Shrinking communicative space for media and gender equality civil society organizations

ABSTRACT

This study explores pressures on civil society organizations (CSOs) that promote gender equality in and through the media. By using cases from five countries- Cyprus, Ethiopia, Hungary, South Africa and Spain, this study maps out the different ways in which media and gender equality CSOs are experiencing shrinking in the communicative space in which they operate at national contexts and leapfrogging to transnational communicative spaces. Through semi-structured interviews with women holding decision-making positions at five well-established media and gender CSOs and a review of the legal environment the organizations operate within, this paper identifies several intersecting challenges facing the case study CSOs. These include financial constraints, legal restrictions, persisting cultures of prejudice and stereotyping towards feminism and women’s rights, and limited political back up. The study indicates that the implications are far-reaching and difficult to estimate if the challenges remain unaddressed.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society
• feminist civil society
• media
• gender equality
• communicative space

Introduction

There is increasing pressure on civil society in recent years. Civil society organizations (CSOs), particularly those working on human and democratic rights, struggle with several constraints that limit their communicative spaces. This article is concerned with the ways in which communicative spaces, within which civic freedom of association, assembly and expression emerge, become subject to structural, legal, and cultural pressures. In particular, it is interested in the communicative space of feminist civil society and argues that this space seems to be shrinking at the national level while becoming more transnational.

Drawing on Jürgen Habermas’ theory of public sphere, civil society’s communicative space can be understood as a discursive arena where individuals come together in an unrestricted manner to engage in and deliberate over matters of common interest, with the guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express their opinions (Jurgen Habermas 1989).

This study specifically draws on the notion of “subaltern counterpublics” which is a result of feminist critique of Habermas’ theory of public sphere. Feminist scholars have advanced a critique of Habermas’ theory of public sphere as open and inclusive, among other issues, by contesting the theory is exclusionary and conceals masculinist ideology (Lisa McLaughlin 1993; Nancy Fraser 1990; P. Mary Ryan 1992). Though this paper makes references to works of key feminist scholars who have critiqued the utopian character of Habermas’ public sphere theory, it focuses on the work of Nancy Fraser who, as Lisa Marie McLaughlin (1993) rightly remarks, provides a more comprehensive reconceptualization of the theory’s possibilities. Nancy Fraser (1990) has highlighted that the bourgeois public sphere is constituted with a significant exclusion as it fails to adequately consider social status inequalities. According to Habermas, the bourgeois public sphere is open and accessible to everyone: what is required in this sphere is “people’s public use of their reason” (Jurgen Habermas 1989, 27). Access to the sphere is guaranteed based on critical rationality, not social status (gender, class, or race). Fraser critiques such conceptualization of the public sphere which unrealistically regards that “it is possible for interlocutors in a public sphere to bracket status differentials and to deliberate “as if” they were social equals” (Nancy Fraser 1990, 62). Bracketing social inequalities, Fraser goes on to argue, is impractical in stratified societies in which “unequally empowered social groups” such as women are lesser valued and heard (Nancy Fraser 1990, 64). Women’s exclusion from the bourgeois public, however, has been disguised under gender-blind expressions such as “public” and “private individuals” which in reality refer to male, educated property owner (Lisa Marie McLaughlin 1993; P. Mary Ryan 1992).

When marginalized from the “official” public sphere, subordinated groups, such as women establish alternative discursive spaces to articulate and negotiate their specific needs and interests. Fraser¹ conceptualizes these spaces as subaltern counterpublics, which are defined as “parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter discourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs”(Nancy Fraser 1990, 67). These alternative communicative spaces allow subordinated groups to establish unity in forming and articulating oppositional discourses. The notion of subaltern counterpublics rests on the rejection of the existence of a “single” comprehensive public sphere contending the proliferation of counter-publics that are neither liberal, bourgeois, nor necessarily male (Jude Howell 2005; Nancy Fraser 1990; P. Mary Ryan 1992).

The subaltern counterpublics serve both internal and external functions (Lisa Marie McLaughlin 1993). Internally speaking, they serve as spaces of withdrawal and regroupment for claiming oppositional identity. Externally, they function as bases and training grounds for agitational activities directed toward wider publics through media or other channels (Lisa Marie McLaughlin 1993; Nancy Fraser 1990). The emancipatory potential of subaltern counterpublics lies in the dialectic between the internal and external functions (Lisa Marie McLaughlin 1993; Nancy Fraser 1990).

Media and gender equality CSOs have served as “subaltern counterpublics”- where counter discourses with regards to gender and the media are formulated and disseminated. The actors of these CSOs are motivated by aspirations for equality and enhanced rights and who also draw on international standards, conventions, and networks in support of their claims (Valentine M Moghadam and Fatima Sadiqi 2006, 2). However, the communicative spaces which these CSOs aim to create to promote gender equality in and through the media as well as within which they aim to function are progressively closing in national contexts due to legal, structural, and cultural factors. This may curb the impact the organizations could make on the promotion of gender equality in and through media. Despite significant differences in economic, cultural, and political contexts, gender equality and media CSOs in both developing and developed nations have faced shrinking in their counter public spheres (see CIVICUS 2018). Again, the restrictions to the CSOs communicative space are not only bounded to authoritarian governments, as the case usually is, but also extended to democratic states. It is not, however, to say the shrinking communicative space for civil society is unique to media and gender equality CSOs; instead, the situation mirrors what is occurring to several CSOs (H. Susan Williams 1997).

At the same time, the transnational public sphere in which media and gender equality CSOs network and collaborate is steadily stretching. “Transnational public sphere” can be described as an arena within which reasoned debates, associational activities, and collective action take place beyond the nation-state (Breny Mendoza 2002; Lisa McLaughlin 2004; Moghadam et al. 2006; Nancy Fraser 2007). With the spread of globalization, capitalism, fall of socialism and new information technologies, a feminist transnational public sphere within which feminist civil society actors form solidarity to challenge gender inequality and injustice has developed (Lisa McLaughlin 2004; Breny Mendoza 2002). What legitimizes the membership of individuals in feminist transnational sphere “is not shared citizenship, but their co- imbrication in a common set of structures and/or institutions that affect their lives”(Nancy Fraser 2007, 22). When media and gender equality CSOs are threatened, silenced, face backlash from authorities, and are prevented from achieving their objectives at local and national scales, they join feminist transnational public spheres.

By using cases from five countries- Cyprus, Ethiopia, Hungary, South Africa and Spain, this paper maps out the different ways in which CSOs are experiencing a shrinking in their communicative space at the national level and leapfrogging to transnational communicative spaces. Though we recognize the fact that both the subaltern counterpublics and the transnational public sphere are not necessarily “virtuous” as they are likely to practice “their own modes of exclusion and marginalization”(Nancy Fraser 1990), we do not attempt to address the internal tensions within such spheres. Instead, we simply focus upon analyzing external factors influencing these spaces.

Defining civil society and civil society organizations

Over the past three decades, civil society in the form of organized political claims has revived and gained a significant position throughout the world. The concept of civil society is, however, a complex and ambiguous one. The concept has largely been defined as a voluntary domain that is separate from state, market, or family. For instance, Larry Diamond 1994 defines civil society as “the realm of organized social life that is voluntary, self-generating, (largely) self-supporting, autonomous from the state, and bound by a legal order or set of shared rules”. In a similar vein, L. Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato 1992, 18) refer to civil society as a “third realm” separate from the economy and the state. Again, Marc Morje Howard (2003, 1) defines civil society as “a crucial part of the public space between the state and the family, and embodied in voluntary organizations”.

However, it is important to note that conceptualizing civil society as a separate sphere from state or economy can be problematic as it tends to overlook the fact that civil society and the other spheres (state, economy, or family) are at least partially interdependent (see Brett Bowden 2006; Neera Chandhoke 2002; Sonia E. Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino and Arturo Escobar 1998). For instance, in some cases, civil society and state are linked making “illusory the idea of a confrontation or even a delimitation between the two as fully fledged autonomous entities” (Alvarez et al. 1998, 18). When discussing the normative linkage between civil society and state, Bowden (2006, 172) notes that “Ideally, each should work towards the same general ends, namely the welfare of the community and ultimately the attainment of the good life for all, albeit by different means”. Thus, though the structure of civil society is separate from state, economy, or family, it doesn’t mean that these “domains of collective existence do not influence each other, or they do not affect each other, or indeed that they do not constitute in the sense of shaping each other” (Chandhoke 2001, 2002).

In this sense, CSOs can be understood as “organizations in the society that work outside the state and are made up of several individuals coming together” (Jane Wamaitha Munene and Reckson Thakhathi 2017, 1), but at the same time function interdependently with the state: at times in tension with one another and at other times in harmony (Bowden 2006). They include neighborhood groups, churches, non-governmental development organizations, cooperatives, soccer clubs, choral societies and many other associations. In a diverse society, the agencies of civil society organized around very diverse values, norms and beliefs are likely to reflect that heterogeneity (L. David Brown and Archana Kalegaonkar 1999, 2)

Over the years, CSOs have played significant roles in voicing the concerns of the voiceless as well as in the promotion and defense of social values (Brown et al. 1999; Sanchita Bhattacharya 2016). From feminist perspective, CSOs have an important sphere to offer “for organizing around feminist issues, for articulating counter-hegemonic discourses, for experimenting with alternative lifestyles and for envisioning other less sexist and more just worlds” (Howell 2005, 6).

Gender and media—a problematic nexus

Media are powerful sources of information that shape public understanding and perceptions of gender and gender relations. They assume a significant place in the struggle for gender equality since they “reflect, produce and reproduce norms and stereotypes and therefore also have the potential to make sociocultural changes in society” (Saga Mannila 2017, 7). Depending on the ways they are used, media have critical roles to play in either supporting or sabotaging the fight for gender equality. Notionally, media messages that counter gender stereotypes “provide the exposure needed to eliminate the prejudices, attitudes, norms and practices that sustain gender-based discrimination, marginalization and inequality” (Sarah Macharia 2018, 5). Yet, practice shows otherwise where media have been contributing to the tenacity of gender inequality through their stereotypical and unbalanced representation of men and women. As once Colleen Lowe Morna (2002, 1) describes them, the media are “the most important yet challenging areas of work for advancing gender equality”.

Several studies have shown the problem of media’s gender-based stereotyping, women’s limited roles in media decision-making, and women’s unequal access to ICTs (see Anne Webb 2016; Carolyn Byerly 2011; Karen Ross and Claudia Padovani 2017; Karen Ross 2014; Peter Kareithi 2014). These studies have documented and analyzed the ways in which women have been effectively put in disadvantaged positions both in media contents and decision-making as well as in reaping equal benefits from new technologies.

Across time and region, media representations have consistently sidelined women to the peripheries despite the considerable shift in the status of women in most societies. To show the universality of the problem, Margaret Gallagher 2008, 17) remarks, “wherever one looks, media content reflects a masculine vision of the world and of what is important”. The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), the most extensive and longest-running research advocacy initiative for gender equality in and through the news media conducted every five years since 1995, has been reporting the persistent invisibility of women as news subjects. According to its recent report, women make up only 24% of the persons read about, heard or seen in newspaper, radio and television news, exactly as they did in 2010 Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC 2015). Again, the report reveals that almost 48% of all the stories reinforce stereotypical representations of men and women. Such unfair representations of women maintain the status quo, contributing to the perpetuation of gender inequality in everyday life (Ross et al. 2017).

The small number of women in media decision-making is another challenge in promoting gender equality in and through the media (Byerly 2011; Colleen Lowe Morna 2002; Ross 2014). It is assumed that an increased presence of women’s decision-making roles in the media is likely to make a difference to the stereotypical portrayal of women (Byerly and Padovani 2017). Nevertheless, the number of women in media decision-making is strikingly small worldwide. The Global Report on the Status of Women in News Media in 2011 shows that women held only about a fourth of the jobs in governance (i.e. boards of directors) globally (Byerly 2011).

Women’s unequal access to and use of ICTs also raises concern as the digital gender divide increases and poses a problem for the development of equal Information Society (IT) (Alton Grizzle 2014; Anne Webb 2016). Gender remains a key element in shaping women’s access to ICTs (Alton Grizzle 2014). Across the world, fewer women than men use the internet; the gap getting wider among developing countries (International Telecommunication Union 2019). In 2019, the International Telecommunication Union estimates that the proportion of women using the internet globally is 48% while it is 58% for men.

Recognizing the strong but problematic relationship between gender equality and media, the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 in Beijing, sets out two explicit strategic objectives and actions to be taken by all stakeholders (including governments, CSOs, and media professionals): increasing women’s participation in media decision-making process, and promoting non-stereotyped representations of women in media (United Nations 1995). Again, recognizing the unequal access and use of ICTs between men and women, the World Summit for Information Society (WSIS), held in two phases (Geneva 2003, Tunis 2005), recommends for women’s increasing access to and benefit of ICTs (WSIS 2003; WSIS 2005). Despite the series of recommendations for a gender inclusive media and communication in the international platforms, recent trends show the continuing trouble with gender and the media.

Methodology

The study examines legal and structural conditions which in a typical form seek to exercise control over civil society communicative spaces in countries with diverse political and economic contexts. Five media and gender equality CSOs from Europe and Africa were selected. The CSOs are: the Hungarian Women’s Lobby from Hungary, the Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies from Cyprus, Asociacion de Mujeres de Medios de Comunicación-AMECO (Women´s Association of Media) from Spain, Gender Links from South Africa, and Ethiopian Women Media Association from Ethiopia. Responses were elicited from five women who held decision-making positions at the organizations on- the key activities they carry out, the major challenges facing their organizations, and the implications of the challenges on their function as spheres for countering gender inequality in and through the media. Scholars have indicated the potential of a small number of in-depth interviews with resourceful individuals as in-depth interview method is not as concerned with generating generalizations to a larger population of interest but rather is more concerned with presenting useful insights into a particular issue, in this case, the shrinking communicative space for media and gender equality CSOs (Maria Zuiderveld 2011; Mira Crouch and McKenzie Heather 2006; Shari L. Dworkin 2012). The respondents were chosen as they were in managerial positions at the time of the interview. All the respondents were given pertinent information to make an informed consent to participate in the study. They were free to answer all questions forwarded to them.

Semi-structured interviews were employed to increase “levels of flexibility” (Rosalind Edwards and Janet Holland 2013, 3). Interviews were conducted via Skype and face-to-face. Skype was used with interviewees in Hungary, Cyprus, Spain, and South Africa while a face-to-face discussion was held in Ethiopia.

The interviews were conducted by one of the investigators and English language was used for all interviews. To keep consistency among interviews, an interview protocol, which has lists of questions or topics that guide the structure of the interview was used (A. Stacy Jacob and S. Paige Furgerson 2012). The average length of the interview was 45 minutes. The transcribed interviews were analyzed by identifying and dividing them into their central themes.

Also, the legal framework which the CSOs operate within was reviewed. The legal restrictions mapped out seek to delegitimize the existence of CSOs, limit their range of actions, and challenge their financial sustainability. This loose mapping allows us to identify a worrying trend in States’ approach to CSOs on the one hand and to consider the specific implications such restrictions might entail in the long term. In particular in relation to the—historically marginalized publics they aim to represent and serve.

In the selection of the CSOs for the study, we looked at:

1. political diversity- to ensure a diversity of perspectives, countries from both authoritarian regimes (Hungary and Ethiopia) and democratic regimes (Spain, Cyprus, and South Africa) were included;

2. economic diversity from developed countries (Cyprus, Hungary, and Spain), and from developing countries (Ethiopia and South Africa) were taken;

3. prevalence of significant risk to civil society, particularly for women’s organizations (for example, lack of freedom of speech, association, restrictive laws relating to civil society, shrinking funding, culture and norms affecting feminist civil society);

4. the most prominent and long-standing CSOs in women’s rights in each country, and

5. willingness and timely responsiveness of the CSOs to a request for participation in the study.

The study is not intended as direct comparative analysis of the two continents, which are at the extreme ends of wealth and power. Rather, it is aimed at mapping out some of the challenges shrinking the communicative space of feminist civil society in both developed and developing nations as well as democratic and authoritarian countries. It shows that the shrinking in civil society discursive space is happening within different political-economic conditions.

Communicative spaces by CSOs countering power imbalances

The counter spheres generated by the studied CSOs aim at creating the conditions of sensitization for gender equality, information exchange and improvement of advocacy in opposition to a comprehensive public sphere infused with patriarchal interests and ideologies (Fraser 1990). In that respect, CSOs have been fulfilling multiple roles aiming to fill the vacuum of provision for inclusive public spaces as left by the state and the market. Their role has been shaped to provide forms of civic education, in that, ultimately, pursuing inclusive and equitable society and culture is a goal for an inclusive democratic practice. Accordingly, they have opened up spaces for advocacy and for pursuing policy change with the ultimate goal of social change.

All CSOs included in the study have been working for the promotion of gender equality in and through the media for more than a decade. All except the Asociacion de Mujeres de Medios de Comunicación (Spain) were established after the BPfA (1995) to change the negative and gender-biased media landscape in their respective regions. All the CSOs have national outreach (See Table 1).

Table 1. Profile of CSOs taken for the study.

Name of CSO	Year of establishment	Country	Major activities
Asociacion de Mujeres de Medios de Comunicación	1994	Spain	Training for journalists and media students, holding communication workshops, advocacy, networking,
Ethiopian Media Women Association	1999	Ethiopia	Providing training and fellowship for women journalists, advocacy for gender sensitive media
Gender Links	2001	South Africa	Training, research, advocacy, and gender-aware media policy development
The Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies	2001	Cyprus	Training, research, Advocacy, monitoring, and developed a database of women experts
Hungarian Women’s Lobby	2003	Hungary	Training, monitoring, and advocacy

Source: investigators’ own research

The CSOs have been engaged in grassroots activities, advocacy for advancing gender justice in media, and networking. Providing training for women journalists has been a major activity carried out by all the CSOs participated in the study. This corresponds to the call made by the BPfA to CSOs to enhance women media professionals’ capacity through training and education. According to the respondents of the interview, training workshops on different thematic areas including fighting stereotypical coverage of women, reporting gender violence, and upgrading women’s journalistic skills have been organized by the CSOs.

The CSOs have also been involved in advocacy work, media monitoring projects, research and publication, and development of gender-sensitive media policies. Conducting or participating in media monitoring projects to examine the representation of gender patterns has been effectively taken up by Gender Links of South Africa, the Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies of Cyprus, and Hungarian Women’s Lobby of Hungary.

Uniquely, the Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies launched the She-Experts Initiative, a searchable database of women experts from all kinds of filed living in Cyprus. It is an online “Expert Women’s Platform and Database” intending to become the leading source of expert women for organizations, employers, political parties, as well as the media in Cyprus. The initiative has the goal of correcting the invisibility of women experts in media by providing journalists with open access to women experts.

The CSOs have also consulted and assisted media organizations on the development of gender policy. For instance, Gender Links of South Africa was a prominent stakeholder in the making of the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation’s gender policy, adopted in 2006 (Gender Links, 2018). The policy makes commitment to ensuring gender equality both at its human resource management and audiovisual content. Feminist media scholars have strongly argued for a gender-sensitive media policy to correct the persistent gender inequality in and through media (see Margaret Gallagher 2011; Katharine Sarikakis 2012). Gallagher (2011, 452) argues that creating a gender equal media environment is “clearly dependent on policy determinations”.

As counterpublic spheres, the CSOs have served dual functions. They have opened up spaces for regroupment to articulate and interpret oppositional causes in relation to the communication rights and interests of women. At the same time, they have been serving as grounds for agitational activities to offset, although not to wholly eradicate, the unjust participatory privileges enjoyed by members of dominant social groups (Nancy Fraser 1990). Through the communicative spaces they created, the CSOs have been pushing for gender justice in and through media. They have strived to improve visibility of women in media, correct gendered stereotype, upgrade women’s professional skills, increase the inclusion of women’s voices on key issues in national dialogues, promote women’s access to and use of ICTs, and mainstream gender in media policies and codes of conducts. At large, they have voiced the concerns and needs of women which are often overlooked or considered less important by dominant publics.

Restricting media and gender equality CSOs communicative space

All the respondents of this study have given an account of the shrinking space of civil society in recent decades, particularly in the past decade. They have indicated the political, economic, and cultural challenges posed to their freedom of expression, assembly and association. They have further noted that the implications are far-reaching, and difficult to estimate if the downward cycle reaches a breaking point for the organizations.

The responses of the interviewees suggest that every CSO case study has faced several challenges which have limited their functionality. In the words of the director of the Mediterranean Institute for Gender, “There are different challenges, but all are interlinked” (The Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies 2018). These challenges manifest in four main areas: obstacles created by legal restrictions, lack of financial support, prejudice and social constructions of feminism and social justice movements, and limited political backup.

Legal and structural restrictions

States, in both Europe and Africa, have increasingly imposed legal restrictions which momentously constrain the fundamental sets of human rights such as freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly, and the right to participate in public affairs. The introduction of legislative and administrative policies that restrict the discursive arena of CSOs have become “a popular but disquieting trend” (Charles Kojo Vandyck 2017, 2). In the case of law, there are signs that policy formats to that effect are being “exported” from and across authoritarian regimes, while trends of authoritarianism are visible in the adoption of policies in a “policy-transfer” system.

A recent European example of a rapidly authoritarianizing country is Hungary, which adopted the law on the Transparency of Organizations Supported from Abroad (Act LXXVI of 2017). The Law imposes strict regulations on foreign-funded CSOs. It obliges organizations receiving more than €24,000 ($26,000) to register as “organization receiving foreign funding” and to make public the names of the members of the CSO (Hungarian Helsinki Committee and The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union 2017).

For the Hungarian Women’s Lobby, the passing of the Hungary “anti-NGO” law in 2017 has a significant impact on its function as a counterpublic. The Chairperson of the Hungarian Women’s Lobby has noted the difficulty the organization has encountered following the introduction of the law. She has stated that as the law has made the criteria for a public interest organization “very strict and very specific”, her organization could no longer fulfill the new requirement. That means the organization has to be excluded from receiving certain kinds of funding and restricted from accessing different sources of financial support (Hungarian Women’s Lobby 2018).

In a similar vein, Ethiopia’s controversial Charities and Societies Proclamation No. 621 of 2009 introduced in early 2010 lays out restrictions on the involvement of foreign charity organizations on certain activities. It clearly states any CSO that receives more than 10% funding from abroad is relegated to a service delivery role through prohibitions from working on key areas including the advancement of human and democratic rights, gender equality, conflict resolution and accountability of law enforcement agencies.

The Ethiopian Women Media Association has been severely impacted by the passing of this law. The chairperson of the CSO has described the devastating consequence of the legal restriction on the survival of the organization.

Because of the proclamation, the organization stopped functioning for two consecutive years. As a donor-based organization, it was difficult to survive without access to foreign funding (Ethiopian Media Women Association 2018).

The legal restrictions fit a pattern of clamping down on CSOs that governments in both countries regarded as a threat to “national security risk” or unwanted political interference. Under the guise of such laws, the governments want to silence critical voices. Normatively speaking, civil society actors need “the protection of an institutionalized legal order to guard their autonomy and freedom of action”(Larry Diamond 1994). On the contrary, in the cases discussed above, the legal frameworks negatively affect the CSOs actors’ autonomy and freedom of action. The function of gender and media CSOs as subaltern counterpublics, which should be legally protected so that counter discourses on gender and media are expressed, negotiated, and transformed, is strikingly threatened and silenced by legal restrictions. Consequently, the legal restrictions have markedly curbed the role of the CSOs as counter spheres within which actors can collectively debate issues of gender and media, act in concert, assert new rights, and exercise influence on political decision-making (L. Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato 1997).

Financial support

Intertwined with legal restrictions, a decline in financial support has been identified as a major barrier by all the studied CSOs. The problem resulted largely as most countries have enacted legal restrictions for civil society foreign funding (Antoine Buyse 2018). For instance, the Ethiopian Women Media Association has suffered a grave financial crisis to the point it could not afford to pay its monthly office rent following the passing of the restrictive law. In a similar vein, the Hungarian Women’s Lobby has experienced financial difficulties after the introduction of the draconian law which limits the amount of funding CSOs can receive. As a result, the organization has to work on fewer projects and hire fewer people.

Yet, the dwindling in foreign funding has been witnessed in countries such as Cyprus, South Africa, and Spain where there are no legal restrictions on civil society’s source of financial support. For instance, Gender Links of South Africa has been constrained with a decline in foreign funding. The manager of the Gender and Media program² in Gender Links has described funding as the biggest challenge limiting the effectiveness of the organization. The financial constraint has become even more challenging, according to the manager, after funding from the Department for International Development (DFID), a United Kingdom government department responsible for administering overseas aid, was concluded. The situation led to cutbacks in the number of training workshops given, projects run, and employees hired. During the time of the interview, only one person, the interviewee, was working on the gender and media section of Gender Links. The manager has noted that:

It has been very difficult actually to do projects as there is no money to run; there is no human capacity to actually carry out this work … . I am doing three persons job basically. Before, we had a big unit. When we were funded by the DFID, there were four or five people working on gender and media unit … some were doing communication, some were doing media and gender program specifically (Gender Links 2018).

The Asociacion de Mujeres de Medios de Comunicación of Spain has relied on volunteers only as there has not been enough money to pay employees. The funding it receives from the European Union (EU) has been declining each year. During the interview, all six people working there were volunteers.

The Mediterranean Institute for gender studies in Cyprus has also faced a financial problem after the conclusion of funding from the US Department. Because of lack of funding, the Director said, “it was difficult to keep the She-Experts Initiative going … to keep it growing” (The Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies 2018).

In the cases of the CSOs in countries with no legal restrictions on civil society’s financial sources, the organizations’ difficulty accessing reliable funding can be related to the type of function they serve-which is the promotion of social change. As Jael Silliman 1999, 28) argues, “the politics and activities undertaken by NGOs determine the type of support they receive, the staff or volunteers they attract, and their relationship to social movements, the state, and funding sources”. The role of the media and gender equality CSOs as agents of social change may tend to attract less attention from international funding agencies.

International directives and imperatives make more funds available to groups seeking to improve the “condition” of women rather than transforming the position of women. Women’s practical needs are prioritized over their strategic needs (Jael Silliman 1999, 29).

The media and gender equality CSOs functioning as transformers of women’s status rather than reformers of their living “condition” can contribute to the challenges with financial resources. Underlying this funding policy constraint on behalf of donors is a blind spot in principles as well as limitations in understanding the factors that do change women’s lives.

Prejudice and social constructions of feminism and social justice movements

Related to this, is a broader cultural determinant which acts as a persisting challenge limiting the CSOs communicative space the culture of prejudice and stereotype towards feminism and social justice for women’s rights. All the respondents have expressed a deep-rooted resistance and bias towards the establishment or growth of CSOs working on gender equality or women’s right in their respective countries. For instance, the chairperson of the Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies of Cyprus has indicated that she has sensed a deep-seated resistance from people in power towards supporting initiatives working on gender or women issues when her organization has been promoting the She-Experts Initiative. Referring to the persistent stereotype against women’s rights movements, the chairperson has remarked, “in a patriarchal society like Cypriots, hard habits are hard to die” (The Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies 2018).

Raising either gender equality or women’s rights issues has been treated as a threat to the “traditional” or “conventional” way of life. As pointed out by CIVICUS (2011, 5), “CSOs working exclusively on women’s rights have to negotiate a fresh set of challenges as opposed to CSOs in general”. Cultural issues have been described as one of the reasons that the Hungarian government laid out severe restrictions on the activities of the Hungarian Women’s Lobby.

They (government officials) don’t agree with the gender equality aims we advocated for although Hungary is a member of the EU … They have a more conservative stance on gender issues. When it comes to the role of men and women, it has been a very traditional way of thinking they have been promoting. This is one of the reasons that it was hard to have any kind of cooperation with them. For example, when we ask their opinion on something, they don’t respond back (The Hungarian Women’s Lobby 2018).

Challenging gender inequality or defending women’s rights has often been met with severe resistance from state authorities and sometimes even from communities as CSOs challenging “accepted power structures and hierarchies at the community level tend to be more controversial” (Jael Silliman 1999, 29). As such, the media and gender equality CSOs have faced a strong backlash for challenging a patriarchal culture that keeps women to a subordinate status. People in power, mostly men, were often resistant to acknowledge the relevance of voicing women’s concerns and needs (The Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies 2018). Considered as less significant or a threat to the conventional way of life, CSOs promoting gender equality in general and those specifically engaged on gender and the media are woefully frustrated to pursue their goals. This adds a psychological burden to the legal and structural problems the CSOs have already faced with. According to the Hungarian women’s Lobby, while the organization has been dealing with financial and legal constraints, it was frustrating to see the issue of gender equality often failing to be considered as an area of priority by the authorities (Hungarian Women’s Lobby 2018).

Limited political backup

With regards to political back up, the CSOs have stated that although governments express commitments to encouraging gender equality, gender equality projects in general and those on gender and the media are often treated as second or last in importance to other issues. For instance, the Cypriot government has been described as showing no interest in supporting the She- Experts Initiative.

The Cypriot institutions do not fund gender equality projects. There is a little bit of hmmm (hesitation). (They say) This is an all-women platform? Maybe this is too extreme (The Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies 2018).

As to the Ethiopian Women Media Association, there has been a gap in commitments made towards promoting gender equality by the government and what is actually on the ground.

Gender equality and women empowerment are simply issues the government states on paper. There is no genuine support for organizations like ours which stand up for gender issues. Even when there is support for gender issues, it’s concerning gender with relation to health or education. Gender and the media are not seen as relevant yet (The Ethiopian Media Women Association 2018).

In the case of the Asociacion de Mujeres de Medios de Comunicación, the support depends on the political party that is in power. The director of the organization has stated that while some political parties have offered relatively better opportunities for the advancement of gender equality, others disregarded the gender agenda. The respondent has remarked, “Government does not give 100% support, but in general terms, it supports women’s NGOs. But one of the main problems is that economic aid depends on the political party that is in power at the moment … . So, the backing that our organization receives from (the) government often changes” (Asociacion de Mujeres de Medios de Comunicación 2018).

In Hungary, there has been a hostile environment for civil society engaged in the promotion of human rights issues as a whole and for those advancing gender issues. The Hungarian Women’s Lobby has harshly been scrutinized by the government when working on a three-year project on gender and media which was funded by the Norwegian Civic Fund.

They (the government) didn’t want us to carry on our watchdog role. They accused us because we get all our funding from foreign organizations; they accused us of representing foreign interest (The Hungarian Women’s Lobby 2018).

Lacking the necessary backup from the state, the CSOs have strived to bring about gender equality in and through media—a responsibility effectively failed by the states (see the GMMP reports). CSOs would require favourable operating conditions including support from the state to carry out their activities and make a meaningful difference. However, as Antoine Buyse (2018, 982) argues “rather than offering an enabling environment for civil society, many states are deliberately pushing back against the activities of CSOs”.

Becoming more transnational

As feminist civil society communicative space is steadily declining at national levels threatened by legal and structural restrictions, media and gender equality CSOs are forced to join transnational feminist networks “which have been constituted in order to consolidate struggles against gender inequality and injustice”(Lisa McLaughlin 2004, 157). For example, the Asociacion de Mujeres de Medios de Comunicación of Spain has liaised with regional and international networks of journalists such as the Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG). GAMAG is a global movement that promotes gender equality in and through media and ICTs. The Alliance was launched by UNESCO and more than 500 organizations at the first Global Forum on Gender and Media in 2013, in Bangkok, Thailand. Gender Links of South Africa has also been an active member of GAMAG since its establishment. Forming a global alliance with other CSOs that share a common aim of fighting gender inequality in and through the media, the media and gender equality CSOs have expanded their communicative spaces beyond the state.

Also, Gender Links has collaborated with other international organizations to undertake various projects. In collaboration with the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), it coordinated the monitoring and writing up of the GMMP report. Similarly, the Hungarian Women’s Lobby participated in GMMP. The chairperson of the organization, the interviewee, personally took part in three GMMP (2005, 2010, and 2015). She had participated in GMMP in 2005 before she joined the Hungarian Women’s Lobby and the other two representing the organization.

Through partnership and networking, the CSOs have formed alliances with global CSOs which have managed to significantly “expand the agenda of world politics by insistently casting and focusing widespread attention on issues” such as gender and media “which (have) traditionally fallen within the province of state sovereignty” (Chandhoke 2002, 35). Also, the CSOs have used the transnational communicative space to build a sense of collective identity “through the recognition of a shared gender-based oppression that obscures material inequalities and suspends other forms of difference” (Lisa Marie McLaughlin 1993, 22). As such, the CSOs, from countries with huge differences in political economy, have found transnational spheres such as GAMAG and WACC “a privileged space to inflect political meanings and strategies” (Breny Mendoza 2002, 299) concerning gender and media.

Conclusion: Implications of shrinking communicative space for civil society

The transnational communicative space for media and gender equality CSOs has relatively expanded which is crucial for forming political solidarity and raising normative concerns of gender and media in the domain of global civil society (Chandhoke 2002). At the same time, the political, economic, and cultural restrictions posed to the CSOs at national levels have narrowed down the space within which discourses on gender equality in and through the media are articulated. The legal restrictions have curbed the CSOs set of human rights to freedoms of expression, assembly, and association, which are inherent to the creation and promotion of civil society’s communicative space. The pressures can progressively threaten the integral role of civil society in voicing the concerns and needs of the voiceless.

Again, due to financial challenges, the CSOs have been pressured to limit the activities they carried out, and the number of members/employees/volunteers they hired. Regardless of the cause to the financial constraints- legal restrictions or dwindling donor funding, the function of the CSOs as counter spheres have effectively been limited. In particular, their external function as “bases and training ground toward wider public” (Nancy Fraser 1990, 68) which requires financial resources has severely shrunk. Due to a shortage of financial resources, the CSOs have minimized the number of agitational activities that could have contributed to the advancement of gender-sensitive media. At the same time, as the CSOs have found it financially difficult to hire or retain professionals, the organizations have to rely more on volunteers, who may not necessarily have the required expertise. As such, the communicative space within which the CSOs aim to create and operate in to promote a gender inclusive media has strikingly closed down.

Furthermore, the specific constraints to feminist CSOs—cultural prejudice towards feminism and women’s rights (Aimée Vega Montiel 2014) and limited political back up, have added an extra burden to the organizations. These two problems are intersecting as the prejudice is reflected through the limited political support from the state. Because of these pressures, the CSOs have to make a double effort to prove that they are worth existing and growing.

Arguably, the challenges altogether hold up any relative progress made towards a gender equal media as well as the contribution of the media to a positive social change. Notably, it was in the last decade that the pressures on CSOs became harsher which coincided with the staticity in women’s visibility in the last two GMMP reports (see WAAC 2010, 2015). The visibility of women in media has witnessed a moderate increase from 17% in the first GMMP report in 1995 to 24% in the fourth global report in 20l0; whereas it remained the same, 24% in 2015. Considering the potential influence of media on the promotion of gender equality, the delay in the realization of gender equality in media would eventually mean a setback to take any meaningful steps towards positive social change.

Finally, the findings of this study may have limitations as they are based on a small sample size. Further research that makes use of a larger sample size to examine conditions and reasons that affect the communicative space of media and gender equality CSOs would be useful. Also, creating a favorable legal and structural working environment for media and gender equality CSOs remains important if any substantial progress is to be made towards gender equality in and through the media. This will require a renewed focus on civil society space and a genuine commitment by governments to promote gender equality and support civil society.

Acknowledgments

We thank the two anonymous reviewers for supporting the sharpening of the argument this paper is making.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bruktawit Ejigu Kassa

Bruktawit Ejigu Kassa is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Communication, University of Vienna, and a lecturer at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Haramaya University, Ethiopia. E-mail: [email protected] 

Katharine Sarikakis

Katharine Sarikakis is Professor of Communication Science with specialization in Media Governance, Media Organization, and Media Industries at the Department of Communication, University of Vienna. E-mail: [email protected]

Notes

1. Nancy Fraser notes that she has coined the term “subaltern counter-publics” combining two terms she has borrowed from two other theorists (Nancy Fraser 1990, 79). She borrows the term “subaltem” from Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Larry Grossberg (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988) pp. 271–313. She borrows the term “counterpublic” from Rita Felski, Beyond Feminist Aesthetics (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).

2. Gender Links divides its activities into four main areas: Gender and the Media (GEM), Gender Justice, Gender and Governance, and Advisory Services.