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From: Hercilia Camargo <hercilia@wcw.apc.org>


WHENEVER the subject of violence in the media is discussed, the images
that spring to mind are those of action films and TV shows chock-full of
car crashes, gunfights, blood spurting from bullet holes, and  people goi=
ng
at each other with all sorts of weaponry, including bare fists.
	But for women living  in underdeveloped Third World economies, said
a Chile-based media researcher,  media violence takes on other forms.
	Maria Elena Hermosilla, former director of Ceneca, a media
awareness and research group working with grassroots communities, said
that for women attending their workshops, ``aggressive television
advertising, especially of expensive food products,=D5=D5 is a form of me=
dia
violence.
	Speaking at a ``Workshop on Women and Media Violence=D5=D5 sponsored
by the World Association of Christian Communicators, Hermosilla said the
women found such advertising violent because ``they were then living in a=

situation of deep economic recession=D5=D5 and they found such advertisem=
ents
deeply offensive and intrusive.
	A valuable tool in awakening media awareness, said Hermosilla, was
an exercise in which the women were asked to ``create their own
commercial, to create their own daydream that consumers can achieve.=D5=D5=

Often, she said, the women would arrive at a ``collective discovery=D5=D5=
 of
what advertising was all about.
	Meg Hogarth of  Mediawatch Canada made a brief presentation of her
organization=D5s activities,  and their impact on advertising practices a=
nd
policies.
	A telephone survey they conducted on women=D5s attitudes towards
television, she said, showed that 73 percent of the women silently
boycotted products whose advertising they found offensive.
	When they also proved that women make the majority of buying
decisions, including 55 percent of car-buying decisions,  in Canada,
Hogarth said,  their research resulted in a shift in advertising strategi=
es
of car companies.
	Hogarth also mentioned the successful campaign against violence in
the media launched by the younger sister of a Quebec woman who had been
brutally raped and murdered.  The young woman was able to gather 1.3
million signatures for her petition calling for government action to chec=
k
the proliferation of violent images in the media, Hogarth said,  though
compliance to  the resulting code on violence was purely voluntary.
	Still, the examples discussed by Hermosilla and Hogarth show that
the effort to  sensitize the media to their role in soceity is not entire=
ly
fruitless.
	Other speakers at the workshop were Margaret Gallagher, a leading
researcher and writer on women and media issues, who spoke on ``Some
Issues in the Gender and Media Violence Debate,=D5=D5 Melody Walker of
Women=D5s Media Watch in Jamaica, and Jacqui Nolte, of the Community Arts=

Programme in South Africa.


Forwarded by: =


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