Sexuality in Media: Emerging Issues in Africa - Africa Regional ...

Sexuality in the Media: Emerging Issues in Africa
Table (2) Percent distribution of the participants who are exposed to the print
media by their background characteristics.
Background characteristics
Age:
15-19
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-44
45-49
Residence:
Urban
Rural
Education:
No Education
Some Primary
Primary complete/some secondary
Secondary Complete/higher
Work Status:
Working for Cash
Not Working for Cash
Percent of those who
are exposed to written media
10.0
17.0
20.6
25.5
23.4
23.8
16.8
35.0
10.4
0.8
4.2
20.2
48.3
48.8
15.6
Source: Adapted from EDHS (2003) table 1.11 page 14
However, exposure to the media does not mean that it is the preferred source of
information for a health issue. For instance, though the percentage of those who
are exposed to the print media is high (about 21%), it is not considered as a main
source of information for reproductive health and family planning issues. The
EDHS (2003) listed the sources from which women last saw/heard about
HIV/AIDS as follows:
• 95.5% from T.V.
• 0.7% from other media sources including newspapers
• 0.7% from a health provider.
Regarding the safe injection practice:
• 56.7% from T.V.
• 1.7% from other media sources including newspapers
• 27.0% from a health provider.
Regarding communication about female circumcision:
• 70.7% from T.V.
• 0.2% from Radio
• 0.3% from newspapers/magazines
Regarding safe motherhood:
• 72.7% from T.V.
• 36.8% from Radio
• 20.4% from newspapers/magazines.
Regarding family Planning:
• 87.6% from T.V.
• 0.2% from Radio
• 0.1 from newspapers/magazines (EDHS, 2003).
Print Media Coverage Of Sexuality Issues in Egypt
The Coverage of Sexuality in the Print Media
The coverage of reproductive health and sexuality in the print media has
improved tremendously since 1998. In March, 1998 the Population Council
in Cairo organized a roundtable discussion to present key findings of
completed research to selected journalists associated with widely read Arabic
newspapers and magazines. Topics covered in this session included male
involvement, post abortion care, female genital cutting (FGC/FGM), and
adolescents. Two outcomes resulted from this roundtable. First, participants
wrote several articles and in-depth news reports about the issues presented.
Secondly, this session lead to an ongoing dialogue with members of the group
of journalists (Hegazi and Khalifa, 2000). Following this success, the
POLICY and FRONTIERS Projects in Egypt jointly organized a session on
maternal health services in collaboration with the Population and Family
Planning Sector of the Ministry of Health and Population. The session resulted
in the production of several press articles and lengthy news reports (Hegazi
and Khalifa, 2000). Based on these experiments and in order to widen media
coverage of critical reproductive health issues in a more systematic manner, an
intervention based project was designed and was based on three elements: