Monitoring the output of the media will never tell the whole story about how far they are doing a professional job of keeping the electorate informed. Monitoring focuses on what the media produce. Looking at the content of media coverage cannot answer important questions about the legal and political environment in which the media operate.

Media monitoring – whether by electoral managers, observer missions or non-governmental groups – should always be part of a broader process of media analysis. Indeed, many monitoring findings will be inexplicable without placing them in context. Who owns the different media houses? What laws restrict the operations of journalists? Have there been physical attacks on the media? Without answers to these and other questions the quantitative and qualitative findings of media monitoring will be meaningless.

Analysis of the media role in elections will take account of a number of factors, which can be grouped under the following broad headings:

• Media environment: Who owns the media? What are their political leanings? What is the structure of any publicly funded media? How do the media make their money? What is the audience for different media outlets?
• Media law: What is the legal environment in which the media operate? Are there generalised restrictions on media freedom? Does the law relating to media and elections enable the media to report freely or does it restrict them? Are any restrictive laws in regular use?
• Professional standards and traditions: Does the country have a tradition of media freedom? Is there a long history of independent professional journalism? Is there professional regulation of the media (for example through a code of conduct and a self-regulatory complaints procedure)? Have most journalists received professional training?
• Attacks on the media: Have journalists been allowed to go about their work unhampered? Have there been attacks on journalists by government agents? By supporters of different political parties? Have journalists been arrested and imprisoned?
• Informal controls over the media: Do the government or important political figures exercise informal political control over what appears in some media outlets? Does this happen through bribes and inducements? Threats and penalties? Self-censorship? Or a combination of all of these?