on the environment.
The women and youth sessions took a long time beyond what was scheduled, which
left little time and energy for the participants to engage fully with the
environment issue although the three presenters gave interesting information.
However, the discussion revealed that there was a general lack of interest in
environmental issues due to lack of awareness, lack of regulations and policies
and lack of supervision and enforcement.
Following the last session were
the three simultaneous workshops on the three issues of the day. The final
recommendations made by each of the six workshops will be posted on the UNDP
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
website.