The EENCE working group “Women in local communities” is in an active mood. In the framework of the project “Gender, Media & Society ” the group already has 8 training sessions.

Thanks to the last training sessions the members of the group enlarged their knowledge and competencies in the concept of media as a social institution and analyzed the concept of media & its main functions, i.e. reflecting the reality and creating a social reality as well as its educational component. 

The participants were challenged to view the media productions and content from a critical lens through being asked a number of challenging questions. They studied the media as a platform to show and a tool to use certain messages, images, values, meaning, norms, standards, social roles, behaviors, activities and attributes. 

The trainer presented in detail the mechanism of how the media, as a powerful social institution, creates a social reality and how it circulates and manipulates certain messages and stereotypes, including gender ones.

The working group members  had a chance to analyze case studies of magazines, advertisements and soap operas. Trainer had provided useful references and toolkits to read further and video materials to watch individually.

Moreover, there was organized an Open Space during which colleagues from Azerbaijan and Russia had shared best practices and 4 projects.

The group had a mid evaluation of the project and deep reflection. Currently the group is divided into two big groups and working on a research, particularly content analysis on how gender depicts in different genres of media.

The project is organized by “Youth is Power” NGO which is a part of EENCE and funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education using funds appropriated by the Federal Foreign Office.