The Impactful Role of Media in Advancing Women and Child Development

Every news bulletin you watch, every social media reel you scroll through, every advertisement that flashes across your screen – all of it is quietly doing something profound: shaping how society thinks about women and children. Mass media is not a passive mirror of society. It is an active force that constructs perceptions, builds norms, and either opens doors of opportunity or slams them shut. When it comes to women and child development, this power is enormous – and comes with an equally enormous responsibility.

The double-edged power of media 🔗

Media influence on social norms begins earlier than most people realize. Research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health confirms that gender-based stereotypes, objectifying portrayals, and sexualized representations remain highly pervasive across media formats. Exposure to such content is consistently linked to stronger beliefs in traditional gender roles, tolerance of harassment, and reduced career ambitions among women and girls. The problem is not limited to adult content. A comprehensive review of research spanning 2000-2020, published in the Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, found a small but consistent association between frequent television viewing in childhood and the expression of more gender-stereotypical beliefs – particularly around appearance, toy preferences, and occupational roles.

This is media as a problem. But the same medium can be the solution.

How stereotypes get built – and broken 🔗

Content analyses of mainstream media consistently document the underrepresentation of women and a systematic misrepresentation of femininity and masculinity. On a global scale, women make up only 24% of expert voices in news coverage, despite years of incremental progress. In children’s television – a primary source of early socialization – male characters significantly outnumber female ones, and female characters are more likely to be portrayed as nurturing and emotionally dependent, while male characters are shown as assertive and dominant.

These portrayals are not harmless entertainment. Research reviewed by Free Press Unlimited shows that girls and young women lose confidence and ambition when they do not see themselves represented as leaders and role models on screen. Gender identity begins forming as early as age three, and the development of gender-based stereotypes and heuristics becomes apparent shortly after. What children see on screen during these formative years shapes what they believe is possible for themselves.

The positive flip side 🔗

The good news is that the same mechanism works in reverse. Research published by Wiley’s major reference works confirms that children’s exposure to gender counter-stereotypes – such as female characters in leadership or STEM roles, or male characters as caregivers – increases gender flexibility and challenges traditional norms of femininity and masculinity. When a primetime drama features a woman as a Supreme Court judge, or a radio programme profiles a female farmer breaking records, it does more than tell a story. It expands the frame of what society accepts as normal.

Media as a watchdog: reporting on social inequality 🔗

One of journalism’s most critical functions in advancing women and child development is holding power to account. The United Nations in India notes that structural disadvantages faced by women – including economic exclusion, unpaid care burdens, and limited access to justice – are deeply entrenched and require sustained public pressure to change. Investigative journalism that exposes the gender pay gap, reports on the failure of welfare systems to reach marginalized women, or tracks the misuse of government funds designated for women’s safety creates that public pressure.

The data on gender-based violence (GBV) alone makes a compelling case for why the media cannot look away. According to a 2025 UK government policy note on India, GBV – including domestic abuse, dowry-related violence, early and forced marriage, and sexual harassment – is reportedly widespread, with most violence occurring in a domestic context. Meanwhile, the National Commission for Women recorded a two-fold increase in GBV complaints during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching 23,772 complaints – a crisis that required media amplification to reach policymakers and the public alike.

Responsible media coverage of such issues – done with sensitivity and dignity for survivors – builds public awareness, reduces stigma around reporting abuse, and drives demand for policy reform. Sensationalism, on the other hand, re-victimizes survivors and discourages others from coming forward.

Spotlighting government initiatives and development agendas 🔗

Governments across the world launch programmes meant to improve the lives of women and children. But a scheme that exists on paper and never reaches its beneficiaries is a scheme that has failed – and the media plays a crucial role in bridging that gap. In India, for example, the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (Save the Daughter, Educate the Daughter) initiative, launched in January 2015, aimed to address the declining child sex ratio and the exclusion of girls from education. Without consistent media coverage – through television campaigns, radio programmes, and news reports – such initiatives cannot achieve the scale of behavioural change they target.

Similarly, the Indian government’s Nirbhaya Fund has allocated over ₹7,712 crore toward women’s safety infrastructure, including One Stop Centres, Women Help Desks at police stations, fast-track courts, and the SHe-Box portal for reporting workplace harassment. Media coverage of these resources is not just informational – it is life-saving. A woman in a remote district who learns through a community radio broadcast that a One Stop Centre exists nearby gains a real, tangible option she did not have before.

The rights of the girl child: a story still being told 🔗

Among the most urgent development issues requiring sustained media focus is the status of the girl child. UNICEF India points out that while girls globally have higher survival rates at birth and are more likely to be developmentally on track, India is one of the only large countries where more girls die than boys – a grim indicator of how deeply gender discrimination is embedded. Issues like child marriage, gender-biased sex selection, school dropout rates among girls, and child trafficking require not just one-time coverage but sustained, investigative journalism that follows stories to their conclusion.

India ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1993, and has enacted landmark legislation including the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in 2012, and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act in 2006. Yet legal frameworks only work when people know about them. Media campaigns that communicate rights in accessible language – through local-language newspapers, mobile alerts, or community television – convert legal protections into lived realities for vulnerable communities.

Gender-sensitive journalism: a professional imperative 🔗

Covering women and children’s issues responsibly requires more than good intentions – it requires a deliberate, trained approach. UNESCO’s Gender-Sensitive Indicators for Media (GSIM), developed in consultation with the International Federation of Journalists, provide a global framework for assessing how well media organizations represent women both in their newsrooms and in their content. The GSIM covers everything from internal hiring and leadership policies to how sources are selected and how stories are framed.

UN Women’s guidelines for gender-sensitive reporting emphasize seeking women’s voices equally as expert sources, using inclusive language, providing gender-disaggregated data, and avoiding images that reduce women to their physical appearance or exaggerate their vulnerability. These are not abstract editorial principles – they are practical choices that every journalist makes in every story.

One particularly pressing dimension is the safety of female media workers themselves. According to a global survey supported by UNESCO and UN Women, while 20% of women journalists linked online attacks to real-world harm in 2020, that figure more than doubled to 42% by 2025 – meaning digital harassment is increasingly becoming physical. A newsroom that cannot protect its female journalists cannot produce fearless gender-sensitive journalism.

Media as educator: reaching those who need it most 🔗

Beyond journalism, media serves a direct educational function in the development of women and children. Public health campaigns delivered through television, radio, and even SMS have measurably shifted behaviours around maternal health, nutrition, child immunization, and girl-child education. The International Media Support organization underscores that without access to information, women cannot claim their rights to education, property, pensions, or healthcare – and cannot challenge the norms that exclude them. Media, in this context, is not a luxury. It is an infrastructure of empowerment.

UNESCO’s UniTWIN Network for Gender, Media and ICTs, which brings together 19 universities globally, is working to equip a new generation of media practitioners with gender-sensitive skills – so that the next wave of journalists, producers, and content creators enters the industry already trained to tell stories about women and children with accuracy, fairness, and impact.

Success stories as agents of change 🔗

There is a powerful but underused tool in the journalist’s kit: the success story. Media that only covers crises – only reports on violence, deprivation, and failure – inadvertently sends a signal that poverty and victimhood are the defining conditions of women’s and children’s lives. Coverage of women who have broken economic barriers, girls who have overcome early marriage to complete education, communities that have eradicated a harmful practice – these stories do double duty. They hold the development agenda to account by showing what is possible, and they inspire the communities they reflect.

International Media Support argues that media organizations must develop self-regulatory equality policies and monitoring mechanisms to assess their own progress – tracking not just the quantity of women’s coverage but the quality, diversity, and framing of that coverage. This kind of editorial accountability is what separates media that genuinely advances development from media that merely performs concern.

What do you think? If media shapes how society values women and children, who should be responsible for ensuring that coverage is accurate, fair, and empowering – journalists, media owners, regulators, or the audience? And in an era where social media algorithms reward outrage over nuance, is gender-sensitive reporting becoming harder or more necessary than ever?

References

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10218532/
2. https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-051120-010630
3. https://kq.freepressunlimited.org/themes/gender-equality/gender-and-media/
4. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119011071.iemp0081
5. https://india.un.org/en/172095-gender-equality-and-youth-development
6. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/india-country-policy-and-information-notes/country-policy-and-information-note-women-fearing-gender-based-violence-india-august-2025-accessible
7. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2116557&reg=3&lang=2
8. https://www.unicef.org/india/what-we-do/gender-equality
9. https://www.noneinthree.org/india/policy-hub/
10. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/gender-sensitive-indicators-media
11. https://eca.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Field%20Office%20ECA/Attachments/Publications/2019/07/Guidelines%20for%20Media%20and%20Gender%20Ukraine/Guidelines_ENG_prew_40719_compressed.pdf
12. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/international-womens-day-newsrooms-enhancing-gender-sensitive-safety-policies
13. https://www.mediasupport.org/the-crucial-role-of-media-in-achieving-gender-equality/
14. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/fostering-gender-sensitive-journalism-and-media-across-world