On Monday, March 12 during the 62nd session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, Sigma presented a parallel program, Women as Subjects, Consumers, and Thought Leaders of Media, to an overflowing room of international attendees. Representatives of Member States, UN entities, and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from all regions of the world attend the sessions.
The focus on the Sigma session reflected the CSW62 theme: Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls; and that the participation in and access of women to the media, and information and communications technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women
Sigma panelists included: Julie Adams, Sigma Director of Marketing and Communications, Diana Mason, Senior Policy Service Professor and Co-Director of a new Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement, George Washington University School of Nursing, Aden Hamza, Sigma United Nations Youth Representative, Marnie Colborne, Sigma United Nations Youth Representative and Cynthia Vlasich, Sigma Director of Global Initiatives.
Bios of the panelists can be found here.
Dr. Mason spoke about George Washington University’s Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement’s current research study, “Nurses and the Media: A Qualitative Study of Journalists’ Use of Nurses as Sources in Health News Stories.” This 2018 study is a revision of the 1998 study, The Woodhull Study on Nursing and the Media, originally commissioned by Sigma. The quantitative research of the 2018 study is being conducted with the Berkeley Media Studies Group.
She shared the Woodhull Study’s original findings and stated why 20 years later another media analysis is critical to measure nurse’s visibility in the media. She addressed issues that prevents nurses from being media-savvy role models, and what actions can be taken to engage journalists to increase nurse’s representation in the media and become sources for their health care reporting in traditional digital and social media.
The high-level findings from the “Nurses and the Media: A Qualitative Study of Journalists’ Use of Nurses as Sources in Health News Stories” will be presented at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on May 8th. This event will be live streamed and archived.
