In order to support the World Class University program, the Department of Communication Science, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Diponegoro held an International Webinar “Woman and The Media” with Dr. Sunarto (Undip Communication Science Lecturer), Prof. Lynn Rose (American University of Iraq, Sulaimani) and moderated by Amida Yusriana, M.Ikom (Undip Communication Science Lecturer).

The Dean of Social and Political Sciences Faculty, Dr. Drs. Hadi Warsono, MTP., officially opened the international webinar. In his speech, he conveyed that the issues raised were very interesting to be discussed. Currently, Undip was encouraging research on the SDGs issues. The issues of the webinar supported SDGs 5 on Gender Equality and SDG number 16 on Justice, Peace and Strong Institutions.

“For students of Master in Communication Science, this class will deepen the knowledge on Media, Culture, and Society Concentration either in the International or regular class, as well as for the Strategic Communication concentration class. Especially, those who are interested in media and gender issues. I hope that this event can give the greatest benefit for the public who also come to this webinar” he hoped.

In her presentation, Prof. Lynn Rose said that in the modern era, the world had changed with no more representation that women with disabilities were bad, yet they were worried about representation in the media of the 21-century contemporary era which showed more on false reality, such as women with disabilities were supposed to be beautiful. There was even a beauty pageant for the disabled. According to Prof. Lynn, there was a good side to it yet it did not solve the problem of disabled representation. It was because, on the other hand, the reality of the disabled was not just about that. Women with disabilities were having a new problem in the 21-century that forced them to be beautiful. Whereas, women with disabilities, in real life, were having so many dimensions as humans.

She gave illustrations on women such as in Women and Other Monsters by Jess Zimmerman with its green cover and bold black font which explored the potential danger of wild women in the ancient Greek-Roman world.

“She talked about women whose bodies change into a danger signal for men and a story of warning for women, and this is what we still see, 25 centuries in our human history” she explained.

On the 6th slide of her presentation, Prof. Lynn explained about Medusa who was used to be a beautiful woman. Because of her beauty, she was raped by Poseidon and cursed by Athena to be very ugly, with her head filled with venomous snakes and deadly gaze. Zimmerman talked about “narrow beauty ribbon” where women were pushed to polish themselves.

Meanwhile, Dr. Suanrto in his language said, lately the media industry had faced new technology as a consequence of internet progress. The condition, economically, had made it difficult for the media to grow financially. The 4.0 era had given a negative impact on the media industry when it could not adjust to the new condition. In the case of the local media, all leaders had developed a new strategy to solve their economic problems. The new era had caused economic problems for the Indonesian media industry.

“The feminist’s vision does not seem to have succeeded in overcoming male dominance in the conventional media in the 4.0 Era when economic interests still dominate behind their policies and products. The female journalist leaders seem just carry out the males’ economic interests when producing policy and content to fulfil the women’s interests. However, when female journalists have the same opportunity to reach the editorial top management positions in the conventional media industry, there is a chance for them to influence and change their environment to be gender-sensitive” she explained. (Linda PR)

Source: undip.ac.id