Since the late 1990s media monitoring has become a common component of international election observations missions (EOMs). This is an acknowledgment of the importance of fair access to the media as a criterion in assessing the overall acceptability of an election process.

Some organisations, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union, invariably include a media team in their EOMs. Other intergovernmental EOMs, such as those from the Commonwealth, may not include their own media monitoring component but will increasingly draw on the media monitoring findings of others. Commonwealth bodies such as the Commonwealth Press Union have themselves undertaken media monitoring, quite separately from the EOMs organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat.

The work on the media undertaken by international EOMs should properly be described as media analysis rather than media monitoring. Organisations such as the OSCE have refined their methodology to the point where a member of the core observation team is responsible for developing an overall analysis of the media scene and its potential impact on the election. This general understanding of the media environment – ownership, laws, past history of restrictions on media activity – will be vital in interpreting the quantitative data gathered in the course of monitoring.

The media analyst in the core team is responsible for training a team of monitors. These will necessarily be nationals of the country concerned, because of the requirement that they have the necessary language skills, as well as an understanding of the local political scene. Monitoring will always have a strong emphasis on quantitative data, primarily the question of the allocation of time and space to different parties and candidates.

Monitoring by international EOMs differs from monitoring by local organisations in two important respects.

• Local monitoring, whether by NGOs or by the electoral management body itself, is intended as a constructive intervention in the election process. If media coverage is unfair, the aim of monitoring is to point this out before the election and attempt to prompt corrective action. International observers cannot intervene in an election process and, for the most part, will not present detailed monitoring findings until after the election is over. The OSCE publishes summary data from its media monitoring in an interim report, but does not release its full conclusions until later.
• International monitoring confines itself to a fairly narrow reading of international or regional standards on access to the media by political parties and candidates. Local monitoring, especially by NGOs, can choose to focus both on a wider range of qualitative indicators and on quantitative measures addressing questions such as gender and ethnic imbalances, or the extent to which the media reflect the campaigning agendas of the different candidates.

The value of incorporating media analysis into international EOMs is that this makes for a more complete and rounded evaluation of the validity of an election. For both media and election managers within the country, international media monitoring findings can be used as a comparison with the conclusions from domestic media monitoring, as well as providing benchmarks for media coverage of future elections.

Domestic media monitors can also learn from the methodologies used by media monitors in international EOMs. The OSCE has developed a manual for its media analysts, describing the international and regional standards underpinning its work, techniques of media analysis and the basics of its media monitoring methodology.