Students from the University of Padova presented a series of projects covering the gender portrayal of politicians in media as part of the IFJ-led project Rewriting the Story

The online presentations provided an opportunity  for students to present their research work on media, gender and politics to a panel of researchers, communication professionals and members of the IFJ and its Gender Council. The discussions are a key element of the project's aim of building bridges between students, journalism and communication professors and media professionals and developing new perspectives on the gendered representation of women and minorities in politics.

Using their creative skills, students illustrated the complexity of the issue by highlighting different perspectives such as the coverage of transgender politicians, the use of photo angles and social media feeds to create biased reporting or the impact of Covid on gender portrayal in the news. Some developed interactive maps, or launched an instagram page highlighting differences of treatment between men and women in politics in the media. 

Specific attention was paid to the portrayal of leading political figures such as Jacinda Ardern, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, Georgia Meloni, Donald Trump or Sophie Wilmès.

The presentations also tackled the representation and the media coverage of other minorities such as the LGBTQ+ community as well as ethnic minorities.  

All presentations will be available on the AGEMI website in the upcoming weeks. 

The research and projects produced by the University of Padova students will be used as a basis to develop training modules for the second activity of the project - two train-the-trainer sessions for IFJ affiliates from a dozen EU countries followed by a series of national training workshops in 12 countries.

The EU-funded project brings together an IFJ-led consortium, which includes its affiliates in Croatia (Trade Union of Croatian Journalists) and Cyprus (Union of Cyprus Journalists) as well as partners, the University of Padova and COPEAM (Conference of the Mediterranean Audiovisual Operators), to deliver a two year programme aimed at developing journalists', media students' and public broadcasters' skills on political reporting with a gender lens, and building a gender-equal newsroom culture.