APWLD Media Fellowship on Digitalisation and Feminist Digital Rights and Justice

Now in its sixth year, APWLD Media Fellowship aims to continue creating inclusive and safe spaces for journalists in traditional and new media platforms and showcase feminist storytelling that highlights the voices of grassroots women and their communities in the region.

The duration of the fellowship will be from May 2025 to May 2026. During this period, the fellows will have an option to produce news, feature, photo, data and/or podcast/audio stories, audio-video content/documentary and/or combination of these formats with a feminist lens that highlight the gendered impact of digitalisation on women’s human rights.

Objectives

• To produce stories that highlight feminist analysis and demands on digitalisation, digital rights and justice issues and their gendered impact on women and their communities in mainstream and alternative media platforms.
• To influence and shape the public discourse on digitalisation and encourage reporting from feminist perspectives, in the process influencing policies and conversations in advocacy spaces.
• To support APWLD members’ and partners’ campaigns and advocacy at national and regional levels and their media advocacy work.

Themes

• Major themes and an indicative (but not exhaustive) set of issues that stories under the fellowship can cover include, but are not restricted to:
  • Digitalisation and its impact on women’s work and livelihoods
    • Women representation and working conditions in the tech industry
    • Impact of AI, automation and digitalisation on women workers, agricultural workers including peasants and fisherfolk
    • Rise of platform economy
  • Data privacy, digital surveillance and militarism/wars
    • State/government surveillance and militarism/wars
    • Data privacy rights violations
    • Digital corporate capture and data governance
  • Misinformation and disinformation
    • Governments as peddler of fake news
    • Fake news in the context of shaping public opinions and results of elections
    • Targeting mass leaders, unionists and activists
  • Rise of digital authoritarianism
    • Censorship and internet freedom
    • Cyberattacks and internet shutdowns
    • Corporate authoritarianism through digital trade and economy
  • Autonomy and bodily integrity
    • Rise of online/tech-facilitated gender-based violence especially against women and women human rights defenders
  • Environment, Agriculture and Economy
    • Environmental costs of digitalisation
    • Food sovereignty and agroecology in the digital era
    • Digital economy governance for data and AI
    • Impact of e-commerce, digital trade and finance on women
    • Tech-based access to basic social services (education, health, etc)

Funding Information

• During the fellowship, APWLD will provide a stipend of 3,000 USD to individual fellows and 5,000 USD to team fellows to cover expenses for research and travel, according to story plans co-developed with and approved by APWLD.

Eligibility Criteria

• The fellowship is open to women media professionals, journalists, and visual journalists from Asia and the Pacific with at least three years of experience.

Selection Criteria

• Experience in covering women’s human rights, grassroots movements, and development issues particularly in the context of digitalisation, digital rights and justice
• Seven (7) applicants will be selected for this media and visual journalism fellowship. Both individual and team applications are accepted. In case of a team, application should be made in the name of both co-applicants. Four (4) individual and three (3) group applicants will be selected
• Commitment to feminist movement building.
• Must be able to travel overseas as required.
• Proficient in English and a language from the Asia or the Pacific region.

Application Requirements

• The applicant should submit an expression of interest with the following documents:
  • Completed application form (including copy of valid travel document)
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Two work samples of any medium in English or with English translations
  • Proposed work plan (use APWLD template)
  • Proposed budget plan (use APWLD template)
  • A letter of endorsement from media organisation if full-time employee, or a letter of endorsement from an editor if a freelance journalist/visual journalist
  • Letter from editor to guarantee publication of news stories indicating that the stories will be published as part of the Media Fellowship; Optional for freelance journalists
• Other than producing and publishing stories under the fellowship, the fellows are expected to:
  • Attend the Media Fellowship Training (April 2025);
  • Attend and engage in civil society and UN advocacy spaces and meetings when necessary, as guided by APWLD;
  • Ensure publication of their stories in their media outlets or in other media outlets;
  • Ensure that publishing outlets will indicate/reflect that the published stories are a part of APWLD Media and Visual Journalism Fellowship programme;
  • Be in close, regular communications with APWLD Information and Communications Programme throughout the fellowship;
  • Submit the full version of the published stories with publication links, photographs and accompanying captions. Files should be in jpeg format, at least 4000 pixel-wide resolution, saved at highest compression format with file name format: name-keyword-sequence number (e.g. GManuel-gigworker-AI-1); and
  • Submit the full narrative and financial report after publishing all the required stories.

For more information, visit APWLD.