The Institute for Women’s Leadership and the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University are teaming up in a new initiative to examine the progress of women in media industries. The Women & Media Initiative will examine women’s overall representation in the media, women’s status in leadership roles, and will study the use of media technologies across gender lines.
Alison R. Bernstein, director of the Institute for Women’s Leadership, stated, “I knew from my experience as a vice president at the Ford Foundation that the representation of women in the media – public affairs, broadcasting, films for children – has been stalled for many, many years. The only place women seem to get some representation is in documentary filmmaking, and that’s probably only because documentaries don’t cost multi-millions of dollars to produce.”