BANGKOK - Do media organisations in the Mekong Region think that gender sensitivity, including giving voices to women, is part of doing better stories? How do they define it within the context of their societies and how do they report on different genders and sexuality? Do they include the use of gender-friendly language in their stylebooks and training programmes? How much is using a gender lens a news habit?

These are some of the questions asked by ‘Talking Gender in the Mekong Media’, a report that IPS Asia-Pacific (www.ipsnewsasia.net) carried out as part of the IPS network’s ‘Communicating for Change’ project, in order to help identify areas for future news work and capacity-building, as well some practical and professional approaches to doing these. The Communicating for Change project is funded through the Dutch Ministry’s MDG-3 Fund.

The 54-page report scans the media in the six Mekong countries - Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

The report finds that the perceptions of what makes for gender-friendly media vary, and that the mainstreaming of gender awareness and sensitivity is far from assumed as an accepted editorial or news standard in the Mekong region. Discussions of gender and media are also different across the region, whose countries have political and economic systems that range from socialist to military-dominated to free-market or a mix of these, and thus have different kinds and degrees of space for media.

It will be off the press in February 2010.

For inquiries, please contact: ipsasia@ipsnews.net or ipsapdirector@gmail.com