In November 2007, Greg Andresen was contracted by Men’s Health SA (MHSA – at that time the South Australian Men’s Health Alliance – SAMHA) to conduct a one-day-a-week Media Watch role on behalf of SAMHA and its collaborative partners, the Men’s Health Information & Resource Centre at the University of Western Sydney (MHIRC) and the Australasian Men’s Health Forum (AMHF). In July 2010, a fourth collaborative partner came on board to support the project – The Men’s Advisory Network (MAN) from Western Australia.

The Media Watch role involved the critique, analysis and, when appropriate, challenging of mass media statements and commentary and other forms of institutional, academic and government literature and media that:

• depicted men or boys or masculinity in an unfair, negative or disparaging way
• were misleading, inaccurate, or prejudicial towards men and boys
• detracted from a general positive affirmation of men, boys, and masculinity
• undermined the endeavour to approach men and boy’s health and issues in an intelligent, respectful, positive, equitable and constructive way.

The role soon expanded to include four main categories of work.

1. Media watch – keeping an eye on print press, advertising, websites, publications, TV, movies and radio, on the lookout for inaccurate and misleading representations of men, boys and gender issues. It also involved writing accurate male-positive articles and media releases, and taking part in interviews and media discussions from an accurate male-positive standpoint.
2. Lobbying and networking – involved talking and writing to politicians, government bureaucrats, NGOs and other organisations and individuals to convey a factual, male-friendly point-of-view on issues of concern to males.
3. Taking part in government inquiries and consultations.
4. Circulating men’s health information of interest, via the Men’s Health Australia website (menshealthaustralia.net), email lists, occasional e-newsletters and more recently via Twitter and Facebook.

Greg has just put together a report on his Media Watch role over the past 18 months which you might find interesting or useful. It can be downloaded from

www.menshealthaustralia.net/storage/files/Media_Watch_Report_2011.pdf.

This is the second of two reports. The first report was published in May 2009, and is available online at

www.menshealthaustralia.net/storage/files/MHSA_Media_Watch_Report_July_2009.pdf.