The media is a tool for both advancing democracy and promoting gender equality. Conversely, gender bias in media content can harm the development of democratic and peaceful societies. Despite this being widely acknowledged by the international media and development community, global studies of new coverage show that the portrayal of men and women in the media continue to be biased towards traditional stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, which serve to reinforce the status quo and the gender gaps seen in many other aspects of society such as politics, business, sport and entertainment (Macharia, 2015).

Generating further evidence of these harmful stereotypes – and finding examples of news that challenge them – helps raise awareness of current practices in news reporting and advocating for change. We need policies and initiatives that promote new ways of ”being a man” and “being a woman”. Socially driven changes in attitudes and behaviour can contribute to closing the gender gaps.

To date there have been no detailed studies of Myanmar news content to identify the trends and patterns of gender representation in the media. This landmark study sheds light on the imbalance of female and male voices in Myanmar news, covering the diversity of the current media landscape across different mediums, types of ownership, geographic regions, languages, frequencies of publication, and political affiliations. It has been a timely exercise to undertake as the media sector is professionalizing and maturing in the transition to democratic rule.

The study has been carried out with a view to being replicated and repeated each year, as a way of tracking media’s progress on this issue. The objective is to see Myanmar participate in the next ‘Global Media Monitoring Project’ (GMMP) in 2020, which is a worldwide media monitoring, research and advocacy project implemented collaboratively with women’s rights organizations and researchers across the world. GMMP affords the opportunity to assess how far the vision for media gender equality has been achieved, and identifies persisting and emerging challenges. Other participating Asian countries include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

The results of the Gender in Myanmar News study aim to fill a gap in the media development process in Myanmar, and assist with building capacity among media professionals and institutions to promote gender equality in and through the media.