A common voice

WE live in a world which is more connected than ever before. The rise of the internet over the last 25 years has brought more information to more people’s i ngertips than at any point in human history. In theory, anyone with the most basic equipment can make their voice heard.

But this great democratisation of information has come with a dark side, giving a platform to hate speech, conspiracy and ‘fake news’ that was previously coni ned to the margins. The migration of readers and advertising revenues to the internet has left traditional media outlets struggling to survive, and many of them have followed the path of increasing division and polarisation. Women and minority voices still face under-representation, bullying and threats on social media.

The World Association for Christian Communication has its roots in post-World War Two organisations of Christian media professionals. Today it campaigns on ensuring that everyone has access to all forms of communication, and on making sure that all voices are properly represented.

Sara Speicher is the organisation’s deputy general secretary. She says: “All round the world, people i nd media inaccessible: because it’s not af ordable, because of censorship, because they can’t use their own language, they’re not considered important in the media or because high concentrations of media ownership deliberately cut out some voices and issues that are important.

“WACC is a network of organisations and individuals who believe that communication rights are fundamental. We work at community level, regionally and internationally to support ef orts to work towards communications rights.”

Part of their work is monitoring of news media – print, TV, internet, social media – to study how groups of people are represented and portrayed. One such project, which involved the Church of Scotland, examined the coverage of refugees and migrants in the European media.

“It showed how invisible, frankly, migrants and refugees are, and how they’re portrayed,” says Sara. “And women are even more invisible, and (the coverage) is not representative of where they’re coming from. We were working with several UK media organisations on identifying speakers for a panel, and they would say ‘we have this great Syrian’ or ‘we can bring in someone from Afghanistan’, but the reality is there are more refugees from North Africa.

“They’re also identii ed as ‘refugees’ or ‘migrants’, not having their own worth, not showing their skills – that they’re a doctor or a lawyer – they’re either a victim or somebody who’s trying to get money from the state.”

The methodology for the refugee project was based on a longer-term study of the representation of women, which has sampled news media from all over the world every i ve years since 1995. This looks at how many women are working as presenters or journalists, but mainly how they are portrayed – are they shown as victims or as experts – and what type of story they are in – do women feature in political and economic stories, or just home articles and stories about domestic violence?

frankly, migrants and refugees are, and how they’re portrayed.

Sara says: “We look at about 80 indicators, so we can get a really complex view of these media, and we can break it down nationally and regionally. The general picture is that over the 20 years there hasn’t been a signii cant change, and it has plateaued in the last 10 years. Women appear in about a quarter of our news, so when you’re thinking of women as half the population, the news doesn’t rel ect that.

“One of the interesting things from [the last survey in] 2015 was that all the regions either plateaued or even went down [for female representation], except for Latin America where it went up. It was we think partly to do with some legal changes in countries where they brought in more women political leaders and gender justice policies, and that was then rel ected in the news.

“So that was very encouraging, but it’s not the whole answer. Scandinavia scores highly for gender justice practices but still has a way to go in terms of rel ecting that in the media.”

Armed with the statistics from the studies, the WACC works with civil society, gender justice and faith groups to raise awareness of the problem among media organisations. Sara says that a lot of the companies are very positive: “We don’t go in with a big agenda, we just say that this is what the picture is. They do want to follow a journalistic code and they want accurate assessments. As long as we’re going in there, not to say ‘you’ve got to change things’, but to work with them, then they are very receptive.

“But I also have to say that probably the worst of enders don’t talk to us. They don’t reach out and they’re not part of the circles we would normally be in. I think the really bad ones aren’t going to change unless they change ownership – there’s an agenda.”

Of course even the worst professional media content is nothing compared to some of what gets shared on social media, which is the subject of a new WACC project. Sara says: “Where the hate speech is really happening, and is uncontrolled, is on social media. That’s a big area to tackle, so our i rst step is to look at the research, look at some case studies or organisations or campaigns that have tried to tackle hate speech, and see what tools or practices we can pool and then try to go from there.”

She says that Christians and Christian organisations have a responsibility to ‘be proactive in combatting hate speech and speaking for the values that we want in society’. That includes being careful not to share fake news and disinformation.

“Just be aware in your own practices of how you’re engaging with social media,” says Sara. “Don’t share unless you know it’s a trusted article. Be aware that we all have a tendency to gather with like-minded people – what they call the echo chamber.

“I think as Christians we are always called to ask ourselves, are we listening to the people outside our circle? So sometimes read the news you don’t like. And also make a point of listening to the people who are most directly af ected by a story.”

Sara is an American, who grew up in the Church of the Brethren – one of the historical peace churches along with the Mennonites and the Quakers. She has worked in Europe since 1997, initially with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and also on projects with the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, the Lutheran World Federation and the World AIDS Campaign.

She is currently also involved with the Thursdays in Black campaign against gender-based violence, which began in the 1980s but has been relaunched and promoted by the WCC in recent years.

She says the common thread in her work is where churches can come together globally to make a dif erence: “We really have such potential for power across the world to make a change, but I don’t think we often use it as well as we should or could, because of the things that separate us – we have dif erent languages, we have dif erent priorities.

“But where we can come together and have a common voice we can make a huge impact. That’s the importance of Thursdays in Black – there is in essence a very simple message, a simple action, but it is profound. When you get engaged – even just wearing a badge – it’s a profound statement, you’re making connections and you can make an impact.

“Everyone can start from there. And if some people and some churches can take it further then that’s all the better.” 