Gender equality for sustainable development: Аnalysis of local journalists’ role in Bangladesh

Gender discrimination turns women and girls into a part of a marginalized community. As a traditional value-centric and gender biased society, people in Bangladesh undervalue the contribution of women in family and community. Goal five of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), nevertheless, calls directly for achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls. Some analysts also intend that gender equality is connected with achieving all the 17 goals of SDGs. As such, promoting gender equality through media portrayal is a key to the sustainable development of Bangladesh. Different literature also focused on media professionals’ responsibilities for eliminating gender-based discrimination. However, media mainly give more concentration on the central or core level issues of society. Thus, the representation of local or peripheral gender issues in media remains poor. Media professionals, local journalists in particular, could play a significant role in promoting local gender equality issues. Under the given context this study aims to analyze to what extent the local journalists play roles in achieving gender equality for sustainable development. Incorporating a multi-level social ecological framework, this study adopted both the quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Employing convenience sampling, 32 local journalists from different media in Chittagong city, a Southeastern coastal city of Bangladesh, were surveyed. In addition, five in-depth interviews from gender and media analysts were taken using purposive sampling. The findings of the study demonstrated that based on journalistic principles a significant portion of local journalists plays a positive role to promote local gender issues from the individual level to the policy level. Thus, they accelerate the course of achieving sustainable development goals. This study also suggests guidelines for the policymakers to use local journalists for promoting gender equality at the local level.