Monitoring media coverage of elections allows identifying difference in treatment to male and female candidates and assessing the importance given to gender equality among all other programmatic issues discussed during the campaign. The following two studies, conducted by International IDEA and UN Women, offer methodological insights and case-specific analyses of media monitoring initiatives of election campaigns with a gender approach.

The media monitoring manual “Election Coverage from a Gender Perspective”, developed by International IDEA and UN Women in 2011, offers a methodological tool to monitor media coverage of the electoral process from a gender perspective. The objective of the study is “to quantify press coverage of election campaigns in Latin America using an analysis with a gender perspective that makes it possible to identify the differences and inequalities in such coverage or in the treatment accorded to men and women candidates, as well as the importance assigned to issues of gender equality in relation to others debated in the campaign.” The research methodology also allows the identification of bias in the information that favor or disfavor certain candidates, as well as gender stereotypes in the news. The quantitative nature of the analysis implies that it measures the space of the information related to the persons and issues that appear in a story. The manual gives some examples of media monitoring of elections from a gender perspective, including the cases of Peru and Uruguay.[1] 

The 2012 study “Unseeing Eyes: Media Coverage and Gender in Latin American Elections” [2], carried out by UN Women and International IDEA, presents the results of media monitoring analyses with a gender perspective during election campaigns in eight different Latin American countries, including Bolivia (2009), Chile (2010), Costa Rica (2010), Colombia (2010), Dominican Republic (2010), Peru (2011), Guatemala (2011) and Argentina (2011). The methodology was mainly quantitative, based on measuring space or time occupied by people or issues in the stories, with some qualitative features that allowed assessing the tone of the story, the journalism genre and graphical support. Media monitoring analyses were effectuated during 30 days prior to elections, considering a nation-wide sample of public and private media with high levels of audience and grating ideological plurality. 

The findings of this regional study show that gender equality was low-ranked among all programmatic issues discussed during the campaign, below 2 percent in most cases, with the exception of Chile, where this issue reached 5.1 percent. As regards the media treatment of candidatures, in seven out of eight countries, media coverage given to women candidates was below the proportion of candidatures occupied by women. In Guatemala, where 25 percent of all candidatures were hold by women, media coverage for women candidates reached only 12.8 percent; in Bolivia, where there was 47 percent of women candidates, their coverage was only 20.6 percent; in Argentina, 36 percent of all candidates were women and they received 18.9 percent of the media coverage; in Peru, women obtained 34 percent of all candidatures, receiving 25.7 percent of media coverage; in Costa Rica, 50 percent of candidates were women, receiving 38.3 percent of coverage; in Dominican Republic, 36 percent of all candidates were women, receiving 19.9 percent of coverage; in Colombia, women held 20 percent of all candidatures and received 18.3 percent of coverage. Only in Chile, the media coverage received by women candidates was higher than women’s representation among candidates, with 16 percent of women candidates who received 18 percent of media coverage. 

Example: During the 2006 legislative elections in Peru, a study conducted by International IDEA and the Civil Association Transparency (Asociación Civil Transparencia) showed that women candidates only obtained 19 percent of print media coverage, 22 percent of television coverage and 26 percent of radio coverage, in spite of accounting for 39 percent of candidatures to Congress. Among the programmatic issues, gender equality accounted for a very limited percentage of media coverage, with less than 2 percent in print media, television and radio.[3] 

Example: In the 2004 national elections in Uruguay, the Political Science Institute of the Republic’s University (Universidad de la República) conducted a media analysis, in partnership with the National Commission on Monitoring Women for Democracy, Equity and Citizenship. According to its findings, only 3.8 percent of political figures featured in the media were women, against 96.3 percent of men. During the 2009 general elections, a similar study was carried out by the same institute in collaboration with Daily Women (Cotidiano Mujer), revealing that women candidates only obtained 13.6 percent of appearances in campaign news, despite accounting for 22.6 percent of all candidatures. The category “gender and women’s interest” reached 3.5 percent of analyzed programmatic issues.[4] 

Example: In Tunisia, the Arab Working Group for Media Monitoring carried out media monitoring with a gender approach in the framework of the 2011 elections to the Constituent Assembly, in partnership with the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (Association Tunisienne des Femmes Démocrates) and other NGOs. The results of this analysis showed that women candidates only received 6.6 percent of coverage in the written press, 8 percent in radio and 10.9 percent in television.[5]