Image: The media are essential to democracy, and a democratic election is impossible without media. A free and fair election is not only about the freedom to vote and the knowledge of how to cast a vote, but also about a participatory process where voters engage in public debate and have adequate information about parties, policies, candidates and the election process itself in order to make informed choices. Furthermore, media acts as a crucial watchdog to democratic elections, safeguarding the transparency of the process. Indeed, a democratic election with no media freedom, or stifled media freedom, would be a contradiction.
In order to fulfill their roles, the media need to maintain a high level of professionalism, accuracy and impartiality in their coverage. Regulatory frameworks can help ensure high standards. Laws and regulation should guarantee fundamental freedoms essential to democracy, including freedom of information and expression, as well as participation. Meanwhile, provisions such as requiring government media, funded out of public money, to give fair coverage and equitable access to opposition parties, help ensure appropriate media behavior during elections.
The media have traditionally been understood to refer to the printed press as well as radio and television broadcasters. In recent years however, the definition has become broader, encompassing new media including online journalism, and social media. Citizen journalism is widely gaining traction, including in countries where traditional media is either controlled or strictly regulated.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++The media play an indispensable role in the proper functioning of a democracy. Discussion of the media's functions within electoral contexts, often focuses on their "watchdog" role: by unfettered scrutiny and discussion of the successes and failures of candidates, governments, and electoral management bodies, the media can inform the public of how effectively they have performed and help to hold them to account. Yet the media also have other roles in enabling full public participation in elections:
The media are not the sole source of information for voters, but in a world dominated by mass communications, it is increasingly the media that determine the political agenda, even in less technologically developed countries. A report by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies put it this way:
The media plays a major role in keeping the citizenry abreast of current events and raising awareness of various issues in any society. It also has an extremely significant impact on the public’s views and way of thinking. The media is the primary means through which public opinion is shaped and at times manipulated. If this is the media’s role then in normal course of events, it becomes even more vital in exceptional periods, one of which is electoral junctures, when the media becomes a primary player. Elections constitute a basic challenge to the media, putting its impartiality and objectivity to the test. The task of the media, especially national media outlets, is not and should not be to function as a mouthpiece for any government body or particular candidate. Its basic role is to enlighten and educate the public and act as a neutral, objective platform for the free debate of all points of view.[i]
It is for this reason that election observation teams, for example, routinely comment upon media access and coverage of elections as a criterion for judging whether elections are fair. Monitoring the media during election periods has become an increasingly common practice, using a combination of statistical analysis and the techniques of media studies and discourse analysis to measure media’s role in an election.
The numerous ways in which media ensure democratic electoral processes generally fall into one of the following categories:
Each of these categories is explored in separate sections.
[i] “Media and Parliamentary Elections in Egypt: Evaluation of Media Performance in the Parliamentary Elections” Human Rights Movement Issues 26, (Cairo, Egypt: Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, 2011): 27
In today’s politics and society at large, media is essential to the safeguarding transparency of democratic processes. This is often called its ‘watchdog’ role. Transparency is required on many levels including for access to information; accountability and legitimacy of individuals, institutions and processes themselves; and for rightful participation and public debate.
Transparency as required for access to information means that an electorate is provided necessary and comprehensive information so as to make informed choices as well as be able to hold officials and institutions accountable. This includes access to legal and operational proceedings as well as information about officials and institutions. Specific to elections, an EMB for example, is obligated to inform the public on their actions, decisions, and plans. Individuals appointed or elected to an EMB body are public figures who should be working in the interests of the public. As such, information regarding their affiliations, histories, and performance while in office, is to be freely accessed by the public.
Media acts as a mechanism for the prevention and investigation of allegations of violations or malpractice. This watchdog role extends from accountability of officials and their actions while ‘in office’ to entire processes. For example, media presence at voting and counting centres is critical to preventing electoral fraud, given that full measures protecting freedom of speech are guaranteed, and that media are free to act independently and with impartiality.
An election cannot be deemed democratic unless the public is fully able to participate and is unhindered in exercising choice. As such, media are vital in ensuring that there is a public, i.e. transparent, platform for debate and participation in the discussion. Candidates are to represent the public. Transparency of an election helps ensures that this indeed is so. Furthermore, transparency of individual processes (such as voting, counting, registering, candidate nomination, campaigning and so forth) further protects and enables public participation in these processes.
A poignant example, involving elections in Serbia in 2000, illustrates these key aspects of transparency:
In Serbia, several important independent media outlets contributed to the decline of Milošević’s popularity. The B-92 radio station had offered unsparing professional coverage of Milošević and his regime since 1989. B-92 cofounder Goran Matić also played an instrumental role in establishing a regional radio and television network to distribute independent news broadcasts. The ANEM network, a media cluster consisting of a news agency, several independent dailies and weeklies, and a television station, helped to give Serbians news from outside state-dominated channels. Critical coverage of Milošević’s wars, his economic policies, and his government’s violent arrests and abuses of young protestors helped to undermine his support within the population. In September 2000, independent media coverage of official vote fraud brought outraged Serbians into the streets. At the time, Milošević had closed B-92, but ANEM and Radio Index in Belgrade ensured that there was no let up in coverage. Without these media outlets, popular mobilization would have been much harder. [i]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Candidates and Parties have an explicit right to provide the electorate information regarding their attributes, political agendas, and proposed plans. Besides meeting directly with members of the electorate, candidates and parties accomplish this task through campaigns via media. It is paramount to democratic electoral processes therefore, that all candidates and parties are provided equal access to media for this endeavour.
Candidates and parties use the mass media for campaigning through sponsored direct access spots, paid political advertising, televised debates, use of social media, and other mechanisms. They also hope the media will voluntarily cover them because of the newsworthiness of their campaign activities. Political parties expend vast human and financial resources on planning and executing mass media campaigns. The NDI Political Campaign Planning Manual[i] gives an idea of the extent of organisation involved.
The media have several roles in realising contestants’ right to campaign:
To create a level playing field is the first role. This entails equal access to state broadcasters and other state resources:
Among the most effective, but least analyzed, means of autocratic survival is an uneven playing field. In countries like Botswana, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal, Singapore, Tanzania, and Venezuela, democratic competition is undermined less by electoral fraud or repression than by unequal access to state institutions, resources, and the media.
An uneven playing field is less evident to outside observers than is electoral fraud or repression, but it can have a devastating impact on democratic competition.[ii]
Levelling the campaign playing field is one of the main justifications for regulation of media during elections. For more information, see the section on National-level Law and Regulations on Media and Elections.
Another key role of media in campaigning is balanced reporting, ensuring that candidates receive fair coverage. This is one reason why robust media monitoring is so important toward ensuring fair and free elections. Media professionalism and media literacy are also fundamental to this achievement.[i] Political Campaigning Planning Manual: A Step by Step Guide to Winning Elections (Washington DC: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 2009)
[ii] Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, “Why Democracy Needs a Level Playing Field”, Journal of Democracy 21 (Jan 2010): 57
While candidate and party campaigns are of course a form of debate, there are also other voices that are to be heard within public forums. As enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, all people have the right to express opposing ideas and opinions.[i]
The role of media in providing this platform for debate and discussion is therefore vital. Media provide a mechanism for regular citizens to be heard and to therefore influence political agendas and campaign platforms, and sometimes garnering support and influencing fellow voters. Forms can include:
This role as a forum for public debate is a complex one in post-conflict situations, as the line between debate and conflict needs to be carefully managed by professional media, which is not always present. As one report on media in the context of elections and political violence in East Africa states:
The media serve as a forum for competing political actors to vie for power and to offer alternatives to the national project. This is both a strength and weakness.
It is a strength because it means that the media, and the press in particular, can be a valuable space for reconciliation and dialogue between competing political perspectives. When perspectives are engaged effectively this can help to reduce polarization, and further define and consolidate the state‐ and nation‐building agenda.
But the media’s ability to serve as a forum is a weakness for fragile states that may not have the institutions to manage this kind of discussion.[ii]
[i] “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”, Office of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, accessed August 16, 2012, http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx
[ii] Nicole Stremlau and Monroe E. Price, Media, Eelections and Political Violence in Eastern Africa: Towards a Comparative Framework, An Annenberg-Oxford Occasional Paper in Communications Policy Research (Annenberg-Oxford, 2009), 28
Media’s role as a public educator is in essence a combination of media’s three other roles with a few added aspects. For example, media as a mechanism for transparency ensures voters are provided information necessary to fully evaluate the conduct of officials as well as the process at large. Media as a campaign platform ensures the public is educated in political agenda’s of all participating parties and candidates equally. Media as open forum for debate and discussion ensures that voters can educate other voters, politicians, and officials.
Media also educates through the transmission of voter information. This might be through direct negotiation with EMBs and NGOs for broadcast of educational material (see Encyclopaedia topic area: Voter Education for more information). It also happens indirectly. For example, when media report on an electoral event, details such as the location of voting sites, the necessity of voter registration, how the count will be conducted, and so forth, may be provided to the audience. This is one reason why it is very important that an EMB communicates frequently with all media, providing them with the necessary facts and figures to ensure accurate reporting.
Media also play an important analytical role, which enhances their ability to play their other roles, as watchdogs, forums for debate, and so on. For example, if media simply re-post or re-broadcast an EMB press release, transmission of information to the electorate may still warrant useful, but lacking in scope and context. Without analysis of the press release in relation to on the ground events, results, or opposing opinions, for example, the information received by the media audience is one-dimensional. In ensuring that the public has the level of informational detail required to make informed choices or action, media utilize various tools of analysis. These include:
Women and men tend to be treated very differently by the media, worldwide. Similarly, men and women tend to have vastly different experiences of participating in political processes. Men are more visible and dominant in both media and elections; and gender stereotypes prevail in both. These differences are mutually reinforcing in the sense that less visibility of women in the media impacts their political success; and less women politicians means less news stories focusing on women leaders.
Women’s participation in politics – as voters, candidates, politicians, civil society activists, and in other roles – is important because it allows women to exercise their fundamental civil and political rights. It is also important because it allows countries to draw on the full range of human resources available to it to progress; and helps to ensure that women’s and girl’s needs are adequately met in policy-making processes. Gender stereotypes and discrimination are damaging to both men and women because they constrain individuals and society as a whole.
The UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression acknowledges this problem, saying:
central to the issues of equal access for women to rights, equal opportunities for the enjoyment of rights, and equal treatment in that enjoyment is the actual extent to which women may exercise their rights to opinion, expression and information without discrimination and the degree to which women actually enjoy the right to participation in public life. The Special Rapporteur states again that the problem does not lie in the manner in which international human rights standards have been elaborated but rather in the restrictive and traditional interpretations and applications of human rights law. The Special Rapporteur emphasizes that it is not acceptable for women still to be dependent on men to represent their views and protect their interests nor is it acceptable that women continue to be consistently excluded from decision-making processes that not only affect them but society in general. [i]
Women’s participation in political processes has improved in most countries in recent decades. The percentage of women in parliament increased four-fold in the half-century to 1995.[ii] Nevertheless, in 2012 the percentage of women in parliament even in established democracies is still well below parity (India 11%, United States 17%, Denmark 39%).[iii] Many countries – particularly new democracies - now have policies that directly promote women candidates, often through voluntary or mandatory quota systems. Most democracies now have universal suffrage in which women have the same rights as men (even if there are more barriers to exercising them, in many countries); and civic and voter education usually targets both men and women.
Gender stereotyping and limitations to participation continue to express themselves in many ways in political life. While women’s participation as members of parliaments is growing, women are less likely to hold ministerial positions or the highest office in the country (president, prime minister, etc.). When women do hold ministerial positions, they are more likely to hold stereotypical ‘women’s’ portfolios such as social welfare rather than economics, politics, or security.[iv]
A number of factors continue to contribute to the slow progress of women in politics. As stated in a media monitoring manual by IDEA and UN Women:
[s]everal studies indicate that the citizens support women candidates, yet the failure to promote their leadership in their own political organizations, the smaller sums of money available for their campaigns, and the cultural conditioning factors that assign them a greater responsibility in family tasks all stand in the way of their full participation.[v]
Gender discrimination is also compounded by the general news media. According to the Global Media Monitoring Project, in 2010 men were 79% of news subjects, and “[n]ews continue to portray a world in which men outnumber women in almost all occupational categories, the highest disparity being in the professions”, with obvious implications for the visibility of women in politics. The media sector has improved in some ways, however, with a growing number of female reporters in all issue areas – including ‘hard’ topics such as security, politics and economics. Women reporters were 6% more likely than male ones to have women as subjects in their stories.[vi]
It is increasingly recognized that media have a key role to play in women’s participation throughout political life. In 1994 the Inter-Parliamentary Union stated that the media can “help to instil among the public the idea that women's participation in political life is an essential part of democracy (and) can also take care to avoid giving negative or minimizing images of women and their determination and capacity to participate in politics, stressing the importance of women's role in economic and social life and in the development process in general.”[vii]
In most countries political competition during elections is played out in the media, and the media thus play a key agenda-setting role. As emphasized in the media monitoring manual mentioned earlier, media does this by determining “issues and individuals they consider newsworthy day after day…whether a candidate is present or absent, and the type of coverage they get when they are present, all condition their chances of getting elected, since the voters extract the information they need for making their political decisions from the media.”[viii]
A number of studies have been carried out on media coverage of female candidates, revealing that even when there are a reasonable number of women candidates they are often neglected by the media. A study by International IDEA and Asociación Civil Transparencia of Peru’s 2006 elections revealed that:
The Uruguay elections of 2004 and 2009 revealed similar biases:
The media’s multiple contributions to elections can also be applied to addressing gender discrimination and promoting equal participation, for example:
Other action is being taken on a number of fronts to address the compounded problem of women’s lack of visibility in elections-related media:
[i] “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Mr. Abid Hussain”, UN Economic and Social Council, January 29, 1999, accessed March 4, 2015, http://eos.cartercenter.org/uploads/document_file/path/137/G9910766.pdf
[ii] “Women in Politics: 30 Years in Retrospect”, (Data sheet), International Parliamentary Union, 2006, accessed August 23, 2012, http://www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/wmninfokit06_en.pdf
[iii] “Women in national parliaments”, Inter-Parliamentary Union, accessed August 30, 2012, http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm,
[iv] “Factsheet: Women’s political participation”, International Women’s Democracy Center, accessed August 21, 2012, http://www.iwdc.org/resources/fact_sheet.htm
[v] Beatriz Llanos and Juana Nina, Electoral Coverage from a Gender Perspective: A media monitoring manual, (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2011), 11
[vi] “Who makes the news”, (report highlights) Global Media Monitoring Project, 2010, accessed August 23, 2012 http://www.medinstgenderstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/highlights_en.pdf
[vii] “Plan Of Action to Correct Present Imbalances In The Participation
Of Men And Women In Political Life”, Inter-Parliamentary Union, March 16, 1994, Http://Www.Ipu.Org/Wmn-E/Planactn.Htm
[viii] Beatriz Llanos and Juana Nina, Electoral Coverage from a Gender Perspective: A media monitoring manual, (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2011), 11
[ix] Ibid
[x] Beatriz Llanos and Juana Nina, Electoral Coverage from a Gender Perspective: A media monitoring manual, (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2011), 10
Additional Resources
Rosemary Armao, Covering Elections: The Challenges of Training the Watchdogs, Center for International Media Assistance, (Washington DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 2012)
Larry Diamond “Liberation Technology”, Journal of Democracy 21 no. 3 (July 2010)
Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain “The Role of Digital Media”, Journal of Democracy 22, no. 3 (July 3, 2011)
Ross Howard, Media + Elections, An Elections Reporting Handbook, (IMPACS Associate, 2004)
Michael Karanicolas, “Regulation of paid advertising: A survey”, Centre for Law and Democracy (March 2012), http://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Elections-and-Broadcasting-Final.pdf
Yasha Lange and Andrew Palmer (eds), Media and Elections: a Handbook, (Dusseldorf: European Institute for the Media, 1995)
Beatriz Llanos and Juana Nina, Electoral Coverage from a Gender Perspective: A media monitoring manual, (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2011
Johanna Martinsson, The Role of Media Literacy in the Governance Reform Agenda, (Washington DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 2009)
Susan D. Moeller Media Literacy: Understanding the News, Center for International Media Assistance, (Washington DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 2009)
Robert Noris, Media Monitoring to Promote Democratic elections: an NDI handbook for citizen organizations, (Washington DC: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 2002)
Howard R. Penniman and Austin Ranney, "The Regulation of Televised Political Advertising in Six Selected Democracies", Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, n.d.
Bill Ristow, “Cash for Coverage: Bribery of Journalists Around the World,” A Report to the Center for International Media Assistance, Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED), September 28, 2010
Frank Smyth, Journalist Security Guide (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2012) cpj.org/security/guide.pdf
Empowering Independent Media, US Efforts to Foster Free and Independent News Around the World, Center for International Media Assistance, eds. Marguerite H. Sullivan (Washington DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 2008),
Nicole Stremlau and Monroe E. Price, “Media, Elections and Political Violence in Eastern Africa: Towards a Comparative Framework,” Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, Centre for Socio‐Legal Studies, University of Oxford, Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research, London, October 2009
Dr Andy Williamson, Dr Laura Miller & Freddy Fallon, Behind the Digital Campaign, (London: Hansard Society, 2010)
BRIDGE (Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections) http://bridge-project.org/
Election Reporting Handbook, International Federation of Journalists (n.d.)
http://www.ifj.org/nc/en/news-single-view/category/meeting-1/article/election-reporting-handbook/
“Guidelines for Election Broadcasting in Transitional Democracies”, (London: ARTICLE 19, 1994)
Handbook for Journalists, Reporters Without Borders/UNESCO (n.d.) http://en.rsf.org/handbook-for-journalists-17-04-2007,21744.html
“Handbook on Media Monitoring for Election Observation Missions” (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ODIHR, 2012) http://www.osce.org/odihr/92057?download=true
“Media and elections in Sudan: Monitoring the coverage of Sudan 2010 elections, Period 13 February to 31 October 2010,” Sudan Media and Elections, December 2010, Consortium
Media and the Elections Process, Reuters Foundation
http://webworld.unesco.org/download/fed/iraq/english/media_elections_en.pdf
“Who makes the news”, (report highlights) Global Media Monitoring Project, (2010), accessed August 23, 2012 http://www.medinstgenderstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/highlights_en.pdf
“World Press Freedom Index 2011- 2012”, Reporters without Borders, 25 January 2012Media is everywhere. There are hundreds of thousands of traditional (broadcast and print) media outlets across the globe. In Russia alone, there were 35,000 registered newspapers in 2010 and roughly 10,000 radio and TV stations by 2004.[i] The growth of the Internet, satellite transmission, and mobile phone services has rendered it impossible to gauge the true extent of media outlet proliferation. Furthermore, new media, such as blogging, the social media networks and so forth have added an expansive dimension of what media means today and who has access to it.
In this age of media diversity and reach it is easy to assume therefore that we live in a "global village" - a single, undifferentiated information society. Nevertheless, access to information by people - and voters in particular - differs enormously depending on national and subnational contexts. Across the globe, aspects such as politics (both current and historical), media literacy, access to electricity, wealth, geographic location, and culture all contribute to the wide array of national-level media landscapes. The nature of the media landscape will largely determine the nuances of the role that the media play in an election. These nuances include reach, political inclinations, and tendencies to set the terms of political debate.
Media mapping is important for most election stakeholders, in order to understand what media is available, what its strengths and weaknesses are, and who has access to it. A thorough media mapping exercise for a given country need do more than look at local media: it needs to at least attempt to account for the vast array of media that streams in from international sources. An examination of presence and coverage of media is also not enough. A proper analysis also needs to account for the affect that characteristics such as ownership, wealth, political history, legal framework, and culture have on the dynamics of a media landscape. A comprehensive understanding of the many layers and nuances of media landscape is particularly important for the implementation of democratic elections. According to one analyst, “[…] access to accurate and objective information is more important than ever for a healthy democracy to flourish. This access is crucial to improve conditions for trust among citizens, media, and state, and to implement and sustain the governance agenda.”[ii]
One of the most pivotal influences to media landscapes is wealth and economic prosperity. This affects both ownership and reach of media. For example, in an area where there is little opportunity for advertising revenue, there is often a dearth of independent local media unless funding is provided directly from external sources, for example from wealthy individuals or donors. Often independent (private) media will be concentrated around urban areas with little to no reach beyond them. Although decreasingly so, there are still areas of the world where the only national media that is available in rural areas is state or government media. The term ‘digital divide’ has been coined to refer to inequalities between populations in terms of access to modern media.
Increasingly media throughout the world, except in the poorest countries, fall under the control of multinational media companies. Access to multinational media companies is also on the rise, often despite matters of economics. For example in Afghanistan prior to 2002, access to broadcast media was limited to a network of state owned outlets except for a smattering of multinational AM radio stations such as BBC and Voice of America (VoA). Over the course of the next ten years, the landscape had altered dramatically, with a flourish of independent and private national broadcasters. Yet, even in areas where there is still little reach of national media, access to multinational media via satellite has, in varying degrees, altered access to information.
However, wealth is not the only factor which influences layout of media presence. Political and cultural traditions are also a significant determinant. Most European countries, for example, have a strong tradition of state or public ownership of broadcasting. France only legalized private broadcasting in the 1980s. Not surprisingly, countries with a history of military or single-party rule may have developed their own tradition of state control of the media. During the 1960’s and 70’s private media in Latin America was often associated with military dictatorships. A country’s historical context of media affects audience trust tendencies, which in turn influences listenership/readership. This has the potential to either encourage or discourage the development of certain types of media.
Another critical dimension of the media environment is the strength of the traditions and legal framework of political freedom and respect for freedom of expression. Preferably the media will operate under the protection of strong constitutional and statutory guarantees of freedom of expression and access to information. For example, the extent to which the allocation of broadcasting frequencies is a fair and transparent process is likely to have a significant influence on how the broadcasters discharge their responsibilities at election time. Similarly, a history of censorship or physical intimidation of the media is likely to loom as a constant threat over journalists and editors in their election coverage.
Access to international media can also be greatly affected by the legal policies of a country. The North Korean government, for example, has been successful in remaining almost entirely isolated from the international media scene. There is currently (2012) no broadband data network in the country, and Internet satellite receivers are not permitted except in extremely controlled circumstances or for government and elite use.
Countries with economic prosperity, a history of pluralism, freedom of expression and independence will have had the opportunity to cultivate diverse and stable media as well. Professional standards may also be higher (although the sometimes weak ethics of media in advanced democracies show that the correlation is not an exact one). Most importantly, the combinations influences and histories will set the stage as to how effectively and fairly the media will be able to cover an election.
Understanding the media landscape of a given country also includes understanding how people use media. As well as the availability of media, there are other factors at play, such as people’s personal preferences, work location and routines, overall trust in news sources as well as general media literacy. Two brief examples from the developing world show what wide variation there can be in terms of how people get information. A study conducted by Altai in 2010 in Afghanistan found that only 13 percent of the population turned to the printed press for information. This low percentage was a result of literacy levels and access.[iii] A study in 2012 in Nigeria found that while radio usage was generally the same in rural and urban areas, and that 4 out of every 10 respondents said they listened to the radio on their mobile phones within the week prior to the survey, more urban residents watched TV in a given week than rural residents.[iv] These differences distinguish one country’s media usage patterns from another, and affect media usage during elections. In addition to, and in some instances instead of, electronic or print media, direct personal communication remains greatly important in election campaigns and processes.
Yet, even in these instances, the media still have an important role in communicating political information. Even when rural communities do not have direct access to independent media, the information generated by the press will still go into general circulation and may reach the rural voters at some stage. “Information gatekeepers” may themselves rely on media as a source of news and will therefore pass on what they glean from the press. Therefore, although word of mouth may be the direct source of political information in some instances, the media will likely contribute importantly to the mass of information in circulation.
Audience analysis is often quickly out-dated however, as preferences and access change so rapidly in today’s media environment. A study by the Pew Research Center in the US in 2008, for example, found that there was an almost two fold jump in Internet news consumption, from 24% to 40%, in just one year.[v]
General news consumption does not translate cleanly into election-related news consumption. For example, a report issued in 2006 exploring global audience reaction to and affinity for political campaign ads found that “political advertising is the most derided form of political communication.”[vi]
While popularity of political advertisements may be low, there are indications that people turn to specific media for their general election information. The impact of social media on voters’ choices is the latest area of intense research focus. One study found that of the 82% of U.S. adults who are social media users, 51% will use social media to learn more about the candidates of the U.S. presidential 2012 elections.[vii] What is difficult to ascertain of course, is to what degree this ‘learning’ actually changes vote choices.
[i] “Media Landscape: Russia”, European Journalism Centre, accessed February 20, 2015,
[ii] Johanna Martinsson, The Role of Media Literacy in the Governance Reform Agenda, (Washington DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 2009), 3
[iii] “Afghan Media in 2010, A Synthesis,” report by Altai Consulting (funding by USAID), (2010), 101 - 102
[iv]“Nigeria Media Use 2012” Gallup and Broadcasting Board of Governors, accessed August 23, 2012, www.bbg.gov/wp-content/media/2012/08/gallup-nigeria-brief.pdf
[v] “Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Outlet” The Pew Research Center, December 23 2008, http://www.people-press.org/2008/12/23/internet-overtakes-newspapers-as-news-outlet/
[vi] Margaret Scammell Political advertising: Why is it so boring? (2007 online version), 4-5 accessed August 13, 2012, http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2540
[vii] “Get on Twitter and Facebook, or Get Out of the Race; New Digitas Study Finds Six in Ten Social Media Users Expect Candidates to Have a Social Media Presence,” PR Newswire, October 31, 2012, http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/get-on-twitter-and-facebook-or-get-out-of-the-race-132939343.html
Ghana's election on the BBC by bbcworldservice is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic License.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Media literacy is vital to ensuring that media coverage of elections is effective in informing an electorate, and that the media is itself held accountable. The Center for Media Literacy defines the term as follows:
Media Literacy is a 21st century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.[i]
Media literacy development goes beyond simply increasing the knowledge and skillsets of media consumers, however. It also includes targeting information holders, such as government officials, and, more specifically to elections: EMB officials, candidates, and political parties, in order to improve their understanding of and relationship with media. These bodies and individuals are often prone to withholding information out of suspicion toward the media’s intentions, or fear of negative repercussions. However, this fear or suspicion is often a result of a lack of training and experience in dealing with media. Understanding that “[m]edia literacy is an alternative to censoring, boycotting or blaming “the media”,”[ii] is instrumental to fostering democratic processes and practices. The chapter EMB Media Relations within this topic area provides more information on how EMBs can more fully appreciate the values and resources of a free and media-friendly environment. It also provides tools on how to use these resources.
The sustainability of free and independent media is reliant on media literate audiences and information providers. Media literacy includes understanding on how to use the quickly changing media landscape. This is particularly relevant in today’s age of social media, and ever developing media technology. Media literacy also involves recognition of the use of, and power of, subtext. Subtext is the context or background of the primary message and may include images, background audio, and framing, each of which conveys specific messages, associations, and insinuations. In short, media literacy is about developing critical thinking skills and overall awareness. This in turn fosters pluralistic media as well as media who are challenged to improve upon professionalism. Media literacy gives rise to a population who understand the media landscape as a whole, including the impacts of legal frameworks and the importance of media safety.
The following provides just some of skills inherent to media literacy:[iii]
It is clear that much of the above critical thinking is vital to voters making informed opinions. In addition, media literacy is important in conflict and post-conflict situations as a safeguard against hate-speech in otherwise volatile circumstances. An audience that is educated in the tenants of media professionalism is more likely to demand high quality media content. Media literacy is also important for new or transitioning democracies. In these circumstances legal frameworks are usually under development and will greatly impact the future state of independent and free media. Furthermore, citizens may experience a rather sudden explosion of news sources and media formats after decades or more of controlled and sparse media. The greater the media literacy, the more prepared audiences (and information providers) will be in deciphering messages and recognizing value and credibility.
However, while there have been considerable concerted development efforts across the world to enhance media professionalism and encourage media independence, the same cannot necessarily be said for efforts to increase media literacy.
[i] Ibid.
[ii] Ibid. (http://www.medialit.org/about-cml#history)
[iii] Much of this list was drawn from the Media Literacy Project free resource, accessed February 20, 2015, http://medialiteracyproject.org/
While the media landscape is ever expanding and diversifying, radio remains the most prevalent and accessible form of media worldwide. Where FM radio is sparse or non-existent, AM radio is often still accessible. Already in 2002, 95% of the world’s population was covered by analogue radio signals.[i] The advent of satellite radio has also greatly expanded the variety of radio programming available to individuals worldwide.
Although satellite radio remains relatively expensive, traditional radio is popular because of its relative cheapness. A handheld radio will still need batteries, but these costs are a fraction of those associated with other forms of media. Furthermore, a lack of electricity is not necessarily a limiting factor for radio. Radio also transcends limitations due to literacy. This makes it a particularly vital source of information for rural or poor areas, or contexts where women are less likely to be literate than men.
A Gallup poll conducted in 23 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2008 revealed that 59% of respondents claimed national radio to be their most important source of information about national events, while a further 9% turned to international radio over other forms of media for this information. Combined, this contrasts starkly to the 3% who utilized newspapers, or the 1% who utilized the Internet, as their most important source of news on national events.[ii]
However, although radio prevails as the most accessible source for information on a global geographic level, individual countries show wide variations in radio consumption (despite the general lack of consistent statistics in many countries). For example, in the United States, where in 2012 an estimated 96.7% of households owned a television set[iii] - a number comparable to the percentage of Americans tuning into radio every week (93%), the average amount of time an American spent watching TV as opposed to listening to radio was nearly two-fold (33hrs/week versus 14hrs 46min/week).[iv]
In addition to understanding access to radio specific to a country, is the importance of understanding an audience’s access to types of programming. This includes recognizing the impact of ownership of radio programs and stations. Discussion on ownership of media is provided on the page Media Ownership and Elections.[i] “Target 8: Ensure that all of the world’s population have access to television and radio services”, from Monitoring the WSIS Targets; A Midterm Review, (Switzerland: International Telecommunications Union, 2010),157, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/wtdr_10/material/WTDR2010_Target8_e.pdf
[ii] Cynthia English “Radio the Chief Medium for News in Sub-Saharan Africa”, (Washington DC: GALLUP World, June 23 2008), http://www.gallup.com/poll/108235/radio-chief-medium-news-subsaharan-africa.aspx
[iii] Neilson estimates as cited on National Association of Broadcasters, accessed August 15, 2012, http://www.nab.org/documents/resources/broadcastFAQ.asp
[iv] Neilson and RAB estimates as cited on National Association of Broadcasters, accessed August 15, 2012, http://www.nab.org/documents/resources/broadcastFAQ.asp
In locations where it is both accessible and affordable, television continues to be the most popular form of media. According to the International Telecommunications Union in 2009, there were significant regional differences in television ownership. Europe, the Americas, and the Commonwealth of Independent States all showed household ownership as 95% or more. Arab States, and Asia and the Pacific, showed lower statistics of 82% and 75% respectively. Estimates for Africa were well below those of other regions, with only 28% ownership.[i]
Categorization of television ownership per region can be misleading however, as statistics for countries within the regions can vary dramatically. A 2007-2008 comparison of radio and television set ownership clearly shows that ownership of the former far surpasses that of the latter for the majority of 50 of the world’s “least developed countries.” Yet many of these countries fall into the general regions listed above which show overall high (consolidated) television ownership. Some countries which did not demonstrate this trend were Bangladesh, Cambodia, Djibouti, Laos and Myanmar, where television ownership was near equivalent to radio ownership or indeed surpassed it. Furthermore, individual statistics demonstrate that significant proportions of these countries’ population do not own either a radio or a television set; in many cases television ownership was well below 30%.[ii]
Nevertheless, television remains one of the most dynamic and ever-expanding forms of media. In addition to terrestrial television programming (by way of transmission towers), there is now satellite programming available to viewers. Satellite transmission has made television ‘global’ in characteristic, in that satellites cover large regions of the world. This has had a dramatic effect on how international news and general programming is viewed and consumed. It has also plays a pivotal role in opening up access to information in otherwise relatively closed countries, countries with limited media freedom. For example, in 2009 in Egypt, satellite television penetration was 43% (by comparison, broadband penetration was 7.4%),[iii] allowing residents access to non-state media, as well as to independent media that was not indirectly controlled by way of self-censorship and fear. Similarly, in 2009, 74% of the population in Syria had access to satellite television (only 0.5% had access to Internet broadband).[iv]
Terrestrial television has also diversified. Analogue television, transmitted through electromagnetic waves, is slowly giving way to digital terrestrial programming, a process that began in the 1990s. Digital programming allows for transmitted code to be compressed, which in turn allows for a greater amount of channels to be broadcast within one bandwidth. Not only has this change made for a sizable increase in programming available to viewers, but it has allowed for diversification of how television programming is accessed: on a computer through the Internet, on a mobile phone, or at home over a regular television set.
Due to extremely high costs that are involved, countries have staged switchover to digital broadcasting. The Netherlands was one of the first countries to fully switch off analogue broadcasting, followed shortly by Finland, Andorra, Sweden and Switzerland. The United States made a complete switch in 2009 after a process that took almost 10 years. At an International Telecommunications Union conference in 2006, nations of Europe, Africa and the Middle East agreed to phase in digital broadcasting. A statement released by the conference stressed that
...digitization of broadcasting in Europe, Africa, Middle East and the Islamic Republic of Iran by 2015 represents a major landmark towards establishing a more equitable, just and people-centered information society. The digital switchover will leapfrog existing technologies to connect the unconnected in underserved and remote communities and close the digital divide.[v]
As of mid 2012, roughly twenty-five European countries, including Estonia, France, Malta, Slovenia and Spain, had made the switch. European countries such as Greece and Ireland had not yet made the change.[vi] These Wikipedia pages show the on-going progression of digital switchover across the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Worldmap_digital_television_transition.svg [vii] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_transition
[i] “Target 8: Ensure that all of the world’s population have access to television and radio services”, from Monitoring the WSIS Targets; A Midterm Review, (Switzerland: International Telecommunications Union, 2010),159, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/wtdr_10/material/WTDR2010_Target8_e.pdf
[ii] As cited in Ibid, 166
[iii] Jeffrey Ghannam, Social Media in the Arab World: Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011, A Report to the Center for International Media Assistance, (Washington DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 2011), 26
[iv] Ibid, 31
[v] “Target 8: Ensure that all of the world’s population have access to television and radio services”, from Monitoring the WSIS Targets; A Midterm Review, (Switzerland: International Telecommunications Union, 2010),160, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/wtdr_10/material/WTDR2010_Target8_e.pdf
[vi] Petros Iosifidis, “Mapping Digital Media: Digital Television, the Public Interest, and European Regulation”, Reference Series 17 (London: Open Society Media Program, 2012): 12-13
[vii] Thumbnails at the lower half of the webpage demonstrate the progression of world maps according to digital switchover updates.
Within traditional media (print and broadcast), print media displays the greatest diversity of all, in both ownership and content. Print media ranges from daily to weekly newspapers, from news magazines to a range of special interest publications. Print media also includes one-off publications such as fliers and leaflets. Out of all of the mass media formats, print media is also the oldest, as written text on stone, cloth or paper.
In today’s world print has a smaller audience than other forms of mass media. This is due in part to literacy levels, access, and wealth. Simple personal preference is also a factor. For example, in China – where earliest known print media originated – one calculation in 2009 determined that 81.5% of the population was literate. Total circulations of daily and non-daily print publications were 202 per 1000 citizens, roughly 20%, while radio and television sets hovered around 32 and 31% respectively.[i] Another calculation placed the number of radios and televisions sets as more than double the number of daily and non daily-circulations.[ii] What calculations like these do not account for of course is the number of people who will read one print publication, or the number of people who will listen to one radio set or watch one television set. However, it is clear from the various angles of statistics around the world, one can safely assume that more people listen to the radio or watch television than do those who read a publication.
This does not make print media any less valuable nor less necessary to the overall pluralism of the media landscape however. Print media has a history of being privately owned rather than government or state owned, but both kinds of ownership have a record of complaints regarding biases. If public press have the risk of being manipulated to benefit the government [iii], private press have the risk of introducing biases in order to meet the private interests -economic, political, ideological...- of its owners[iv].
Furthermore, print media in a sense has more longevity, as it is exists for longer periods of time; however, the new information technologies put this into question, as the internet is accumulating old news since its initial spread. It has been detected that greater media exposure improves the degree of learning, without affecting the levels of news forgetting [v]. Agenda-setting theory has largely documented a link between the media agenda and the public agenda, related to people's primary concerns [vi]. However the link between media agenda and political agenda -those issues which are considered as priorities by politicians- has not yet been consistently shown [vii]. In addition, a number of studies have shown that in many contexts, even if readership is less than television viewership, newspapers set the agenda in terms of topics and debates for other media – and for politicians. This may be due to the fact that print media can often afford for more in-depth stories. It may also be a result of print media’s more ‘serious’ profile than other forms of media, habits of politicians in terms of media use, and assumptions by politicians about the power of newspapers [viii]. While this influence may be changing with the new media revolution, it probably still remains true to an extent.
[i] “China Basic Data”, Press Reference, accessed August 24, 2012, http://www.pressreference.com/Be-Co/China.html
[ii] “Asia > China > Media”, NationMaster, accessed August 24, 2012, http://www.nationmaster.com/red/country/ch-china/med-media&all=1
[iii] See, for instance, the case of Spain, accessed February 27, 2015: http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2014/10/15/actualidad/1413374194_132987.html
For a general view, see:
Kuypers, Jim. 2002. Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
[iv] See, for instance, the case of Mexico, accessed February 27, 2015:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/10/mexicans-protest-against-media-bias
Also, the USA, accessed February 27, 2015:
http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/10/01/a-history-of-dishonest-fox-charts/190225
For Brazil, accessed February 27, 2015:
[v] Meeter, M; Murre, J; Janssen, S. 2005. ‘Remembering the news: Modeling retention data from a study with 14,000 participants’. Memory & Cognition. 33(5), pp: 793-810.
[vi] McCombs, M; Shaw, D. 1972. ‘The agenda-setting function of mass media’. Public Opinion Quarterly 36(2), pp: 176-187.
[vii] Walgrave, S; Van Aelst, P. 2006. ‘The contingency of the mass media’s political agenda setting power: Toward a preliminary theory’. Journal of Communication, 56, pp: 88-109
New media consists of the Internet, mobile phones, social media networks such as blogs and micro-blogs, social networking websites, video-sharing sites, and others. In other words, new media is a broad term that describes a range of media that are utilized for many different purposes. Some of the things that make new media different from traditional media (radio, television, newspapers and magazines) include:
However, the line between traditional media and social media is often blurred, with most ‘traditional’ journalists using the internet as a key source of information for stories; and many traditional media creating online editions or transforming into fully multi-media outlets. Traditional media also utilize ‘citizen journalism’ pieces – for example CNN’s iReport which invites any viewer to contribute stories. Traditional media sometimes rely on personal mobile phone images and video to cover hard-to-access stories such as military violence against democracy protesters. Large media organisations like the BBC require most of their correspondents to have skills in a range of traditional as well as online and interactive media. Almost all major news organisations now have significant online versions, many of which are interactive.
There are many views on the overall impact of new media, but few contest the fact that it has spurred further globalization, allowed for communities of interest (political and otherwise) to better organize and communicate despite geographical distances, changed the face of traditional journalism, and blurred the lines between published and personal communication. In addition, new media has allowed individuals, groups, and smaller companies to challenge traditional media monopolies – which have become a growing concern of democracy advocates worldwide - by using the borderless and relatively inexpensive infrastructure of the Internet to voice alternative perspectives.
New media offers new opportunities for elections stakeholders. Like any technology, it also has limitations and challenges however. This section reviews the impact and relevance of new media to the each of the key roles mass media play in elections.[i]
New Media as Watchdog
New media has begun to play a key part in reinforcing transparency in democratic processes, including elections. Short Message Service (SMS), i.e. text messaging, is now being used around the world by many election monitoring groups for quick gathering and disseminating of information on election irregularities, quick-count processes, as well as other purposes. In Montenegro in 2005, an SMS-based quick-count process helped defuse tensions regarding the integrity of the referendum election count, and thereby helped persuade voters trust the official referendum result.[ii]
Citizens use new media to monitor electoral fraud. In the 2012 elections in Mexico, social media networks were used to expose vote-buying, including video posted across social media networks of a warehouse stuffed with grocery give-aways, allegedly intended to bribe voters. In addition, “[a]t least three groups…set up sophisticated websites where citizens [could] upload complaints and videos or other material to document irregularities. There [were] also social media sites for reporting alleged fraud in real time.”[iii] As a further example, in the 2012 presidential elections in Russia, activists created a new social media platform ‘Citizen Control’ specifically designed to bring all social groups together to monitor the elections.[iv]
Social media is also used to improve candidate behaviour and improve candidate-voter interaction. In Malaysia in 2012, Transparency International (TI) asked all elections candidates to sign a voluntary ‘Election Pledge.’ TI stated “[t]he purpose of the pledge is to recognize that it is the responsibility of every candidate to fight corruption, practice good governance and uphold the rule of law. The pledge also emphasises the crucial role citizens play in monitoring their politicians by providing a platform where the public can monitor and comment on candidates’ performances.”[v] What was unusual about this pledge was that it actually required candidates to open accounts on the social media networks and to interact with voters on them.
Traditional media’s watchdog role is significantly enhanced by its utilization of new media as both a source of information and a mouthpiece for elections reporting. By monitoring social media discourse, observing citizen journalism postings, and by creating new media of their own through blogs and micro-blogs on official media websites, traditional media’s elections investigations have become faster, more diverse, and more interactive.
Social media has also been utilized extensively to monitor hate speech, as well as social media ‘buzz’ that might lead to or signify elections violence. It has also been used to monitor and map on-going elections-related conflict. Tools have been created especially for this purpose. For example, the Ushahidi crowd-sourcing software gathers data from SMS, Twitter and email and combines it on a map using Google maps to show the geographical spread and scale of violence.[vi] Similary in Zimbabwe, Sokwanale digitally mapped reports of election violence and intimidation.[vii]
New Media as Public Educator
The decentralized, multi-media, and interactive nature of new media has opened up its potential as a public education tool. For example, EMBs, international democracy promotion organisations, civil society groups and others have made extensive use of YouTube and other video sites to share civic and voter education videos.[viii]
EMBs have Facebook profiles to attract new voters and provide information to existing ones, as well as to get feedback. Elections New Zealand, for example, has an active Facebook page with 10,000 likes[ix] and the Jamaica EMB’s is also considerably active.[x] The UK Electoral Commission puts out almost daily tweets on Twitter with announcements of key dates, guidelines, highlights from reports, and so on.[xi] There are also a few independent websites that promote voter registration, such as Rock the Vote in the US.[xii]
New Media as Campaign Platform
Creative use of new media for political campaigning continues to grow, and candidates and parties now use a full range of tools to woo voters. Many political parties and candidates of course have their own more-or-less sophisticated websites. British Prime Minister David Cameron used the ‘Webcameron,’ an Internet video diary, to appeal to voters in the 2010 UK elections and beyond.[xiii] All the UK parties used ‘viral’ advertisements, which spread through online social media, as a key part of their campaigns in the same elections.[xiv] Barack Obama famously used social media to raise funds and spread campaign messages for his successful 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, which some call the first ‘Facebook election’. According to one news article, 60% of people preparing to vote in the 2012 US presidential elections said they expected candidates to have an online presence. [xv] In addition, in some contexts the fact that new media is cheaper for campaigning than traditional media means that smaller parties can ‘punch above their weight’ in terms of campaign exposure. It has yet to be demonstrated that this advantage equates to better electoral performance however. In the 2007 French presidential elections, candidate Ségolène Royal, who ran against Nicolas Sarkozy, spent more money than any other candidate on a diverse and interactive new media campaign, thereby generating a large amount of public online activism which likely gave her a higher profile than had she focused on traditional media.[xvi] [xvii]
Online campaign techniques differ not only in medium but also in message, tone, and timeframe. It appears that it is not so much the quantity of new media usage by candidates that appeals most to voters, but the quality and interactivity. This suggests that new media has provoked greater expectations of political candidates for direct (online) interaction. The 2010 UK elections saw demands for dialogue by middle class mothers with politicians online[xviii] In the 2008 elections in Macedonia, leading parties use of new media for campaigning was also ‘unprecedented,’ however, commentators expressed disappointment that ‘the “social” portion is absent in their use of social media.’ The blog posts are mainly transcripts of their rally speeches, and the content is basically recycled from their TV commercials and other uses such as to be fed to traditional media, analysts, journalists and similar actors, but not blogs per se. The posts are long, different audiences are targeted in each post, and personal experiences or input from the politicians is lacking.”[xix]
There is greater pressure from audiences for online media to be succinct (particularly with regard to micro-blogs) and comical (particularly in viral videos).[xx] Also, counter-intuitively, campaigning using social media can take a long time, in that candidates need to build social media profiles, a process which takes weeks or months. New media campaigning often requires the ‘long campaign’ model, in which politicians maintain social media presence in pseudo-campaigning modes between elections. According to some analysts, this suggests that new media campaigning might privilege incumbents, depending on the regulatory environment and the extent to which candidates and potential candidates are pro-active online.[xxi] Indeed, new media offers the potential of ‘perpetual campaigns’.[xxii]
New media activity can be an accurate predictor of electoral outcomes - or not. The losing candidate in the Egyptian run-off presidential election received almost triple the number of Twitter mentions as the winning candidate, so in this case Twitter mentions certainly did not translate into electoral victory.[xxiii] However in the 2010 elections in the UK, social media monitors such as Tweetminster’s analysis fairly accurately predicted the winners and losers in the electoral debates. Election campaign managers now use monitoring of social media (called sentiment analysis) extensively to understand voter opinion patterns. One commentator on the 2012 US presidential elections stated that “[t]he 2012 campaign may not be decided by social media…but those tools offer a wealth of information about the national mood….Twitter [is] a focus group in the wild — hundreds of thousands of tweets, offering raw responses to each debate or speech, as seen on cable TV.”[xxiv]. The campaign led by Goodluck Jonathan in Nigeria (2011) was credited with the successful use of social media.
Social media can also pose risks for candidates. There have been cases of candidates posting comments on social media forums that have backfired. Perhaps thinking that Twitter reached mostly a sympathetic audience, perhaps firing Tweets too quickly off-the-cuff, or overestimating the tolerance on social media for bad jokes, young Scottish candidate Stuart MacLennan was sacked by the Labour Party after posting Tweets that “described old people as 'coffin dodgers', branded one woman a 'boot' and joked about slavery.”[xxv]
Media as Open Forum for Debate and Public Voice
In many countries, new media has become one of the most vibrant platforms for people to voice views, share information, interact with leaders, and debate key elections issues. New media offers the advantages of being ‘democratic,’ allowing anyone to post their opinions on blogs and micro-blogs, share links, send and forward emails, create websites, and so on. It also has the advantage of working in real-time, thereby allowing people to keep up with dynamic and ever changing developments. Finally, new media is also much more difficult to censor or silence, as governments cannot easily suspend blogger “licences”, raid offices of Twitter users, or prosecute someone for posting links on Facebook.
The use of new media in the Arab Spring uprisings is an example of the contribution of these new tools to political change. As some analysts writing in mid-2011 put it:
Seeing what has unfolded so far in the Middle East and North Africa, we can say more than simply that the Internet has changed the way in which political actors communicate with one another. Since the beginning of 2011, social protests in the Arab world have cascaded from country to country, largely because digital media have allowed communities to unite around shared grievances and nurture transportable strategies for mobilizing against dictators. In each country, people have used digital media to build a political response to a local experience of unjust rule. They were not inspired by Facebook; they were inspired by the real tragedies documented on Facebook. Social media have become the scaffolding upon which civil society can build, and new information technologies give activists things that they did not have before: information networks not easily controlled by the state and coordination tools that are already embedded in trusted networks of family and friends.[xxvi]
New media continued to be important in the wave of elections following the Arab Spring revolutions. While acknowledging that the Internet was still only a luxury of the wealthy and therefore should not be overly emphasised, one Egyptian commentator noted that during the lead up to the presidential elections social media was dominated by elections opinions and debates. He observed that Facebook “[u]sers posted images with political messages defending their own candidates or criticising their opponents, adding their own commentary.” Meanwhile, popular activists wrote opinionated blogs, regular news media carried out non-stop real-time online coverage, speeches from presidential candidates were shared on YouTube, and Twitter was buzzing with micro-debates on the elections.[xxvii]
New media has provided voice to segments of society whose voices might otherwise not be heard. For example in the UK, one pollster dubbed the 2010 election the ‘Mumsnet election,’ in which “the parenting website… was changing political debate. Mumsnet's infamous webchats force politicians to address parents as equals, on issues of Mumsnetters' choosing: with other social media it has…given ordinary women the confidence to challenge politicians in new ways….the internet shapes the battleground for female votes.”[xxviii] This is an interesting example of the amplifying effects between new and traditional media, in that interactions on a website with a relatively small audience were picked up by the traditional news media which then increased the online interactions.
Uncensored debate on new media has started to impact electoral outcomes. The Malaysiakini online journal in Malaysia is an example of new media which provided an alternative voice and has had a significant electoral impact. “In March 2008, the [ruling party] made its worst showing at the polls in half a century, losing its two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time since independence. Facilitating this was the growing prominence of online journalism, which diminished the massive BN advantage in media access and “shocked the country” by documenting gross police abuse of demonstrators, particularly those of Indian descent.”[xxix]
New media has also allowed traditional media to dodge censorship. According to an article in Journal of Democracy, for example, "[w]hen Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez forced Radio Caracas Television off the air in May 2007, it continued its broadcasts via YouTube."[xxx]
New media lends itself to informal and ironic opposition too. For example during the UK 2010 general election campaign one of the most successful independent sites was a satire of a major party’s election billboards. Using what was felt to be an overly ‘airbrushed’ photograph of the party leader, visitors to mydavidcameron.com could create and publish their own digital versions of real posters, complete with amusing slogans.
Regulation of New Media
Are the regulatory practices and styles of reporting that have developed over the years for conventional media equally applicable to ‘new’ media? When it comes to regulating the behaviour of new media, many of the assumptions that underlie the regulation of conventional media simply do not apply. For example, the space to publish material on the Internet is literally infinite, compared with the assumption behind broadcasting regulation that the frequency spectrum is a finite resource that must therefore be shared. The convergence of traditional and new media also means that governments face the challenge of where and how to draw the line with regulation. Are opinionated blogs to be regulated as third party campaigning? Can blackout periods be enforced beyond the country’s borders or even within country borders? And so on.
Certainly there is growing international consensus about rights to freedom of expression and information in new media. In 2011, the UN Human Rights Committee recommended:[xxxi]
“the states take all necessary steps to foster independence of…new media and ensure access of individuals to them (para 15)….and specifically indicated that “operation of websites, blogs or other internet-based, or other information dissemination system [sic], including systems to support such communication, such as internet service providers or search engines” (para 43), need to be compatible with paragraph 3 of Article 19 of the Covenant.”[xxxii]
Paragraph 3 covers the very limited circumstances under which freedom of expression may be restricted, namely to protect the rights of others and for national security reasons.
Like other advances in media technology in the past, new media are seen as a threat by some governments. As UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay stated in 2012:
The Internet has transformed human rights movements. States can no longer exercise control by claiming a monopoly over information. This has resulted in a backlash effect and intensified attempts to unduly restrict access to online content or Internet as such….there is also a real concern that methods to identify and track down criminals may be used to crack down on human rights defenders and suppress dissenting voices.[xxxiii]
Ultimately, the Internet and other new technologies are carried on media (such as telephone lines) that are owned by governments or large corporate owners, and that often require some kind of licensing to operate. For example in Turkey, according to an Open Society Foundations report,
The most significant threat to news diversity and quality remains the repressive legal restrictions under which journalists operate. If anything, this has intensified in response to the rise of digital media. Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, makes it illegal to insult Turkey and national identity and has been used as a cover for internet censorship.[xxxiv]
The regulatory challenge posed by new media so far has been the following: old media can be regulated in a way that does not constitute censorship and enhances, rather than restricts, freedom of expression. Such regulation of new media has proven impossible. New media can be regulated, but the content of the Internet, for example, is so diverse and widespread that regulation has been heavy-handed and has amounted to censorship: interception of emails, closure of web sites, and pressure or legal action against Internet service providers.
The Internet poses a challenge to traditional views of media conduct in elections. Pre-polling blackouts on campaign coverage, for example, are difficult to police because of unregulated web sites. Meanwhile, in the 2012 French elections, an embargo on reporting results was ignored by online media in neighbouring Switzerland and Belgium, which published results 90 minutes early, thereby making that clause in French law almost impossible to enforce.[xxxv] A characteristic of the Internet that makes it difficult to regulate is its international nature. Attempts by national regulators to close down websites are met by the creation of mirror sites (replicas) beyond the country’s borders. Self-regulation by new media users is also more difficult if not impossible, and new media has sometimes ignored conventions that have been widely accepted by ‘traditional’ media (for example by not reporting exit polls before voting has ended).
It is generally currently accepted that it is difficult to do anything specific to regulate new media around elections. The law defines what is and is not acceptable in terms of campaigning and other media-related activities. Therefore all media, traditional and new, as well as political actors need to abide by that law. In New Zealand, an attempt was made to specifically regulate third-party blogs during the pre-campaign period:
In the run-up to the 2008 general election, the New Zealand Electoral Commission requested that a citizen campaigner shut his ‘dontvotelabour.org.nz’ website down because it was in contravention of the EFA [Electoral Finance Act, 2007]. Its author, a pro-life activist, did not want to display his name and address on the website and eventually redefined it as a ‘blog’ to exploit ambiguities in the EFA. Meanwhile, adverts protesting against polytechnic funding cuts were withdrawn because their producer – a local mayor – was required to register as a third-party; campaigners feared that newspapers challenging government legislation on other matters would be forced to register as third parties in the run-up to elections.[xxxvi]
New Zealand attempted to keep a tight reign on third-party online activity that resulted in protest from the mass media and freedom of speech advocates, and the law was eventually changed. “As the New Zealand experience has shown, attempting to cover all possibilities risks appearing draconian and undemocratic and is, therefore, doomed not only to failure but to ridicule.”[xxxvii] While it is impossible to regulate for all possibilities, registered candidates, political parties and third-parties can be held to campaign rules for online campaigns as much as possible.
The Scope and Limitations of New Media in Elections
New media, like all technology, has disadvantages and limitations when it comes to elections. As with traditional media, access to new media is uneven around the world. While Internet use is growing in most countries, a much smaller percentage of people have access to it in developing than developed countries, as the graph below indicates. The United Nation’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) quantifies the status of Internet growth in the developing world as follows: “In developing countries, the number of Internet users doubled between 2007 and 2011, but only a quarter of inhabitants in the developing world were online by end 2011”.[xxxviii] The ITU’s table below gives a useful summary of the growth of Internet use in different types of countries. [xxxix]
Meanwhile, mobile phone usage is the fastest-growing technology around the world. Around 86% of the world’s population now has access to a standard (2G) mobile phone, which can be utilized for calls and SMS, a communications potential which is being exploited in all sectors of economic and political life in most countries. The third and fourth generation of mobile phones (mobile-broadband or 3G and 4G phones) are in fact a convergence of phone and Internet technologies and global access is also growing fast. However, disparities are huge with this latest technology, with only 8% of people in developing countries owning a 3G or 4G phone in 2011.[xl]
Thus traditional media continue to be the primary source of elections information around the world.[xli] There are, of course, combinations of media that have great potential in developing countries, for example the commonly used combination of radio and SMS which does not require internet access at all. A range of such combinations has been used to enhance elections-related interactions, to distribute civic and voter education, and for other goals.[xlii]
In addition to limited access, use of new media is affected by culture, regulation, demographics and other factors.[xliii] In the run-up to the US presidential elections of 2012, in a country with extensive Internet penetration, most research showed that television was still the most important media. "Social media has been much heralded but relatively little used by average voters and average citizens," according to the Pew Research Center. “[O]nly 2 percent of people sought election news from Twitter, 3 percent from YouTube and 6 percent from Facebook.”[xliv] On the other hand, other research found that social media would still play an important part in determining election results, with almost 40% of voters using information on social media to help determine their voting decision.[xlv]
In the UK, where the three major parties now use sophisticated online campaigning, new media’s limitations were evident in the 2010 elections. According to an article in The Economist, “[e]pisodes of WebCameron [Conservative candidate David Cameron’s web diary] [were] among the most-watched in the news and politics category of YouTube; his appearance at a south London college [the week of March 18, 2010] attracted 15,000 views in its first two days. But evening television news bulletins [drew] millions—as will, it is hoped, the three televised debates between the party leaders in the run-up to the election.”[xlvi]
In conclusion, while it raises new challenges and dilemmas, in general new media holds out much potential for all elections stakeholders, including EMBs. This potential is growing as global access to new media grows, as do innovative ways of utilising it.
[i] It is important to note that digital media are now utilized by EMBs in several ways which are not discussed in this topic area as it does not relate specifically to mass media. For example, some EMBs now use the Internet and SMS for voter registration and for voting.
[ii] Ian Schuler, “NDI: SMS as a tool in election observation,” Innovations 3, no.2 (Spring 2008), http://www.ndi.org/files/2329_sms_engpdf_06242008.pdf
[iii] ”Worries about vote-buying despite Mexican reform,” The Guardian, Sunday July 1, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10314939
[iv] Taiciya Bekbulatova “Russian Election: With Watchdog Website, Students Channel The Power Of The People,” Worldcrunch, February 24, 2012. Http://Www.Worldcrunch.Com/New-Website-Hopes-Be-Russian-Elections-Monitoring-Facebook/4754,
[v] Melissa Ong “Keeping elections clean: TI-Malaysia launches Election Integrity Pledge,” Transparency International, June 19, 2012, http://blog.transparency.org/2012/06/19/keeping-elections-clean-ti-malaysia-launches-election-integrity-pledge/
[vi] Ushahidi, accessed August 24, 2012, http://ushahidi.com/
[vii] “Mapping Terror in Zimbabwe: Political Violence & Elections 2008” Sokwanele, June 18, 2008, http://www.sokwanele.com/map/electionviolence
[viii] See the following YouTube examples:
(Philippines) "Voters Education Animation Project", Bouncing Ball, Inc., uploaded February 28, 2010,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCqaG7_aF98
(USA) “How to Vote” Howcast, uploaded September 28, 2008,
[ix] “I Vote NZ” NZ Electoral Commission Facebook Page, accessed August 24, 2012, https://www.facebook.com/IvoteNZ
[x] “Electoral Commission of Jamaica” Electoral Commission of Jamaica Facebook page, accessed August 24, 2012, https://www.facebook.com/electionsja
[xi] “Electoral Commission @ElectoralCommUK” UK Electoral Commission Twitter page, accessed August 24, 2012, http://twitter.com/ElectoralCommUK/
[xii] See the report from Freedom House, accessed 4 March, 2015,
https://freedomhouse.org/article/fall-freedom#.VPdEVEL92fQ
Rock the Vote, accessed August 24, 2012, http://www.rockthevote.com/
[xiii] Webcameron, accessed August 24, 2012, http://www.conservatives.com/video/webcameron.aspx
[xiv] Gaby Hinsliff “Web 2.0: the new election superweapon,” The Observer, April 10, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/11/new-media-election-campaign
[xv] “Election 2012: How Social Media Will Convert Followers into Voters”, PCMag, January 30, 2012, http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/293078/election-2012-how-social-media-will-convert-followers-into-v
[xvi] Dr Andy Williamson, Dr Laura Miller, and Freddy Fallon, Behind the Digital Campaign, (London: Hansard Society, 2010), 36
[xvii] The authors note that there was in fact some speculation that Ms. Royal’s multimedia campaign gave voters the impression that she had a “dispersed leadership style ultimately failed because it made her seem weak and indecisive.” (Ibid, 36)
[xviii] “The Mumsnet Election”, Mumsnet, accessed August 21, 2012 http://www.mumsnet.com/media/mumsnet-election
[xix] “Macedonia: Use of new media in election campaign,” Global Voices, posted May 23, 2008, http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/05/23/macedonia-use-of-new-media-in-election-campaign/
[xx] Gaby Hinsliff, “Web 2.0: the new election superweapon”, The Observer, April 10, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/11/new-media-election-campaign
[xxi] Dr Andy Williamson, Dr Laura Miller, and Freddy Fallon, Behind the Digital Campaign, (London: Hansard Society, 2010), 31
[xxii] Ibid, 44
[xxiii] “Social media monitoring for the presidential elections in Egypt 2012,” (a report by Interact Egypt), Slideshare, uploaded June 2012, http://www.slideshare.net/interactegypt/egyptian-presidential-elections-over-social-media
[xxiv] David Folkenflik “For election news, voters still turn to old media,” NPR, February 08, 2012, http://www.npr.org/2012/02/08/146565911/tvs-king-web-fails-to-dominate-election-coverage
[xxv] Haroon Siddique and Severin Carrell, “Election 2010: Labour sacks candidate Stuart MacLennan in Twitter row”, The Guardian, February 20, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/apr/09/stuart-maclennan-sacked-twitter-general-election
[xxvi] Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain “The Role of Digital Media”, Journal of Democracy 22, no. 3 (July 3, 2011):9
[xxvii] Lara Fawzy,“A revolution and a presidential election: Egypt’s social media mania”, Memeburn, February 20, 2015, http://memeburn.com/2012/07/a-revolution-and-a-presidential-election-egypts-social-media-mania/
[xxviii] Gaby Hinsliff “Web 2.0: the new election superweapon,” The Observer, April 10, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/11/new-media-election-campaign
[xxix] Larry Diamond “Liberation Technology”, Journal of Democracy 21 no. 3 (July 2010):73
[xxx] Ibid:76
[xxxi] These recommendations were made in the UN body’s “General Comments on ARTICLE 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”. General Comments are the Human Rights Committee’s interpretations of ARTICLE 19’s meaning and guidance for parties to implement the covenant
[xxxii] “ARTICLE 19 welcomes general comment on freedom of expression,” (statement) ARTICLE 19, August 05, 2011, http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/2631/en/un:-article-19-welcomes-general-comment-on-freedom-of-expression
[xxxiii] ““The World is Moving Online”: Promoting Freedom of Expression”
UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, March 09, 2012, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Theworldismovingonlinepromotingfreedomofexpression.aspx
[xxxiv] Aslı Tunc and Vehbi Görgülu, Mapping Digital Media: Turkey, (London: Open Society Foundations, February 20, 2015) http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/mapping-digital-media-turkey
[xxxv] Scott Sayare“French Media Question Election Reporting Rules,” New York Times April 20, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/world/europe/french-media-question-election-reporting-rules.html
[xxxvi] Dr Andy Williamson, Dr Laura Miller & Freddy Fallon, Behind the Digital Campaign, (London: Hansard Society, 2010), 31
[xxxvii] Ibid
[xxxviii] “Key statistical highlights: ITU data release June 2012”, International Telecommunications Union, accessed August 21, 2012, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/material/pdf/2011%20Statistical%20highlights_June_2012.pdf
[xxxix] “Internet user statistics” International Telecommunications Union, accessed August 21, 2012, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/
[xl] “Key statistical highlights: ITU data release June 2012,” International Telecommunications Union, accessed August 21, 2012, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/material/pdf/2011%20Statistical%20highlights_June_2012.pdf
[xli] “Target 8: Ensure that all of the world’s population have access to television and radio services”, from Monitoring the WSIS Targets; A Midterm Review, (Switzerland: International Telecommunications Union, 2010), http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/wtdr_10/material/WTDR2010_Target8_e.pdf
[xlii] Katrin Verclas, A mobile voice: the use of mobile phones in citizen media, (MobileActive and Pact, November 2008), http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADN040.pdf
[xliii]Dr Andy Williamson, Dr Laura Miller & Freddy Fallon, Behind the Digital Campaign, (London: Hansard Society, 2010)
[xliv] “For Election News, Voters Still Turn To Old Media,” National Public Radio, 8 February 2012, http://www.npr.org/2012/02/08/146565911/tvs-king-web-fails-to-dominate-election-coverage
[xlv] Chandra Steele, “Election 2012: How Social Media Will Convert Followers into Voters” PCMag, January 30, 2012, http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/293078/election-2012-how-social-media-will-convert-followers-into-v
[xlvi] “Thus far and no farther: The potential—and limits—of the internet in political campaigning”, The Economist, March 18, 2010, http://www.economist.com/node/15719160
Ownership has an enormous bearing on the nature of a media outlet’s elections coverage – or, for that matter, any political coverage. State and government owned media are under direct state or ruling party control and may therefore tend toward favouring incumbent parties or candidates. Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) acts independently of any political body, but is often financially supported by the state. Privately-owned (whether corporate or otherwise) media may be independent, but may also serve the political interests of their proprietors. In some countries, these proprietors might be political parties and candidates themselves. Community media may tend to focus only on specific issues that pertain to the specific “community” it serves. The nuances go further: economics, trust, and historical context all contribute to the dynamics of differently owned media. Yet, undoubtedly, it is the establishment of the right diversity and balance within the media ownership landscape that is one of the keys to fostering democratic processes in any given country, not least fair and free elections.
First, it is important that we know what is meant by each of the media types:
All of these ownership types include both traditional and new media. There are significant overlaps between the above ownership models, and the categorisations are simplified here for ease of discussion.
Media Ownership in the Context of Elections
A country’s portfolio of media ownership is likely to have a significant bearing on a range of electoral issues, including questions such the extent to which political advertising is permitted, citizens’ access to civic and voter education as well as campaign material, and the extent to which elections are covered in a balanced and fair manner.
In the United States, where private media is predominantly owned by mega corporations, access to media by parties and candidates is organized by way of paid advertising. Similarly in Finland, where commercial broadcasting developed rather earlier than in most of Europe, has a far freer approach to paid political advertising than most European countries. Unlike its neighbours, Finland provides no free airtime on public media and allows contestants to purchase unlimited private airtime.[i] Conversely countries such as Britain and Denmark, with a strong tradition of public ownership of the media, do not allow paid political advertising at all, and instead have a system of free direct access broadcasts on private broadcasters.
Licensing of broadcasters is one way in which governments manage media ownership and promote media pluralism. Many countries have some form of regulation in place. For example, in Australia:
The cross-media ownership laws brought in by the federal Labor Government in 1987 was the start of modern media change. The laws strictly prohibited the control of more than one commercial television license or newspaper or commercial radio license in the same market, thus aiming to reduce the potential for undue media concentration.[ii]
Such regulations are not easy to implement fairly, however, and can be victims of political competition. In Australia “these changes also led to increased concentration in some markets, and were widely seen as rewarding Labor allies,”[iii] and were later rolled back when the other major party gained power, which then led to further concentration of ownership.
In addition, due to their influence and reach, broadcasting licenses for private radio and television often include clauses with various requirements related to elections. For example, the Equal Time rule in the US Communications Act (1934) requires broadcasters to provide an equivalent opportunity to any opposing political candidates who request it; and forbids broadcasters to censor campaign advertisements. Other regulations require private broadcasters carry paid political advertising (see the section on Provisions Affecting Both Public and Private Media).
Media ownership directly affects media’s important watchdog role during elections. State and government media are sometimes measurably biased in favour of the incumbent parties or candidates. This is particularly the case in newer or transitional democracies such as Cambodia in 2007.[iv] During the 2012 Russia elections, the fact that most broadcast media was owned by either the government or by powerful pro-Putin businesspeople, translated into overwhelming bias in election coverage.[v] Much of the discussion about "regulation" of the media in elections is in fact to address this problem - ensuring that publicly funded media operate with due independence of the government of the day - rather than trying to restrict the operations of media that already enjoy full editorial independence.
Media ownership also affects the voters’ right to information. Voters’ access to information on elections is limited in some countries by poor diversity of media ownership, or by lack of policy-making and investment that ensures that media reaches a majority of the population. As well as the impact of media concentration, insufficient information can be caused by a lack of infrastructure and disillusionment or mistrust by the public in the media on offer.
Media Ownership in the Global Context
The proportion of state (or government) to private media ownership is sometimes mistakenly seen as a direct reflection of a country’s political and social freedom: dictatorships or authoritarian regimes with controlled media versus democracies with fostered pluralism of ownership. The reality is more complex. Numerous influences are responsible in determining the degree of media freedom in any given country, including legal, economic, political and cultural environments. Ownership also varies within countries as economic and democratic development proceeds (or regresses).
However there are some discernable recent trends. According to the editors of Negotiating Democracy: Media Transformations in Emerging Democracies[vi], in the developed world, “the restructuring of telecommunications “markets” exploded in the 1990s” with an “unprecedented number of international mergers and acquisitions among transnational media corporations, which aggressively pursued the opportunities that privatization provided.” As a result in some of the most developed democracies, including Australia and the United States, a few large companies own the vast majority of private media.[vii] In middle-income countries these are mirrored by “the national and regional dominance of some of the world’s most powerful “second-tier media firms” of newly industrialized nations, such as Brazil’s Globo, Mexico’s Televisa, Argentina’s Clarín and Venezuela’s Cisneros Group—Latin American firms that have “extensive ties and joint ventures with the largest media TNCs, as well as with Wall Street investment banks”.”[viii]
Newly emerging democracies have experienced their own dynamics in terms of media ownership:
Other regional trends, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, parts of Asia, and even to some measure in the Middle East, bear witness to a transition into democratization that has emerged alongside the dismantling of national broadcasting systems and the reformation of the role of the press connected to authoritarian regimes, the promotion of private independent and pluralistic media, and/or the proliferation of new media channels…Yet despite a push to privatization above all else] mass media have served remarkably well as a means to globalize the democratic exchange of ideas and issues capable of challenging authority and of fostering an atmosphere of optimism. And while the degree to which a civic discourse has found a way to take root varies, when it does arise it is often in conjunction with citizen-based media.[ix]
Most Western European democracies had, until recent decades, state monopolies of broadcasting. Britain legalized private commercial broadcasting as recently as the 1950s. The establishment of the BBC in the 1920s was perhaps a stepping-stone toward this privatization, arguably the world’s first form of ‘public services broadcasting’: state subsidized but independent of the government and acting at the behest of the public. France, Germany, and Denmark did not allow privatization of media until the 1980s. Britain and France are particularly important examples due to their extensive colonial legacy that influenced the organization of broadcasting and media in scores of countries. In Britain and France, there is a strong distinction between broadcasting, with its strong public service history, and print media, which has a distinctly “privately-owned” history. However, in some long-standing democracies - for example in Sweden and Norway - there is a tradition of state funding of the print media as well. According to the Swedish government, subsidies to secondary newspapers are “important for the diversity of media at local and regional levels.”[x]
Conversely, in Latin America, private media were often closely identified with those in power – specifically the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s. Similarly, under the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia (until 1998), private media were tightly controlled, while the state owned a large media machine in its own right. In addition, the Suharto family bought directly into major media businesses. Far from facilitating pluralism, these private media advocated suppression of media. Indeed, many would argue that the large corporations (as discussed on the page Private and Corporate Media) dominating the US media are not conducive to the expression of alternative political viewpoints. Whatever the truth of such contentions, it is clear that there is no dependable correlation between the extent of private ownership and pluralism.
Economics also play an important part in determining the structure of media ownership. Public versus private broadcasting is sometimes more indicative of national financial resources rather than gauges of media freedom. Public media (whether state, government or public service broadcasting) has been particularly strong in the early stages for many emerging democracies due economic conditions that make it more difficult for private broadcasters to start up operations.
The size of the advertising ‘cake’ varies according to economic conditions. Most private[xi] - and some public - media are dependent upon advertising to make their business sustainable. The public sector is often important in media in poorer countries for two reasons: the small advertising cake often means less private media, and a dominant public broadcaster; and where there is advertising revenue for private media, it is often from government agencies, or donors working with government. In wealthier countries, companies now use the Internet to advertise their goods and services. This has led to further drops in advertising revenues for traditional media.
In many countries in Africa, for example, as well as parts of Asia and Latin America, this explains why until recently national radio stations, broadcasting on medium- and long-wave frequencies, were almost entirely a state-owned phenomenon. Even where broadcasting regulations permitted - and often they did not - neither private broadcasters nor advertisers had much interest in broadcasting to the entire nation. Instead, private advertisers were primarily interested in reaching an urban audience with disposable income - the type of audience served by private FM stations (most of which primarily broadcast music). The fast growth of private and new media in these countries is now changing the public versus private paradigm, however. Nonetheless state-owned broadcasters are still important and in some cases remain the only choice for listeners.
Technological developments such as satellite and cable television and the Internet complicate the media ownership landscape further. Economic factors are still at play: those who can afford to subscribe to a pay channel or use the Internet will generally not be among the poorest. Local cable and satellite providers are subject to the same political and economic constraints as those broadcasting on terrestrial channels, in that they are dependent on advertising and subscriber revenues to survive and grow. Mass media using the Internet and other new media can often publish or broadcast more cheaply than in the past, and they are freer from some of the regulatory and constraints that are imposed on traditional mediums. Meanwhile, multinational broadcasters such as Al Jazeera, Cable News Network (CNN) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) can play an important role in breaching broadcasting monopolies. That is why some countries have prohibited ownership of satellite dishes (a prohibition that was circumvented in one memorable north African case by the widespread substitution of couscous pans). Internet news sites also help to challenge broadcasting monopolies, though caution should be exercised in celebrating pluralism on the Internet. In Australia, for example, “all but one of the 12 news sites in Australia’s top 100 most visited sites are owned by major existing media outlets.”[xii]
Cultural and attitudinal factors also impact on media ownership. For example according to a report published in the Political Research Quarterly in 2009, “in post authoritarian African democracies [audiences] trust government-owned broadcast media more than they trust private broadcasters [despite] the public media’s lack of independence as well as a history of state propaganda.” The report suggests that this trust gap is due to a number of factors such as audiences’ levels of political sophistication, support for incumbent leaderships, and illiberal attitudes. The study also found that audiences also tended to prefer public broadcasters in countries with lower corruption and greater press freedom.[xiii] This trust gap no doubt impedes, to a certain extent, the growth of private media.
[i] Christina Holtz-Bacha and Lynda Lee Kaid, Political Advertising In
International Comparison, (Sagepub, 2006), 10
[ii] Rob Harding-Smith, Centre For Policy Development Issue Brief:
Media Ownership And Regulation In Australia, (Sydney: Centre for Policy Development, August 2011) http://cpd.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Centre_for_Policy_Development_Issue_Brief.pdf
[iii] Ibid
[iv]“Final Assessment and Report on 2007 Commune Council Elections, Committee on Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia”, (Comfrel election observation report, 2007), accessed February 20, 2015, http://www.comfrel.org/eng/components/com_mypublications/files/9053381189824168COMFREL_CCE_Final_Report_New.pdf
[v] “Russian Federation, Presidential Election 4 March 2012”, (OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report, Warsaw, 2012), 13 http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/90461
[vi] Patrick D Murphy, “Media and Democracy in the Age of Globalization”, SUNY Press, 2007, http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61516.pdf
[vii] See graphs of media ownership in the US and Australia at Teach Media, accessed August 25, 2012, http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/rp/2007-08/08rp01_5.jpg and http://www.teachmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Media-Ownership-2011.png
[viii] Patrick D Murphy, “Media and Democracy in the Age of Globalization”, SUNY Press, (2007):6, http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61516.pdf
[ix] Ibid
[x] “Press Support”, Government Offices of Sweden website, accessed August 22, 2012, http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/14476
[xi] With the exception of some state-subsidised private media, for example in Scandinavia as described above.
[xii] Rob Harding-Smith, Centre For Policy Development Issue Brief:
Media Ownership And Regulation In Australia, (Sydney: Centre for Policy Development, August 2011),1 http://cpd.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Centre_for_Policy_Development_Issue_Brief.pdf
[xiii] Devra C. Moehler and Naunihal Singh, “Whose News do you trust? Explaining trust in private versus public media in Africa”, Political Research Quarterly 64 no. 2, (December 16 2009):1
The state, specific governments, or the public, own a large proportion of the world's media - especially radio and television. The term “public media” is often used to refer to these forms of media ownership. There are important distinctions between these forms however.
These media may be financed out of one or all of these sources:
These different revenue sources have potential implications for the broadcaster's day-to-day independence. A license fee, advertising, and other revenues that do not go directly through the government budget may make it easier for the broadcaster to maintain a distance from government (although many still depend on government mechanisms to collect license fees).
UNESCO defines Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) as “broadcasting made, financed and controlled by the public, for the public. PSBs are neither commercial nor state-owned; they are free from political interference and pressure from commercial forces. Through PSBs, citizens are informed, educated and also entertained. When guaranteed with pluralism, programming diversity, editorial independence, appropriate funding, accountability and transparency, public service broadcasting can serve as a cornerstone of democracy.”[i]
Widely-accepted principles for PSBs include:
PSBs may be mainly funded by television license fees, as is the case for the British Broadcasting Commission (BBC); directly by the government, for example the Australian Broadcasting Commission; by individual subscribers, grants and programming fees as is the case for National Public Radio (NPR) in the US; or at least partially from commercial sources, as is the case with the Australian Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). What PSBs have in common in terms of funding is that they are not dependent on advertising.
PSBs are often established by government through acts of parliament, and while some are subject to broad oversight by the state, most also have strict guarantees of independence written into their constitutions. The Swedish PSB for example, SvT, is kept at arms-length from the state by being owned by a foundation, not the state, and by directly collecting license fees from the public, not via the government. However it is subject to broad oversight by a parliamentary committee as a check-and-balance mechanism.
In transitional democracies there have been some bold attempts to rapidly retrieve and modernize the public service ideal, after a history of heavy-handed state control. In South Africa since 1993 the public broadcaster has statutory independence and even, at one stage, had its board members appointed after public hearings.[ii]
However others struggle to achieve true public service broadcasting. In the former Soviet Union, “PSB development…is still affected by local transitional challenges [as well as] coping with global challenges of [the] media environment.” In Latvia in 2011 for example, “PSB policy making is still oriented to the value for officials or elite rather than for the public,” with PSBs still operating as “paternalistic broadcasters that tend to function as public educators “from above.”[iii]
State- and government-owned broadcasters, directly controlled by the state, were a common model in the Soviet Union (and later in many countries that followed its lead). In the post-Soviet era, these broadcasters have often proven difficult and slow to reform. In Latvia for example, two decades since independence the distinction between public service broadcasting and state broadcasting remains unclear to many parliamentarians.[iv]
French and British colonisers took their public broadcasting model overseas, but it did not travel well, and colonial broadcasters enjoyed little independence. After independence, many post-colonial governments continued with the same tradition of broadcaster-as-government-propagandist.
Public service broadcasting was founded on a belief that still holds true in most of the world: the private sector alone cannot guarantee pluralism in broadcasting. The trouble is that public media have largely failed to do that too. In many countries, the advent of private broadcasting has made governments even more determined to cling onto editorial control of the public broadcaster.
Public, state or government media are usually broadcasters. But there are still some government- and state-owned newspapers in existence. They do not enjoy the same economic rationale as public broadcasters and often function as little more than government propaganda sheets. There are exceptions, and Uganda is an interesting example. The largest newspaper in the country is New Vision, in which the state holds a controlling stake. The paper is known to have a level of editorial independence, professionalism, and for publishing a range of views – though this independence was questioned when New Vision was accused of pro-government bias in the 2011 elections.[v] Fortunately, there is also a range of independent private media in Uganda that voice alternative views.[i] “Public Service Broadcasting”, UNESCO website, accessed August 22, 2012, http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=1525&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
[ii] Robert Britt Horwitz, Communication and Democratic Reform in South Africa, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001),171,
[iii] Ieva Beitika, “Development of Public Service Broadcasting: Local And Global Challenges and the Public Value”, Media Transformations (Vytautas Magnus University), February 20, 2015,
http://issuu.com/vmuniversity/docs/media_transformations_vol_5/46
[iv] Ibid
[v] “Freedom of the Press 2012” Freedom House, February 20, 2015,
https://freedomhouse.org/article/release-freedom-press-2012-findings#.VOd15EL92fQ
Unlike public media, private media is distinctly for profit. Private media is sustained by commercial revenue. Corporate media is simply private mass media that is controlled by a corporation as opposed to individuals. For example, while in the 1980s roughly 50 different corporations controlled the vast majority of private media in the US, in 2012 this had consolidated to six mega corporations: Time Warner, Walt Disney, NBC Universal, CBS Corporation, Viacom, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Another company, Clear Channel owned over 1000 radio stations.
Private and corporate media cover the spectrum of media types:
Private broadcasters range from giant multinational corporations run by some of the richest and most politically powerful people in the world to small, local FM stations. In most cases, broadcasting will be under the terms of a license granted on a periodic basis by a public authority. How prescriptive or restrictive are the terms of that license will also vary, often laying down certain terms under which news or current affairs can be broadcast. Sometimes this will include prescriptions as to what election coverage should be carried. There may also be an explicit public service component to the license - for example, obliging the licensee to carry voter education programmes.
Private print media is also extremely diverse, ranging from daily to weekly newspapers and magazines, to special-interest publications and journals, relying on advertising and sales for revenue. Even in situations where the state retains a large stake in broadcasting, the print media are usually in private hands. Even in authoritarian contexts, at least some newspapers in any country are likely to conduct serious news investigations and to comment in a reasonably sophisticated manner on political developments.
But private newspapers often still have their own political agendas, which may not necessarily be a democratic one. A notorious example was the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, which, aided by the CIA, campaigned against the elected government in 1973 and in favour of a military coup - a clear case where the press dismally failed to promote political pluralism.
Even in mature democracies, newspapers are perhaps more likely than broadcasting stations to endorse a political candidate or party explicitly, although political culture varies from country to country. In many countries explicit editorial endorsement of a political choice would be unthinkable; in others it is regarded as normal. Journalistic ethics would still demand that news reportage of fact be strictly separated from the expression of editorial comment. Nevertheless, a chosen political agenda will almost inevitably affect the selection of which news is to be covered. The usual argument, however, is that the existence of a variety of newspapers reflecting different viewpoints will ensure a better-informed public and a free interplay of political ideas.
Media convergence means that the concepts of separate print, broadcast and online media are starting to become obsolete. Many outlets which were traditionally one thing or another are now operating across a range of mediums.
Corporate media is big business. The past half-century has witnessed the expansion of large media conglomerates owning a wide range of media as well as other business interests (and of non-media conglomerates buying into the media industry). The result of these developments has been a media landscape that is often far removed from the ideal of the neutral “fourth estate” – press that are independent and detached from the political process. The media owners have a partisan interest in the political process in the same way that any company will have. Thus in a sense the line between private, or (supposedly) independent media, and state-owned media is blurred.
Nevertheless, private media play a crucial role in all the various aspects of media’s contributions to the democratic process, including elections. Not all private media are monopolised by large conglomerates, particularly in the developing world. Those that are owned by large conglomerates also exercise independence and objectivity at least some of time.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++In many parts of the world, community media are a rapidly growing phenomenon. Community media usually refer to, at minimum, the following characteristics:
1. Community ownership and control
2. Community service
3. Community participation
4. A non-profit business model[i]
Community media can be print or broadcast, as well as online and may publish in local languages. Community newspapers have a long history in some contexts, with small print runs and volunteer writers and editors allowing for affordable publication. Community radio stations now proliferate as a model for promoting local-level development and civic education, spurred by liberalizing of licensing regimes and the increasing affordability of technology. Community television stations are also increasing in number. In some countries, national public broadcasters will also play a community role, carrying material produced by (or aimed at) particular local communities, or communities of interest.
The definition of ‘community’ is often questioned when discussing community media. What exactly is a community? Traditionally it has been assumed to refer to a geographical community. But in South Africa, for example, with one of the widest networks of community radio in the world, the term is also used to refer to a community of interest, especially among disadvantaged sectors of society. Thus there might be a ‘women's community’, a ‘gay community’ or a ‘community of people with disabilities’. There may also be community media aimed at people of a certain religious faith.[ii] In the Solomon Islands, Vois Blong Mere (‘Women’s Voices’) is a non-profit community radio organisation broadcasting for the past ten years, focusing on women’s voices in all aspects of life. Virtual communities also challenge the definition of community. They are social media-based and transcend geographical boundaries, yet count as communities of sorts. Given that they often adhere to the four broad principles of community media mentioned above, some uses of social media usage can also be considered community media.
The significance of this for elections is immediately apparent. Community media, almost by definition, have a limited but loyal audience. For purposes of voter education, community media is very important, especially as they can reach sections of society that may be bypassed by more traditional media.
The terms of community broadcasting licences often prohibit explicit political campaigning. It is particularly important for a regulatory authority to monitor compliance with the terms of a licence during election periods.
[i] Jean Fairbain, Community Media Sustainability Guide: the Business of Changing Lives”, (Arcata California: Internews, 2009),7 http://www.internews.org/sites/default/files/resources/InternewsCommunityMediaGuide2009.pdf
[ii] Richard Carver and Ann Naughton (eds), Who Rules the Airwaves? Broadcasting in Africa, (London: ARTICLE 19 and Index on Censorship 1995),93. See also http://www.amarc.org (World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters).
Essentially, political party media fall into one of three categories, and it is for a regulatory authority to decide which:
Political party-owned media are most often newspapers. In many countries, political parties are not allowed to own broadcasting stations, since this is deemed to be an unfair allocation of a national resource - the frequency spectrum - to a narrow political interest. In Turkey, for example, the 2011 Law on Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and their Media Services, states that “A broadcasting license cannot be granted to political parties [and a range of other entities]” and that they cannot be “direct or indirect shareholders of media service providers.”[i]
Another type of media straddles the distinction between party and private media. Individual politicians, or business leaders with political aspirations, own media that appear to be regular outlets. Politician-owned media has become common practice in Ukraine, where advocates for freedom of expression are gravely concerned about pluralism in media ownership and the control of key broadcasters by wealthy political oligarchs and their families. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi’s broadcasting stations successfully promoted his ambition to become his country's Prime Minister. These politician-owned media are conventional private media that are subject to the same laws and regulations as any other, yet the potential conflict-of-interest and the question of a pluralism of views in major media are causes for concern.
[i] “Law on the Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and their Media Services”, law number 6112 Turkey, as found on WIPO Resources webpage, accessed August 25, 2012, http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=241854
The safety of media personnel and property is paramount to safeguarding democratic processes. Attacks on journalists and media outlets harm more than just the individuals targeted; attacks have a ripple effect throughout the entire media community, and where the media acts as a public mouthpiece, silencing the media means silencing the public. Attacks on media take many forms. Journalists may be explicitly censored through withdrawal of licenses, publishing bans, imprisonment, and other means. They may also feel pressured to increase self-censorship by adjusting the content of coverage, or by choosing not to cover events or issues entirely. A common, although frequently un-reported, attack on media takes place through simply firing, or threatening to fire, media personnel for political or personal gain. On the other hand, journalists may feel pressured into covering topics that they are uncomfortable with. For example, according to an interview in one report on media in Kenya,
“Sometimes inflammatory material is broadcast because the stations don’t have the expertise to deal with controversial subjects.” Journalists in Kenya also do not enjoy proper legal protection…“If a powerful politician walks in your door and demands air time, who will dare to say ‘no’?”[i]
Violence directed at journalists and media can take many forms, including arrests, beatings, rape, and murder. Violence and manipulation also come in the form of attacks against family members, arson or destruction of offices or equipment, confiscation of equipment, and attacks on sources of information. Female journalists face somewhat different security situations in many contexts, and are at higher risk of sexual violence. Journalists face threat of unintentionally exposing valuable and sensitive information by way of third party access to computers, memory drives, telephones and so forth. In addition to surveillance of text messages, emails and phone calls, perpetrators of attacks (government or otherwise) use malware (downloaded through fake links or attachments in emails for example) to track the victim’s activities and enable the attackers to identify sources or conspirators. Software is also used to access information on confiscated items and, in some cases, is not even needed at all.
As an example, [In 2011], British journalist and filmmaker Sean McAllister met with a 25-year-old dissident and computer expert in Damascus who goes by the pseudonym "Kardokh." Columbia Journalism Review reports that Kardokh had agreed to be interviewed on camera, with the understanding that McAllister would blur his face before publishing the footage. But in October 2011, Syrian security agents arrested McAllister, seizing his laptop, cell phone, camera, and the footage for his documentary--including images and contact information that could be used to identify the activists he interviewed. When Kardokh heard that McAllister had been arrested, he immediately packed his bags and fled to Lebanon. Kardokh reports that several of the activists he had put in touch with McAllister had been arrested and at least one had disappeared.[ii]
In addition to being victims of targeted attacks, journalists often place themselves in the midst of sensitive or volatile situations – such as transitional elections. They are often victims of violence at the hand of mob-mentality, war, and conflict, and often with little to no protection from authorities. During 2007, one of the deadliest years for journalists, at least eighteen journalists were killed while covering war or dangerous assignments. At least another 51 were murdered that year in connection to political, human rights, corruption, and other media coverage.[iii]
Every year Reporters Without Borders releases a Press Freedom Index, a compilation of attacks on media personnel throughout the world. For 2011/2012, the countries with the worst index ratings continued to be Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea.[iv] The government under President Issaias Afewerki of Eritrea, the country with the lowest index rating, continued to stifle any media freedom whatsoever through routine arrests and deaths of journalists. As of August 2012, at least 32 journalists were still in prison. Some have been in prison for more than 10 years, and each has been without charge or trial.[v]
Countries like Iran and China, Vietnam, Sudan, Burma, and Belarus follow close behind with abysmal track records of media safety and freedom. Violence against the media has been closely associated with movements for democratic change and free and fair elections, for example the Arab Spring uprisings. [vi]
While, at the time of writing, there are no comprehensive statistics for worldwide attacks on journalists during elections, a close look at individual country records, as well as statistics on media personnel killed for covering political issues, illuminates the fact that election campaigns are one of the most dangerous periods of time for media.[vii] Furthermore, attacks during elections are often subtle, covered up, or intentionally confused, out of perpetrators’ fears of losing public support during the elections. In other words attacks on journalists will often be wrongfully blamed on non-election related violence or causes. This may also be a period when governments are reluctant to curb climates of impunity for fear of losing political support, or stirring up unrest. Indeed impunity often outright flourishes during election periods.
For example, attacks on journalists spiked in the lead up to the 2011 elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many of the attacks were at the hand of candidates and political activists who, unhappy at coverage of opposition leaders and candidates, chose not to utilize right to reply and instead attacked journalists themselves.[viii]
One of the worst attacks on media in history was elections-related: the slaughter of 57 individuals including 32 journalists in 2009 in the town of Ampatuan in Southern Philippines. The victims were accompanying a convoy of supporters of a local politician who was seeking to be a candidate for provincial councils. Gunmen in support of a local rival (the mayor) attacked the convoy and disposed of the bodies in mass graves.[ix] Impunity continues to create fear among media and the general populations in the area as surviving witnesses continue to be killed as the trial proceeds.[x]
In addition to being direct targets of attacks, journalists are also often the victims of more generalized election violence such as riots or proximity to car bombs or rocket attacks directed at voting sites or transportation of sensitive voting material. As an example, in early 2012 roughly 100 Indian journalists were attacked by up to 4000 voters who were angry at elections results. The journalists were forced to lock themselves in a school for several hours until the violence had died down.[xi]
The period immediately following an election can also be extremely dangerous for journalists, as exemplified in the crackdown on independent media after President Yoweri Museveni took office in Uganda after the February 2011 elections. Similarly, the period after the July 2012 Mexico presidential elections has been particularly brutal for journalists.[xii]
Given the vital role media plays in ensuring fair and transparent processes and the crippling effect safety can affect this role, it is essential that media are provided the tools, the knowledge, and resources to best protect themselves while covering elections. Media safety is an important aspect of media development initiatives in the developing world, as according to a Committee to Protect Journalists guide to media safety, “[n]early nine in 10 work-related fatalities since 1992 have involved local journalists covering news in their home countries…And more than 95 percent of journalists jailed worldwide are local reporters, photojournalists, bloggers, and editors…”[xiii] Most importantly, journalists must understand that they have the right to decline risky assignments.
Media safety includes basic preparedness skills and first aid training. Media development agencies, security agencies, and/or EMBs (or other stakeholders) should provide training courses which cover the following where relevant:
Media safety also requires that media staff develop acute awareness of the socio-political environment and potential volatilities at hand. Professionalism can also be a significant factor of media safety, as media can often unintentionally (or intentionally) incite further violence or insecurity, through inaccurate or inflammatory reporting.
EMBs should develop policies and guidelines on media safety in the election process, including briefing EMB staff (particularly voting centre staff) on media rights, presence and safety. Where necessary, EMBs should liaise with security agencies in order to establish any special measures required to protect media personnel at elections sites. EMBs, media development agencies and donors should coordinate to ensure adequate funding and resources are provided for journalist safety. (More information on media training and professionalism is provided in chapter Media Development.)
What is ultimately required however, is concerted advocacy and dedication on the part of all stakeholders to ensure a legal framework wholly supportive of media freedom and rights, and furthermore, that a country’s government and system has the resources as well as will power to implement this framework.
Any physical attack or interference with a journalist is likely to be a crime under the ordinary law of the country. There are also obligations under international law to protect journalists (see the section on Protecting the Safety of the Media in International Law on Media and Elections). In view of the particular importance of the media in elections, some countries create specific offences related to attacks on journalists during elections.
However, as important as what the law stipulates, is the message that is clearly communicates to all those taking part in the elections. Journalists' organizations, such as the International Federation of Journalists, usually recommend that governments (and electoral authorities) give a clear public statement at the start of the election campaign, informing all parties and the law enforcement agencies that the media are an essential part of the democratic process - and that anyone preventing them from going about their business will be dealt with using the full force of the law. Of course, the danger to journalists is not limited to over-enthusiastic party activists - often they are at risk from law enforcement officials trained in the ways of dictatorship, hence the importance of clear public instructions as well as necessary implementation (attacks are fully investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice).
Codes of conduct for political parties are a device sometimes used in situations where violence is likely. These too should include a clear statement on the importance of the media to the election process and the need to refrain from attacks on them.
Physical protection of journalists may be more difficult, since an intrusive police presence may interfere with the media's freedom to gather information. However, law enforcement officials should also be under instructions about the responsibility to protect journalists against attack, physically if necessary. (More information on media rights and legal frameworks is provided in Legal Framework for Media and Elections.)
The following are resources for information on statistics of media attacks as well as media safety guidelines.
The website for the Committee to Protect of Journalists, (http://www.cpj.org/) provides statistics (including impunity ratings per country), reports and information on attacks on media around the world each year (http://www.cpj.org/killed/2012/). They also provide in-depth reporting and advocacy for media freedom. The Journalist Security Guide is a handbook on covering news in dangerous situations and includes information on digital security: (cpj.org/security/guide.pdf)
Reporters Without Borders (http://en.rsf.org/), advocates of media freedom and security, provides a yearly Press Freedom Index, (http://en.rsf.org/spip.php?page=classement&id_rubrique=1043) ranking countries according to their performance in media safety each year. The Reporters Without Borders Handbook for Journalists provides advice on how journalists can stay safe in dangerous situations (http://en.rsf.org/handbook-for-journalists-17-04-2007,21744.html).
The International Press Institute (http://www.freemedia.at/home.html) is a network of media individuals dedicated to the furtherance of press freedom and media safety.
[i] Quote belongs to Keith Somerville, journalism lecturer at the UK’s Brunel University, as cited in: Linawati Sidarto, “ICC – Kenya: the role of media in hate crimes”, International Justice Desk, April 5, 2011.
[ii] Eva Galperin, “Don't get your sources in Syria killed”, Committee to Protect Journalists, Guest Blogger, May 21, 2012, http://cpj.org/security/2012/05/dont-get-your-sources-in-syria-killed.php
[iii] “Yearly statistics 2007”, Committee to Protect Journalists, accessed August 16, 2012, http://www.cpj.org/killed/2007/
[iv] “Press Freedom Index 2011 – 2012”, Reporters Without Borders, accessed August 16, 2012, http://en.rsf.org/spip.php?page=classement&id_rubrique=1043
[v] “Detained Eritrean journalist admitted to hospital in serious condition”, Reporters Without Borders, April 2012, http://en.rsf.org/erythree-detained-eritrean-journalist-06-04-2012,42276.html
[vi] “Press Freedom Index 2011 – 2012”, Reporters Without Borders, accessed August 16, 2012, http://en.rsf.org/spip.php?page=classement&id_rubrique=1043
[vii] For breakdown of beats covered by media victims, 1992 to present see Committee to Protect Journalists, http://www.cpj.org/killed/2012/
[viii] “Attacks on Journalists on the Increase Since Start of the Election Campaign”, Reporters Without Borders, November 4, 2011, http://en.rsf.org/democratic-republic-of-congo-attacks-on-journalists-on-the-04-11-2011,41343.html
[ix] Alia Ahmad, “CPJ’s Press Freedom Awards remember Maguindanao” Committee to Protect Journalists, November 24, 2010, http://cpj.org/blog/2010/11/cpjs-press-freedom-awards-remember-maguindanao.php#more
[x] Bob Dietz, “Third witness to Maguindanao massacre killed” Committee to Protect Journalists, June 1, 2012, http://cpj.org/blog/2012/06/third-witness-to-maguindanao-massacre-killed.php
[xi] “Crowd Attacks Indian Journalists Covering Elections” Committee to Protect Journalists March 6, 2012, http://cpj.org/2012/03/crowd-attacks-indian-journalists-covering-election.php
[xii] A. Jay Wagner, “One Month After Mexico’s Presidential Elections, Attacks on Journalists and Media Continue” International Press Institute, July 31, 2012,
[xiii] Frank Smyth, Journalist Security Guide: Covering the news in a Dangerous and Changing World, (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2012), 3, cpj.org/security/guide.pdf
A growing body of law, both at a national and international level, governs the role of media in elections. It is important to understand that this jurisprudence is overwhelmingly directed at regulating behaviour of governments in relation to the media, rather than in regulating the media themselves.
The fundamental principles set out in international law embrace two aspects:
The original form these principles are found in Article 19 and Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Since then, they have been echoed in a number of UN and regional human rights treaties. Decisions by various treaty bodies, such as the UN Human Rights Committee, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, have further refined these principles, making them an increasingly rich and applicable source of legal guidance.
A further source of international law on media and elections is found in the decisions by other types of international institutions. For example, in 1999 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression established guiding parameters for the role of media in elections as well as obligations of governments to guarantee media pluralism.
The approaches of other international bodies, such as UN administrations in internationally supervised elections, also provide a source of "soft law". This means that the laws do not have binding power over UN member states, but instead provide an important indication of prevalent international standards.
In addition to international laws and treaties, national legislation may also provide guidance and parameters for media activity and respective regulatory bodies. In many countries, especially those with a common law system, decisions of other countries’ courts may be invoked as a source of guidance and precedent. Again they have no binding power, but, depending on the seniority of the court whose decision is being cited, judges will take serious note of its reasoning and findings.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Both media and elections are underpinned by a number of fundamental and interdependent human rights. These rights are held by: voters, candidates and media themselves.[i] They are laid out in key international and regional human rights conventions, including the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 19, which protects freedom of expression at all times, and Article 21, which protects political participation and voting. These are echoed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Implicit in these rights are also the prohibitions in human rights law against discrimination against women, the disabled, and vulnerable groups.
Looking at relations with the media from the perspective of the electoral management body, two other important principles come into play: transparency and confidentiality.
Clearly these principles may come into conflict in practice. Complete transparency and confidentiality are clearly incompatible. However, establishing the precedence of these principles in any given case may be less difficult than it might at first appear. It will almost invariably be true that the plans and activities of the EMB should be open to public scrutiny. It will, without exception, be true that the vote itself should be secret. The borderline cases that fall in between are likely to be few.
The UDHR imposes obligations upon all members of the international community. But, as a declaration, it is only what is termed customary international law, in other words, it is not binding in itself, but is ‘general practice accepted as law,’ as defined by the international court of justice. With the adoption of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1966, these same provisions were amplified and given the force of binding and enforceable law over all those states that ratified.[ii] Article 19 of the ICCPR states in part:
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.[iii]
Article 25 of the ICCPR states in part:
Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of the distinctions mentioned in Article 2 [distinctions of any kind such as race, colour, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status] and without unreasonable restrictions:
(b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors.[iv]
Taken together, these two provisions have been understood to impose an obligation on governments to ensure the diversity and pluralism of the media during election periods.
There are also accepted limitations on freedom of expression, for very particular circumstances:
The great majority of activities [ie. the exchange of ideas or information as protected by freedom of expression] are completely harmless but it is clear that the notion of ‘seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas’ also encompasses activities which few societies could tolerate, such as incitement to murder, unauthorised graffiti on public walls or the sale of pornography to children.[v]
There is a ‘three-part test’ that is applied in deciding whether a particular limitation on freedom of expression is acceptable:
First, the interference must be in accordance with a law; second, the legally sanctioned restriction must protect or promote an aim deemed legitimate in international law; and third, the restriction must be necessary for the protection or promotion of the legitimate aim.[vi]
The main regional human rights treaties - the European Convention on Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights[vii] - contain a similar combination of guarantees to the right to freedom of expression and information and right to political participation without discrimination.
The documents adopted by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe go a step further. In the Copenhagen Document of 1990, the participating states of the CSCE committed themselves to ensure:
That no legal or administrative obstacle stands in the way of unimpeded access to the media on a non-discriminatory basis for all political groupings and individuals wishing to participate in the electoral process.[viii]
The CSCE documents are not treaties and therefore do not have the same binding force. They have, however, been accepted as part of customary international law and therefore impose obligations on participating states.
The decisions of both international and national tribunals give greater detail and substance to these broad principles on media and elections. They can be summarized as follows:
[i] Handbook on Media Monitoring for Election Observation Missions” (Poland: Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ODIHR, 2012), 13, http://www.osce.org/odihr/92057?download=true
[ii] As of 2012, 167 countries had ratified the ICCPR
[iii] “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” UN.org, accessed August 27, 2012, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/history.shtml
[iv] “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights website, accessed August 27, 2012,
http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx
[v] “Limitations”, ARTICLE 19, accessed August 21, 2012, http://www.article19.org/pages/en/limitations.html
[vi] Ibid
[vii] At the time of writing, it is expected that the ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights for Southeast Asia will be completed in 2012. It is anticipated that this declaration will provide similar provisions as those discussed in this section.
[viii] “Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE” (1990),6, http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/14304
The media in an election play a key role, not only as a means of scrutinizing government actions, but also ensuring that the electorate has all the necessary information at its disposal to make an informed and democratic choice. Governments have an important negative obligation not to impede the media in playing these functions. In addition, and at least as importantly, governments have a positive obligation to facilitate media pluralism in order to expose the public to the widest variety of sources of information. Indeed, the obligation contained in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), guaranteeing freedom of expression and freedom of information, applies only to governments and certainly not to individual media organizations.
As the Human Rights Committee (HRC) stated in its 1983 General Comment on Article 19 of the ICCPR:
Because of the development of the modern mass media, effective measures are necessary to prevent such control of the media as would interfere with the right of everyone to freedom of expression...[i]
The HRC elaborated on the point in its 2011 General Comment, stating:
The State should not have monopoly control over the media and should promote plurality of the media. Consequently, States parties should take appropriate action, consistent with the Covenant, to prevent undue media dominance or concentration by privately controlled media groups in monopolistic situations that may be harmful to a diversity of sources and views.[ii]
The UN Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression has listed both commercial pressures and government regulation as threats to media pluralism and public interest content. Some of the key challenges to independent media in 2010 that the Rapporteur identified included growing concentration of ownership, cost-cutting measures by private owners, existing broadcasters gaining access to new digital frequencies during the digital switchover, thereby exacerbating concentration, and political interference in the media.[iii].
Jurisprudence from countries as varied as Ghana, Sri Lanka, Belize, India, Trinidad and Tobago and Zambia underlines the twin points that media monopolies are an unacceptable interference with freedom of expression and that publicly-funded media have an obligation to convey viewpoints other than that of the government of the day. A number of these judgments (Zambia, Belize and Trinidad and Tobago) refer to the right of political opponents of the government to have their viewpoint heard in the public media. This right extends to other types of minority as well. The following recommendation is drawn from a UN report on minority rights:
Members of different groups should enjoy the right to participate, on the basis of their own culture and language, in the cultural life of the community, to produce and enjoy arts and science, to protect their cultural heritage and traditions, to own their own media and other means of communication and to have access on a basis of equality to State-owned or publicly controlled media.[iv]
It is important to stress that the role of the media is not just as a vehicle for expression in the narrow sense. The media are important also as a means to enable the public to exercise their right to freedom of information; and this right is closely linked to media pluralism, because without it the public cannot access a diversity of information. Detailed guidelines produced by the United Nations reflecting best international practice on pluralism and access to the media include those issued by the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia. These stated:
An independent and free media should have a diversity of ownership, and it should promote and safeguard democracy, while opening opportunities and avenues for economic, social and cultural development.[v]
In the most definitive statement from a United Nations authority, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Abid Hussein, concluded in his 1999 annual report:
"There are several fundamental principles that, if promoted and respected, enhance the right to seek, receive and impart information. These principles are: a monopoly or excessive concentration of ownership of media in the hands of a few is to be avoided in the interest of developing a plurality of viewpoints and voices; State-owned media have a responsibility to report on all aspects of national life and to provide access to a diversity of viewpoints; State-owned media must not be used as a communication or propaganda organ for one political party or as an advocate for the Government to the exclusion of all other parties and groups..."[vi]
The Special Rapporteur then went on to list a series of obligations on the State to ensure "that the media are given the widest possible latitude" in order to achieve "the most fully informed electorate possible":
[i] Adopted by the Human Rights Committee at its 461st meeting on 27 July 1983, UN Doc. A/38/40, 109.
[ii] “General Comment No. 34, Article 19: Freedoms of Opinion and Expression”, (Human Rights Committee 102nd Session, Geneva, July 11-29, 2011), 10, (UN doc. CCPR/C/GC/34) http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/gc34.pdf. Note: The HRC has made only these two General Comments on Article 19 of the ICCPR. The HRC’s General Comments are intended to provide interpretations of the meaning of the Articles for parties to use in their implementation.
[iii] “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the rights to freedom of opinion and expression. Addendum, Tenth anniversary joint declaration: Ten key challenges to freedom of expression in the next decade,” (UN General Assembly, UN doc. A/HRC/14/23/Add. March 25, 2010) http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.23.Add.2_en.pdf
[iv] “Positive ways and means of facilitating the peaceful and constructive solution of problems involving minorities (Report by Special Rapporteur Asbjorn Eide)”, (Addendum 4, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/34/Add.4) part II, paras 11 and 12.
[v] “Media Guidelines for Cambodia”, UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) (1992),
[vi] “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Mr. Abid Hussain,” (UN Doc. E/CN.4/1999/64 29 January 1999)
There is a growing weight of decisions by national tribunals on the right of opposition parties to access to the government media. There is a clear trend towards recognizing that governments have an obligation to ensure such access. This was the approach taken by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression in his 1999 report.
In 1991, the High Court Zambia was called to rule on an issue related to access to government media. The point under dispute was a directive issued by President Kenneth Kaunda in the weeks before the country's first multi-party elections in 1991. This instructed the three government-controlled newspapers not to report statements by leaders of the main opposition party or to accept its advertisements. The court held that the directive violated the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression:
Since the petitioners were not allowed to publish their views on political matters through the government newspapers, and by necessary implication even through the radio and TV, they were denied the enjoyment of their freedom of expression ...[i]
The court then made a more general comment on the proper role of publicly-owned media:
In the case of newspapers they are supposed to be run on the basis of journalistic principles and ethics free from any outside interference. These principles dictate the coverage of all newsworthy events regardless of the source of such news. Anything less than this, and it is very easy for the general public to assess whether or not a given newspaper is working according to sound journalistic principles and ethics, is not acceptable from a publicly owned medium - print or other.[ii]
The High Court of Trinidad and Tobago had earlier made a similar finding in relation to television. The state-owned television station had refused to broadcast a pre-recorded speech by an opposition member of parliament. The court ruled that this action violated the right to freedom of expression:
With television being the most powerful medium of communication in the modern world, it is in my view idle to postulate that freedom to express political views means what the constitution intends it to mean without the correlative adjunct to express such views on television. The days of soap-box oratory are over, as are the days of political pamphleteering ...[iii]
International observer missions and supervisory and advisory groups have taken a similar approach. The UN observer mission at the 1989 Nicaraguan elections, for example, stated that it was necessary for "all political parties [to] have equitable access to State television and radio in terms of both the timing and the length of broadcasts."[iv] The UN Technical Team for the 1993 Malawi referendum made a similar recommendation:
In the case of government-owned media, it is customary that equal access, both in terms of timing and length of broadcast, should be given to the competing sides to put forward their arguments.[v]
(Note that in this case the recommendation was for "equal" rather than "equitable" access since this was a referendum where the choice was between two propositions rather than a number of political parties.)
Likewise, in the UN-supervised elections in Cambodia in 1993, the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was concerned to ensure fair access to the media, as set out in its election guidelines: In the exercise of its responsibilities under the Agreement, UNTAC will ensure "fair access to the media, including press, television and radio, for all parties contesting the election".[vi]
More information on this topic can be found in the section National-level Law or Regulations on Media in Elections.
[i] Arthur Wina & Others v. the Attorney-General (1990) HP/1878 (High Court: Lusaka).
[ii] Ibid
[iii] Rambachan v. Trinidad and Tobago Television Co. Ltd and Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago, decision of 17 July 1985 (unreported).
[iv] “Establishment and Terms of Reference of the UN Observer Mission to Verify the Electoral Process in Nicaragua (ONUVEN), The Situation in Central America, UN GAOR, 44th Sess., "Threats to International Peace and Security and Peace Initiatives,"" (UN Doc. A/44/375 (1989)) Annexe 1, at 3.
[v] “Report of the UN Technical Team on the Conduct of a Free and Fair Referendum on the Issue of a One Party/Multiparty System in Malawi” (15-21 Nov. 1992), para. 27.
[vi] “Media Guidelines for Cambodia”, UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) (1992), pream. para. 4.
The obligation on publicly-owned or government-controlled media to publish or broadcast the views of the opposition derives from the prohibition of discrimination in the enjoyment of rights. This is strongly stated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as in other human rights treaties. It means that if the ruling party has an opportunity to exercise its right to freedom of expression through the government media, then the opposition must be given the same opportunity.
The European Commission of Human Rights rejected an application by an association that had been refused air-time during an election by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The Commission stated that although there was not, in its view, a general right of access to the broadcast media, political parties should be given such access on an equitable basis:
It is evident that the freedom to "impart information and ideas" included in the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Convention, cannot be taken to include a general and unfettered right for any private citizen or organization to have access to broadcasting time on radio or television in order to forward its opinion. On the other hand, the Commission considers that the denial of broadcasting time to one or more specific groups or persons may, in particular circumstances, raise an issue under Article 10 alone or in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention [prohibiting discrimination]. Such an issue would, in principle, arise for instance if one political party was excluded from broadcasting facilities at election time while other parties were given broadcasting time.[i]
This is a common sense view that is reflected in remarks by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, as well as in policy or practice in many countries. It guarantees the continued editorial independence of the media, at the same time as providing a minimum standard of access by political parties.
Meanwhile, the authors of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution regarded this matter as important enough to enshrine it in its highest law. The Constitution states:
(11) The state shall provide fair opportunity to all political parties to present their programmes to the public by ensuring equal access to the state-owned media.
(12) All presidential candidates shall be given the same amount of time and space on the state-owned media to present their programmes to the people.
[i] X and the Association of Z v. the United Kingdom, European Commission on Human Rights, Admissibility Decision of 12 July 1971, App. No. 4515/70, 38 Collected Decisions 86 (1971).
Journalism is a dangerous occupation. Statistics collected by media freedom organizations show that each year dozens of media professionals are killed or injured in the course of their work. Elections can be dangerous for journalists, and tense and sometimes violent campaigns or announcement of results can expose those trying to report honestly and accurately.
The responsibility for protecting the physical security of everyone within its territory rests with the government, which has a particular obligation in relation to the media. It was in recognition of this that the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights resolved:
The World Conference encourages the increased involvement of the media, for whom freedom and protection should be guaranteed within the framework of national law.[i]
There are a few basic steps that governments can take to ensure this protection:
International Humanitarian Law (Geneva Conventions) makes specific reference to the protection of journalists, stating “[j]ournalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians”[ii] and provided with the same protection as civilians. Additional protection is provided to war correspondents who are accompanying, or affiliated with, armed forces. In such cases correspondents are afforded prisoner of war status if captured, and other rights equivalent to civilian members of armed forces.[iii] The International Committee for the Red Cross has a dedicated hotline for journalists (and their employers and families) in trouble in conflict situations. Thus journalists covering elections in conflict-affected areas are protected under international law, although implementation of these protections by national governments often remains inadequate.[iv]
In addition, an electoral management body (EMB) can promote a code of conduct that stresses the importance of both political parties and security forces allowing journalists to go about their work unimpeded.
See section Media Safety for more information[i] “World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna Declaration”, para. 26.
[ii] “Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977”, (Diplomatic Conference of Geneva of 1974-1977), Article 79, http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/470?OpenDocument
[iii] “Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949”, (Diplomatic Conference of Geneva of 1949), Article 4 A (4), http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/375
[iv] “How does international humanitarian law protect journalists in armed-conflict situations?” (Interview), International Committee for the Red Cross, July 27, 2010 http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/interview/protection-journalists-interview-270710.htm
If there is to be some regulation of what the media may or may not do during an election, then this is likely to apply to a specified campaign period. There will be a given period of official campaigning during which the regulations will apply, while otherwise normal practice will prevail. Many countries have campaign periods with clearly defined lengths; others vary depending on when the election is called, when parliament is dissolved, and other factors. The United States is unusual in having no defined campaign period.
Some examples of campaign lengths are as follows:[i]
A clearly defined campaign period is logical, perhaps, but can still be rather problematic. For example, voters may be just as much influenced by what they learn about candidates, parties, and platforms from the media at an earlier period, and not just what they learn during the official campaign period. For this reason (among others) media monitoring teams often start their work well in advance of the official campaign period.
Indeed, political wisdom (and experience prior to the 2000 election) in the United States has it that the candidate who is leading on Labor Day (in September) will win the presidential election (in November). So nothing that happens in the final two months of the campaigning (longer than most countries' official campaign period) has much influence. The American approach is to have no designated campaign period at all - indeed roughly two years out of every presidential term are taken up with campaigning. But this would not suit most countries.
Few countries have election periods quite as closely defined as Estonia, where the law relating to the obligations of broadcasters in the election creates a clearly separated pre-election and election period, with the latter then subdivided into four further periods, each with its own different reporting rules: the application period, the election campaign, the voting period, and the period of determining and publishing the election results.
But the application of such strict regulation presupposes that there will be a set date for the election. In many countries, particularly those that have an electoral system based on the British one, choice of the election date lies with the incumbent head of government. Alternatively, in most systems, an election may be precipitated by an event such as parliamentary vote of no confidence. In such cases, it will be impossible to apply media regulations that extend beyond a fairly limited campaign period.
The best option, perhaps, is for the system of electoral media regulation to be well meshed with the general system of media regulation - ensuring that the media are pluralistic, vibrant, professional, and free from censorship at all times, not just during campaign periods[i] These were the campaign lengths that applied as of August 2012
[ii] Akiba A. Cohen and Gadi Wolfsfeld, "Overcoming Adversity and Diversity: The Utility of Television Political Advertising in Israel", in Political Advertising in Western Democracies, eds. Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha, (London/Thousands Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995)
Although a regulatory system will probably make a distinction between public and private media, a number of aspects of the law or regulations governing the media in elections are likely to affect both sectors. These may include:
A regulatory authority may place different obligations on the private and public media over matters such as whether they carry voter education or direct access materials. But a usual practice is that where private media carry such coverage - even when they are not obliged to - they should conform to the same standards of equity and impartiality as the public media.
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One of the most important practical aspects of the law or regulations on media in elections is who is responsible for implementing it. There will often be much greater day-to-day contact between editors and the regulatory authority responsible for media during elections than there would normally be with, for example, a broadcasting regulator. The relationship is likely to be (or at least should be) a collaborative one.
There are several possible approaches that can be taken:
This presentation is inevitably a little schematic. It is quite common for different aspects of electoral coverage to be regulated by different bodies. In Poland, for example, regulating the broadcasting of free direct access slots is the responsibility of the State Electoral Commission, while responsibility for campaign coverage rests with the usual broadcasting regulator, the National Broadcasting Council. [1] The advantage of such an approach is that it separates areas where the regulator may have to develop strict and binding rules from those matters of professional practice that are best left to the media themselves to determine. The disadvantage is that two different regulatory bodies are operating in two closely related areas, with the danger that they may step on each other’s toes.
Whatever system is adopted, the media (and anyone else affected, such as an individual complainant) will have a right of appeal to a higher independent body, usually a court of law.
[1] Karol Jakubowicz, "Poland and the 1993 Election Campaign: Following the Line of Least Resistance", in Yasha Lange and Andrew Palmer (eds), Media and Elections: a Handbook, European Institute for the Media, Dusseldorf, 1995.
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Many in the media would see a system of self-regulation in elections as an ideal solution. This clearly works best where there are well-entrenched independent media and a long tradition of democratic elections, so that the solutions adopted to the problems of election coverage are sanctified by long-established practice.
Perhaps the best-known example of this approach is in Britain, where direct access Party Election Broadcasts are allocated by a Broadcasters Liaison Group, which was formed in 1997 and comprises of representatives of each of the broadcasters who make airtime available to registered political parties. The BLG works closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure a consistent approach.
However, it has not only been long-established democracies that have adopted a self-regulatory approach. Before the independence elections in Namibia in 1989, the state-controlled South West Africa Broadcasting Corporation (as it was then known) invited political parties to join a standing committee to consult on election coverage. The committee agreed on a schedule of direct access slots, although it was not able to address the problem of biased news coverage.
Hungary in 1990 also adopted a self-regulating approach. National television and the news agency, in collaboration with representatives of 12 political parties and the Independent Lawyers Forum, drafted a voluntary Electoral Code of Ethics. All the major parties adopted the code, along with most major news organizations.[i]
The state-owned Polish Radio and Television adopted a mixed approach. Allocation of direct access broadcasting is the responsibility of the State Electoral Commission, but in their campaign news coverage, radio and television are answerable only to the National Broadcasting Council, the general regulatory body. The management of Polish Radio and Television have issued detailed guidelines to staff, including the following:
[Polish Radio and Television should] provide comprehensive coverage of the campaign and information about the candidates. News and current affairs programmes should provide extensive information about the parties, their election platforms and candidates, without any bias in favour or against any party and without promoting any set of political views. The main principle should be equality of access which puts channel controllers, programme departments and regional stations under an obligation to maintain records of the amount of airtime devoted to particular parties or candidates and to make sure that principle of equality is honoured. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++In many instances, responsibility for implementing regulations on the media during election campaigns rests with the main electoral supervisory body itself. This is often seen as appropriate if the electoral supervisory body has sufficient guarantees of independence, as well as the expertise to conduct the specialized work of media regulation.
Malawi, which held its first democratic elections in 1994, offered a positive example of an electoral commission in a new democracy that, by an effective show of independence, was able to ensure that the different political parties and candidates received a fair share of coverage from the government-controlled broadcaster. But it was able to do this not only through a display of political will, but also because it had established a specialized media sub-committee that had the experience and expertise to deal with the broadcasters.
Using the electoral supervisory body may be a preferable option in a small country where a plethora of overlapping institutions is not an attractive or cost-effective choice. In Barbados, for example, it is the Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the body with overall responsibility for the election, which is also responsible for regulating media coverage.
Nicaragua's 1987 Constitution established a Supreme Electoral Council as an independent branch of government - separate from the executive, legislature, and judiciary. Its responsibility includes applying the mass media law during elections and administering a complaints procedure. It established a specialized Mass Media Department to deal with broadcasters, in particular trying to negotiate changes in practices that are the subject of complaints.[i]
[i] Guidelines for Election Broadcasting in Transitional Democracies, (London: ARTICLE 19, 1994), 38
In some countries responsibility for administering elections may lie with a specialized branch of the judiciary. Uruguay, for example, has an Electoral Court that administers the vote, can rule on disputes between the parties and can investigate challenges to the election results. It may also consider complaints about election campaigning in the media, including attempts to pressure the media into biased campaign coverage.
This is a common model in Latin American countries. In Costa Rica, for example, elections are run by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which also has responsibility for regulating media coverage. The tribunal is an independent constitutional body composed of judges, with its finances approved by the legislature. It is entirely independent of the executive branch of government. The exercise of its authority over the media has not been without controversy. In 1999, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal instructed a privately owned television channel, Teletica Canal 7, to invite all 13 presidential candidates to appear on a scheduled debate, rather than just the top four candidates as the station had planned. The Supreme Court refused to hear the station’s appeal on the grounds that this was an electoral matter.
The Russian Federation has a specialized "information court" - the Judicial Chamber for Information Disputes. This is not strictly speaking a body that is confined to dealing with media and election issues, since it also functions outside election periods. However, it was established in 1993 specifically because of the need for a body to resolve disputes that had arisen during election campaigns.
In most instances, whatever the precise mechanism that has responsibility for regulating the media in elections, there will be a right of appeal to a judicial body against the regulator's decisions. Such an appeal may come from the media organ itself, a political party, or an individual complainant. Like any such procedure during an election period, this is likely to be an expedited process. A well-considered judicial decision may not be much use if it is handed down after the election is over.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++An essential element of most media regulatory bodies, during election periods and at other times, is a complaints procedure. This is a means by which the public, political parties, and the media themselves can seek adjudication on alleged breaches of the law or regulations on election coverage. Since the election period is usually short, complaints mechanisms will need to be geared towards the speedy resolution of complaints. If, for example, the complaint concerns a factual inaccuracy that may influence voters' intentions, there is little use in correcting the error once the election is over.
Complainants will always have the right to take whatever legal proceedings are laid down in the country's laws - a civil suit claiming defamation, for example. And there should always be a built-in appeal process that allows disappointed complainants or the media themselves to seek a higher judgment from an independent court of law. But in general, the emphasis is likely to be on a speedy, no-cost, non-confrontational resolution of disputes. This may be particularly important in a situation in which hostility between parties or communities is great and there are likely to be many issues of dispute. For example, the complaints mechanism in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Election Appeals Sub-Commission (EASC), was able to deal rapidly with a whole series of complaints referred to it by the Media Experts Commission (MEC) in the 1998 presidential election. This helped to reduce tensions between the different communities, by not allowing disputes between their different parties and media to escalate. This was especially important in light of the significant role played by the media in instigating political violence in the former Yugoslavia.
The variety of complaints procedures is as great as the number of different types of regulatory body. There may not even be a single uniform procedure; and a hybrid system may be used.
Some countries publicise complaints; others do not. As of 1999, for example, the Nicaraguan Supreme Electoral Council received complaints and, through its Mass Media Department, issued private rulings to the media outlets against which findings are made. It only publicized the ruling if the media organ fails to comply.[i] In Montenegro, by contrast, publicly-funded media are obliged to publicize any findings of the competent authorities "about any infringement on the principles of equality and objectivity relating to informing citizens on agendas and candidates..."
[i] Viktor Monakhov, "Information Disputes Relating to Election Campaigning Via the Mass Media: The Experience of the Judicial Chamber in the 1999 Election Campaign”, in The Media and the Presidential Elections in Russia 2000, IFES (Moscow: Human Rights Publishers, 2000)
Some countries practice a news blackout (also known as a silence period or a reflection period) on campaign news before or during voting. This means that media must stop covering campaigning, and often that campaigning must stop, for a designated time preceding voting day. The intention is the give voters the opportunity to reflect on their choice, free from the media ‘noise.’ Often, this is a voluntary arrangement. In places such as France where a blackout is legislated, the regulatory body needs to spend resources enforcing it. In Israel, which has extensive prohibitions on campaign news, the Independent Broadcasting Authority is required to police its observance. The implementation of this prohibition illustrates the dangers inherent in such restrictions: the IBA tends to interpret the application of the law in a particularly strict manner, to avoid being held responsible for its breach.[i]
Blackouts are usually 24 hours or less, (for example in Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Hungary, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Slovenia, Macedonia), but are sometimes longer. In Indonesia, a 3-day blackout is required. Estonian law divides its election campaign into four periods, with a blackout of election campaigning for three of them. The application (or nomination) period, the voting period, and the counting and publication of results are all periods when campaigning is forbidden.
The Media Experts Commission in Bosnia-Herzegovina was an example of a regulatory body that vigorously enforced a blackout from 24 hours before polls opened in the 1998 presidential elections until the polls closed. It did this by issuing clear statements in advance of the blackout period and then relying on the findings of its own media monitoring unit. It concluded that most of the violations of the blackout were a consequence of uncertainty in applying the rules. One television channel, for example, when it broadcast film of candidates at polling stations mentioned the names of their parties - which it was not allowed to do. In one case regarded by the MEC as more serious, a station broadcast interviews with two political leaders. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe referred the case to the Election Appeals Sub-Commission (EASC), the complaints body, which struck nine candidates of the party from its election list. The MEC itself commented that most countries, in most conditions, would probably regard such an approach as draconian, unnecessary, and an interference with media freedom.[ii]
Papua New Guinea has an unusual arrangement when it comes to managing media coverage. Due to the logistical challenges of holding an election in a country of small and sparsely-populated islands, polling is scheduled to take place over a two week period, on a rolling basis around the country. Campaigning, polling, counting, and reporting of results, continues throughout the electoral period – in other words, there is neither a defined campaign end, nor a news blackout. While there are logical reasons for this process, civil society actors are concerned about the undue influence of on-going campaigning and reporting while people are voting.
In this age of globalized media, it is almost impossible to ensure that international media published outside national borders follow blackout rules. When voters have access to the Internet or international television, the blackout becomes meaningless. At the most, the regulatory body can attempt to ask overseas media to respect domestic rules. With social media blackout periods are even more difficult to enforce and breeches even more difficult to sanction.
[i] Akiba A. Cohen and Gadi Wolfsfeld, "Overcoming Adversity and Diversity: The Utility of Television Political Advertising in Israel", in Political Advertising in Western Democracies, eds. Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha, (London/Thousands Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995)
[ii] “Final Report: Media in Elections 1998”, (report by Media Experts Commission, 1998), 33-34.
Opinion polls, which gauge voter intentions and attitudes, are an important part of elections coverage in most countries. Publication of opinion poll findings is a subject that arouses strong passions. Established democracies take quite contrary positions on the issue. Sixteen of the twenty-seven European Union countries, for example, ban reporting of polls, although timeframes range from a full month to just 24 hours before election day. Only three countries - Italy, Slovakia and Luxembourg - have bans of more than seven days. In many of the EU countries, legal challenges in recent years have reduced the time period over which the ban applies.[1]
Meanwhile in the United States media coverage of opinion polls is regarded as an integral part of free speech in elections and publication is allowed at any time. The problem is that opinion poll results - like almost any other form of expression - are not just the reflection of people's views but may also shape the views of others. That is, people may be influenced in how they vote by what they have learned from an opinion poll... or what they think they have learned.
For this reason, laws or regulations may attempt to control how (or even whether) opinion polls are reported. In Montenegro, for example, publicly-owned media are forbidden to publicize the results of opinion polls or any other projection of the election results. On voting day, it is even forbidden to publicize the results of previous elections.
However, a total ban on reporting opinion poll findings, whether or not desirable, is scarcely practical. France had long had a ban on the reporting of opinion polls in the week before elections (although not at other times). In the 1997 legislative elections some newspapers broke this regulation. They included Le Parisien and La Republique des Pyrennees. Liberation got round the ban by putting the findings of an opinion poll on its Internet site, which is linked to the Tribune de Geneve in Switzerland. France Soir followed this by publishing a poll before the second round of voting took place.[i] This seems a fairly clear case of a law becoming ineffective once it has fallen into disrepute - despite the fact that it had been respected for many years – and the French ban has since been reduced to 24 hours.
In the UK, the broadcast regulator the Office of Communications (Ofcom) Code requires broadcasters to refrain from publishing the results of opinion polls only on election day itself; as do the BBC’s editorial guidelines.
With opinion polls, more than most other issues, much hinges on how professionally the findings are reported (for more information, see section on Media Professionalism). The Montenegrin position of imposing a total ban on the public media's reporting opinion polls might find some favour in a situation where distorted reporting could materially affect the outcome of the elections. Generally, however, this is an issue that is best addressed by applying a light touch and encouraging the media to develop their own standards for reporting.
[i] Helen Darbishire, "Media and the Electoral Process" in Media and democracy, (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1998), 96.
One of the problems is that this may just be a matter of point of view. One person's "hate speech" will be another's legitimate opinion. There is thus a general reluctance to impose restrictions on what may be said.
This dilemma becomes even more acute in the circumstances of an election. This is for two reasons:
These issues are more difficult to address in a country with a history of communal or ethnic violence, where the media are known to have played a role in fanning hostilities. That is why, for example, the matter of "hate speech" was given so much attention in the Bosnian elections of 1998 - the media on all sides having played a considerable role in inciting the wars that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Meanwhile, the 2008 post-elections violence in Kenya was precipitated by longstanding historical issues played out through violence along ethnic lines. However, media have also been accused of fanning the flames in this context (with one journalist even being indicted by the International Criminal Court for his alleged role). Subsequently, a National Cohesion and Integration Act was passed under which a number of people have been indicted for hate speech. The Act and other related laws have drawn criticism from some quarters that they excessively infringe freedom of speech and lead towards a slippery slope of increasing censorship.
The issue of defamation is a similar problem to that of hate speech in one respect: it is an area where freedom of expression may legitimately be limited for the protection of the rights of others. Yet it does not have the same collective implications in an election campaign. Vigorous - and even sometimes insulting - debate is part of the substance of democratic campaigning. International and comparative jurisprudence has established clearly that politicians - especially government politicians - must have thick skins. They should have less protection than the ordinary citizen, not more. From the standpoint of the media in an election campaign, the clear similarity between defamation and hate speech lies in the issue of who will be held liable for any unlawful statement: the media or the person whose words they report.
International and Comparative Law
Neither international law nor the experience of various national courts offers any definitive answer on how to balance freedom of expression and protection of other rights. Precisely because it is a balance, the answer will be determined by national and local circumstances, as well as precise context.
International treaties provide a clear basis for criminalizing advocacy of hatred or discrimination. In extreme circumstances, such as the case of Radio television libre des mille collines in Rwanda, where a radio station incited genocide, journalists have been convicted before an international tribunal for crimes against humanity.
However, the general trend in interpreting this balancing act has been towards promoting many voices to counteract the effect of hate speech, rather than banning those voices that express obnoxious or unpopular views. Experience has shown that laws prohibiting hate speech are often used far more broadly than for their ostensible purpose. The country with the largest battery of laws prohibiting advocacy of racial hostility was apartheid South Africa. Invariably the victims of these laws were black.
The practice in most jurisdictions where this issue has been considered tends towards prohibiting hate speech only when it constitutes a direct incitement to violent activity. That may not itself be a very easy concept to define, but it contains the idea that no one in election campaigns will be penalized for the expression of opinions - only for interfering with the rights of others.
Media Liability
Discussion of hate speech and the media in elections is really about two separate issues:
On the former issue, the international consensus is coming down firmly on the side of absolving the media from liability for reporting the remarks of politicians, within the limited time span of an election campaign. This means that a journalist or media house would not be open to either a civil or criminal suit for reporting remarks by a politician that constituted advocacy of hatred. But this would not absolve the journalist from a professional responsibility to balance such statements with countervailing facts or voices.
Attempts to Regulate
When the media themselves directly advocate hatred - especially in circumstances that could constitute incitement - they clearly cannot expect to be absolved from liability. In these circumstances, the regulatory body would be expected to monitor the media's output closely. But this in itself creates practical and ethical problems. For example, how is it possible to distinguish between poor or irresponsible reporting of violent statements and active endorsement of those statements?
As in much else, the distinction between editorial and non-editorial content is important. Non-editorial content - primarily direct access material of various sorts - is beyond the control of the media themselves, generated as it is by the political parties. The regulatory body will have to determine how far, if at all, it chooses to vet the content of direct access items.
Such cases clearly test the limits of freedom of speech and indicate how these dilemmas are exacerbated in election periods.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++There are several possible ways in which a regulatory body may address the problem of hate speech.
Prior Approval of Direct Access Material
The regulatory body may require that all direct access material be submitted to it in advance to ensure that it conforms to certain legal or voluntary agreed standards for political speech. Whether such an approach is taken is likely to depend on whether the country has an immediate history of inflammatory speech as a serious political problem. The drawback in principle to such an approach is that it may be seen as an interference in political speech and smack of prior censorship. The difficulty in practice is that it imposes an additional administrative burden on the regulator.
Codes of Conduct
However no such possibility presents itself in relation to news coverage: international law and practice entirely rejects "prior restraint" or pre-publication censorship. The problem of inflammatory speech will therefore have to be addressed primarily at source - that is, with the political parties and candidates themselves. This would be best achieved with a code of conduct agreed between the parties in advance of the election campaign. Sometimes, as in Cambodia's post-conflict elections, such a code will have the effect of law.
Complaints
The problem of unprofessional or biased reporting of statements by politicians will have to be addressed primarily through the complaints mechanism established by the regulatory - whether this be a media regulator or an election authority. The most effective remedy will be to allow correction of inflammatory material through a right of reply. There are useful examples of this from Bosnia and the United Kingdom.
Promoting Professional Standards
The most important measure that the regulator can take to promote balanced and unprovocative reporting of inflammatory statements is to ensure adherence to professional standards among the media. In doing this, collaboration with the journalists' own professional and trade union bodies will be vital. The regulatory body may also wish to engage in training of journalists in election reporting.
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The question of who is or is not a practising journalist is one best left to journalists' organizations - although some governments, through an Information Ministry or similar body, have a system for accrediting journalists. Whatever the merits of these different systems, however, sometimes an accreditation system is required for journalists in elections specifically. This is because the media will be entitled to attend events - such as material transportation, or the count – which might not be open to ordinary members of the public.
The preferable system for accreditation of journalists in elections is one that is conducted jointly by the electoral supervisory body and the media regulatory body (if any). Accreditation should be available to all representatives of local, national, and international news organizations on production of credible identification. The accrediting authority should have no discretion to refuse credentials to any bona fide news representative.
The requirement to provide access to accredited media staff should be conveyed to the police or any other body responsible for security in the elections, as well as with electoral staff. Credential I.D.s often consist of a laminated photocard, clearly identifying the bearer as a media representative. Guidelines should also be made known to the political parties, who in turn are expected to ensure their members and supporters facilitated (and did not impede) access by anyone bearing media credentials. In Timor Leste in 2012, journalists were required to present credentials as follows:
Accreditation shall be granted against presentation of a personal identification document, a professional certificate, a certification issued by the media organ for which the media professional works, and the duly filled in identification form to be made available by STAE [the Electoral Commission].[i]
When the approximate date of an election is known in advance, accreditation of most local journalists can be organized in time to avoid a last-minute rush. There should be no limit on the number of media personnel issued with accreditation. News organizations have no obligation to limit the number of journalists who are accredited, although it would be reasonable for organizers of an event to limit the numbers from a particular news organization allowed into any particular event or location if that is necessary to secure access for the widest range of media.
Although a photocard - visible evidence of accreditation - is no doubt useful at many public events connected with elections, this should only be required as a precondition for attendance in two circumstances:
In the latter case, it will be up to the journalists themselves to operate a pool system, whereby they will select which of their representatives attend an event and they then share the information gathered. Election officials can also set up a rotation to ensure that some journalists are always present, allowing the journalists to decide among themselves who will benefit from the various time slots made available.
In other words, accreditation is for the most part an administrative tool that only very occasionally has a security dimension. In general, the principle that anyone can have access to the public electoral process and write or broadcast about it is the paramount one.
[i] “Code of Conduct for Media Professionals for Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, No. 09/Stae/X/2011,” National Electoral Commission (STAE) webpage, http://www.unmit.org/legal/RDTL-Law/Public%20Inst-Regs/09-STAE-X-2011.pdf
Everything that has been said about the journalists' right of access to election events and the process of accreditation apply equally to any foreign media who are present. It is important to stress that this is a matter of principle. The fundamental sources of the right to freedom of expression - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - explicitly define this right as entailing the communication and receipt of information "regardless of frontier".
In most instances, there will be foreign correspondents resident in - or at least accredited to - the country on a long-term basis. Since these journalists will invariably have some form of accreditation as a condition of their residence in the country, their further accreditation to cover the election presents little problem in principle or practice. A problem is more likely to arise if the election is a matter of some international interest (as elections do tend to be), with the attendant possibility that large numbers of foreign media staff will arrive at the last minute expecting to be able to cover it.
Precise arrangements will need to be coordinated between the body ordinarily responsible for accrediting foreign media and the organizers of the election. For immigration reasons, all foreign journalists will need to be accredited, but as with domestic media personnel, neither the government nor the electoral administrators should have any discretion to decide who may or may not come to report the election. Accreditation is an administrative measure, not a means of keeping people out.
Common sense suggests that a measure of prior planning is needed, with an assessment of how many foreign media staff are likely to want to cover the elections. Not only can accreditation be planned in advance, but also other facilities such as the necessary telephone and computer links from the media centre.
A measure of mutual patience and understanding is required. Elections are organized for the benefit of the electorate, not the international media (a fact that the latter sometimes need reminding of). Yet international accountability is part of the process of organizing free and fair elections, and, to this extent, foreign media play a similar role to that of external election observers. It is therefore in the interests of democracy and the election process itself that they are allowed and enabled to do their job.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++The media cannot cover elections properly if they are unable to gain access to relevant events and places. This is obvious enough, but unfortunately many countries that are embarking on democratic elections for the first time may have little experience of the culture of media freedom. The purpose of laws or regulations on media in elections - and the function of a regulatory body - is to create an environment in which the media can go about their business freely. Elections are not state secrets to be winkled out by dedicated investigative journalists; rather, they should be conducted in the public eye. There is thus an argument of principle that journalists should be given the fullest access to election events. For the body organizing the election, there are also pragmatic considerations: if the media are present at all relevant events, such as briefings and news conferences, then it will be much easier for an electoral administration to convey its messages and concerns to the public. In addition, transparency will result in more credible elections which means more credibility for election organisers.
For example, the Carter Center, which sent an international election witnessing mission to the ground-breaking 2012 presidential elections in Egypt, regretted the fact that
The [Presidential Elections Commission – PEC] informed the Center that only their election officials can be present at the PEC's Cairo headquarters during the aggregation of national results. The absence of candidate agents, media representatives, and domestic and international witnesses at this crucial juncture of the election process undermines the overall transparency of the election results.[i]
In Timor Leste in 2011, the Electoral Commission made the following regulations as part of a Media Code of Conduct:
The right of access provided for in the preceding article shall be exercised in the following terms:
a) For purposes of media coverage, media professionals shall have the right to accede to places where the entire electoral process takes place, including presentation of candidacies, electoral campaign activities, voting, counting of votes and tabulation of results;
b) The right of access shall allow media professionals to watch the counting and tabulation of votes, without prejudice to the provisions of the following norms;
c) Prior to initiating reporting in polling centres, polling stations, and district and national tabulation stations, media professionals shall obtain authorization from the chairperson of the polling centre in order to avoid disturbing the normal functioning of the polling centre.[ii]
In order to ensure access to certain activities of the election - for example, the count - it may be necessary for an electoral administration to establish some form of media accreditation. In principle, however, this should not be necessary for all events, as the ultimate responsibility for determining who is or is not a journalist should lie with the relevant media professional bodies, not the state.
It is important that access be non-discriminatory. It would be unacceptable for example, if journalists from certain media organs were excluded from rallies by certain political parties. It should be an explicit element of the parties' code of conduct that they allow free access of all media to all their public events. It would be worse however, if electoral authorities themselves were to exercise any discrimination in determining which media were given briefing materials or invited to a press conference.
Media right of access are directly tied to principles of freedom of information necessary to a democracy. Freedom of information means, among other things, that the media are entitled to investigate and report critically on the efficiency and probity of election administration. This scrutiny should not be considered interference with the election organization but rather as a means to promote credibility and efficiency. Efficiency results from broad accountability: if the media have good access to those organizing the elections, then they will convey their concerns rapidly to the public. This functions as an effective, no-cost method of voter education.[i] “Executive Summary of Carter Center Preliminary Statement on Egypt's Presidential Election”, Carter Center, May 26 2012, http://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/egypt-052612.html
[ii] “Code of Conduct for Media Professionals for Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, No. 09/Stae/X/2011,” National Electoral Commission (STAE) webpage, http://www.unmit.org/legal/RDTL-Law/Public%20Inst-Regs/09-STAE-X-2011.pdf
In most legal frameworks, regulations apply to both publicly and privately-funded media. In addition to ethical obligations pertaining to all journalists and broadcasters, public media are also accountable to the electorate, who are their funders and, ultimately, their owners. Hence it is usually assumed - and this assumption is decidedly based on international law - that public media should be politically impartial.
There are also obligations that may pertain to public media alone, for example direct access broadcasting. Direct access broadcasting is the term used to describe access given to parties and candidates to broadcast their campaign material. It is distinguished from election campaign news coverage in that the latter is created or selected by the media outlets. In some frameworks there are no legal requirements for private media to carry direct access broadcasting or advertisements from political parties during an election campaign. Yet, for the public media, there usually is such a requirement. Much of this section is devoted to the issues that arise from these three questions:
Another aspect of the responsibility of the public media flows from the government's obligation to inform and educate the electorate on how to exercise their rights in an election - voter education.
The obligations of public media have been well summarized in a series of guidelines developed by the freedom of expression group ARTICLE 19[i]. These guidelines have been widely disseminated and adopted since the 1990s.
For descriptions of what constitutes public and private media, see the section on Media Ownership and Elections.[i] Guidelines for Elections Broadcasting in Transitional Democracies, (London: ARTICLE 19, 1994) http://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/tools/electionbroadcastingtrans.pdf
International standards generally encourage direct access broadcasting, particularly in new democracies.
According to the EU, particularly “in a media system characterised by a private audio-visual media sector shaped along political lines, state broadcasters have a particular responsibility to be a genuine public service and create a forum for all campaign messages during the election period.”[i]
An electoral framework will need to stipulate about how media are to allocate direct access broadcasts. Legislation to this extent must be comprehensive and carefully worded. Problems can easily result from vague rules and procedures. For example, according to the OSCE who observed the 2001 election in Kazakhstan, there was “[c]onfusion in the provisions on direct access to airtime regarding candidates and parties and the timing of slots, as well as a failure to differentiate between established and new parties in terms of such access.” This report by OSCE also states that there were no provisions to allow media to refuse to broadcast a campaign advertisement (in defined circumstances), nor to protect media outlets from liability for statements made in campaign advertisements.[ii]
Paid Advertising, Free Access, or a Mixture of the Two?
Regulatory frameworks will need to stipulate whether direct access to media by political parties will be free or paid or, as is often the case, a mixture of the two. Sometimes all parties are allocated free direct access but can top this up with paid advertising. Different rules are also often adopted for print and broadcast media.
How Is Access Time or Space Divided?
In a system of paid advertising, this may not be an issue - time is simply allocated to those who can pay. (Many would argue that this is why paid advertising is an unfair option.) However, if direct access broadcasts are to be allocated by a regulatory body, how will this be done? What criteria are required to divide available broadcast time or print space? Is it to be done on the basis of equality, so that every party gets the same time, or equitability (fairness), whereby parties are allocated time according to the degree of popular support they enjoy. If the latter, then, how is popularity determined? Should access time be allocated on the basis of previous elections (the number of seats currently held in parliament), opinion polls, the number of candidates standing - or some other criterion or a mixture of all of them? Different countries have adopted widely varying systems.
Timing of Slots
Will there be regulation about the times that slots are broadcast? If everyone is to get a chance to broadcast in peak time, how can slots be allocated? What order will the parties be allowed to broadcast in?
Who Pays - and Who Makes the Programme?
Will candidate or party be responsible for making its own broadcast or print content or will the public broadcaster make facilities available? And who foots the bill for the production of this content?
Who Decides What is Broadcast?
Does a regulatory body have any say in the content of direct access broadcasts or political advertising? May the parties and candidates say what they like? What are the limits?
[i] “Final Report, Parliamentary Elections, Lebanon, 7 June 2009”, (European Union Election Observation Mission, 2009), 31,
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/dmas/dv/rapport_final_/rapport_final_en.pdf
[ii] “Review Of The Legal Framework For Media Coverage Of Elections, Republic Of Kazakhstan,” (OSCE / ODIHR report, 2001), http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/kazakhstan/14794
One of the fundamental decisions to be made in organizing direct access broadcasts by the parties is whether slots are to be allocated on the basis of equality or equity. Equality, clearly, means that every party or candidate gets the same access. Equity means that everyone gets fair access - the idea being that a party with large popular support should have more airtime than one that does not.
The Argument For Equality
The argument for equal direct access coverage stipulates that everyone is provided an opportunity to present their point of view to the electorate. It will be the electorate that chooses, rather than a broadcaster or an electoral regulator. This is a simple system to administer and everyone can understand it. It is particularly attractive in a first or second democratic election when there is no sure way of knowing how much support the different parties has. Some countries that use versions of equality in direct access are:
France
The formula for allocating direct access broadcast time in the French presidential elections is one of equality for all candidates, who usually number about 14. If no clear winner emerges there is a second round run-off between the two leading candidates, and again air-time is allocated equally between them.[i]
Denmark
Denmark allocates equal time to all political parties in parliamentary elections, so long as they satisfy certain basic criteria: they must have been registered with the Ministry of the Interior, which requires that they will have collected signatures equivalent to one in 175 of the votes cast at the last election.[ii]
Norway
In Norway, time is allocated equally, but again certain criteria must be met. Parties must have been represented in one of the last two parliaments, have a national organization and be fielding candidates in a majority of districts. Smaller parties that do not meet this threshold nevertheless have a short programme.[iii]
Italy
The state broadcaster, RAI gives equal time to all competing parties in an election. However, private commercial broadcasters have no such obligation.[iv]
Czechoslovakia
In Czechoslovakia's first democratic election, all parties received the same allocation of broadcast time - a total of four hours over a campaign period lasting 40 days. The slots were then divided up into slices of different time lengths. The exact schedule was then determined by lots.[v]
Armenia
Armenia gave equal access to each party,[vi] but the amount was limited to five minutes for each candidate or party. This avoided the problem of information overload but perhaps created an opposite problem. Was this really enough information for the voter?
Japan
Japan has a system of equal access but with a minimum qualification threshold. In order to receive equal broadcasting time a party must field at least 12 candidates. In the Upper House, however, all candidates receive five and a half minutes of free broadcasting time.
Netherlands
The Netherlands, like Japan, has a system that is a sort of modified equality. In principle all parties have equal broadcasting time. However, the regulatory body, the Media Commissariat, may allocate extra time to parties running candidates in all electoral districts.[vii]
The Argument Against Equality
Equality gives a built-in advantage to the incumbent party, which has many other opportunities to convey its policies through the media. What equality does is to promote the no-hope opposition parties at the expense of those with a genuine possibility of ousting the ruling party. Equality may also mean that there is simply too much material being generated for the electorate to absorb. They will get bored and the direct access process may become a waste of time. Again this is likely to favour the incumbent.
Another argument against automatic equal access is that it will encourage frivolous candidates who are only interested in the free publicity.
The Argument For Equity
If direct access is allocated on a fair (or equitable) basis, this ensures that all parties are given an opportunity to speak to the electorate, roughly in proportion to their popular support. This means that the electorate gets to hear the arguments between the main contenders for office, while parties with less support also get a say (but a smaller one).
The main considerations for equitable access are likely to be:
There is usually a minimum allocation of time to all parties, or at least to those fielding a certain number of candidates. This is an attempt to address the criticism that an "equitable" approach is not very fair to new parties.
These calculations are more difficult to make in a presidential election, where a candidate may be standing for the first time.
Examples of countries that use a system of equity of access are:
Greece
As of 2002, all informative (as opposed to entertainment) television and radio stations, whether public or private, are obliged to provide free airtime of ten minutes each week (not to be shifted or aggregated) for parties and coalitions of parties represented in the Greek and European Parliaments. Non-parliamentary parties are also allowed free airtime, at a rate of five minutes of for political parties with lists in least three fifths of constituencies of the country; and three minutes for parties with lists in at least half of constituencies.[viii]
Spain
Spain uses a formula to determine allocation of free airtime. As of the mid-1990s, this formula was: parties that did not win seats in the previous election have ten minutes' broadcasting time. Parties that won less than five per cent of the vote have 15 minutes' broadcasting time. Parties that won up to 20 per cent have 30 minutes and those that won more than 20 per cent have 45 minutes' broadcasting time.
United Kingdom
A committee of broadcasters and political parties at each election reviews the formula for allocation of broadcasting time. It is roughly as follows: all parties fielding 50 or more candidates are allocated one free broadcast. The two main parties receive equal broadcasting time - usually about five ten-minute broadcasts. The third main party receives slightly less - usually four ten-minute slots.[ix]
Israel
All parties contesting an election are given a basic allocation of 10 minutes broadcasting time. Parties that were represented in the outgoing Knesset (parliament) receive an additional three minutes for each seat they held.[x]
Turkey
All parties contesting the election are entitled to ten minutes broadcasting time. Parties with parliamentary representation may receive an additional ten minutes. In addition, the governing party is entitled to an additional 20 minutes, and the main opposition party to another ten minutes.[xi]
The Argument Against Equity
This system is an obstacle to the emergence of new parties, since it is always based on what support they achieved last time. And what if there was no last time? How is popular support determined in a first democratic election? The system could thus be open to abuse.
And the Answer?
There is no right or wrong answer to this problem, as can be seen by the variety of solutions in both well-established and new democracies. But the different approaches may suit different political systems better. Here are some further considerations:
But even these considerations are only pointers. Many established democracies - France, Italy, Denmark - allocate direct access broadcasting in the public media on the basis of equality (in at least some elections). And many new democracies -, Brazil, Namibia - allocated time on a proportional or equitable basis.
Whichever approach is adopted, its success will depend in large measure on the credibility and impartiality of the regulating body that allocates the broadcasts. This is a very strong argument for having the political parties themselves involved in drawing up the regulations governing media and elections. Parties are more likely to be committed to a process in which they have been consulted and have contributed to designing the system.
All these arguments clearly apply primarily to criteria for allocating direct access time - that is, direct access broadcast programmes that are available free to parties. Paid political advertising, where it is allowed, will usually be on the basis that parties can have as much direct access time as they can afford (or as they are allowed within campaign spending limits). But this may not always be the case. And if limits are to be applied to paid advertising, then the same considerations of equality and equity may apply.
[i] Anne Johnston and Jacques Gerstle, "The Role of Television Broadcasts n Promoting French Television Candidates", in Political Advertising in Western Democracies, eds. Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha (London/Thousands Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995)
[ii] Karen Siune, "Political Advertising in Denmark", in Political Advertising in Western Democracies, eds. Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha (London/Thousands Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995)
[iii] Ibid
[iv] Gianpiero Gamaleri "Italy and the 1994 Elections: Media, Politics and the Concentration of Power", in Media and Elections: a Handbook, eds. Yasha Lange and Andrew Palmer, (Dusseldorf: European Institute for the Media, 1995)
[v] “Library of Congress, Law Library, Report for Congress: Campaign Financing of National Elections in Selected Foreign Countries” (Washington, DC: July 1995, LL95-4, 95-1354), 58
[vi] “Report: Observation of the parliamentary elections in Armenia (12 May 2007)” (Council of Europe, 2007), http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Doc/XrefViewHTML.asp?FileID=11577&Language=EN
[vii] Kees Brants, "The Blank Spot: Political Advertising in the Netherlands", in Political Advertising in Western Democracies, eds. Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha, (London/Thousands Oaks:, Sage Publications, 1995)
[viii] “Greece: Early Parliamentary Elections 4 October 2009”, (OSCE/ODIHR Election Assessment Mission Report, Warsaw, 2009),15, Http://Www.Osce.Org/Odihr/Elections/Greece/41001
[ix] Brian Wenham "The United Kingdom: Impartial broadcasters and a Partisan Press", in Media and Elections: a Handbook, eds. Yasha Lange and Andrew Palmer (Dusseldorf: European Institute for the Media, 1995)
[x] Library of Congress, Law Library, Report for Congress: Campaign Financing of National Elections in Selected Foreign Countries. Washington, DC: July 1995, LL95-4, 95-1354: 58
[xi] Library of Congress, Law Library, Report for Congress: Campaign Financing of National Elections in Selected Foreign Countries. Washington, DC: July 1995, LL95-4, 95-1354: 194
Applying criteria for allocating direct access broadcasts is primarily an issue for countries wanting to provide equitable (rather than equal) access,. However, in systems of "modified equality", such as in the Netherlands, the regulatory body may have some discretion to allocate additional time to the major parties.
In any system, the first criterion to be established is whether there is a qualification threshold. Even some equality-based systems (such as Denmark, Norway, and Japan) require a form of qualification - such as number of seats contested or a minimum of public signatures.
Equity systems will also have to decide on a qualification threshold. In new democracies, it is more likely that the threshold will be set low, because of the difficulty of knowing what level of popular support each party enjoys. Thus in South Africa, for example, all parties receive a minimum allocation. In long established democracies, the threshold is often higher. The threshold should usually be determined by the number of seats contested, rather than the number previously held, since the latter would be a great obstacle to the emergence of new parties. Hence in the 2010 General Elections in England, for example, the threshold was 89 contested seats, or about a sixth of the total. Allowance was also made for a party that did not fulfil these criteria, but which could ‘demonstrate that it has significant levels of current electoral support.’[1]
Once the threshold has been established, there are two other criteria that are usually taken into account in allocating time:
In answering the first question, it is immediately clear that this will be determined to a considerable extent by the nature of the election and the electoral system. Presidential elections, for example, are likely to be far more equal in the allocation of broadcasting because they are generally based on a more individual competition than simply a difference of parties. Hence France allocates broadcast time in its presidential elections on a purely equal basis, although Brazil has done so on the basis of the level of parliamentary support for the candidates' parties.
In parliamentary elections, the nature of the voting system clearly determines how significant smaller parties are likely to be to the outcome, which may in turn determine what time allocation they receive. In a first-past-the-post system, a party that wins 10 % of the vote nationwide is likely to be completely marginal (and possibly unrepresented in parliament), while the same party in most proportional representation systems could be an important player. Thus the allocation of broadcasting time under the latter system is likely to tend towards greater equality, or at least a lower threshold for qualification.
But strangely, the classic first-past-the-post model, the United Kingdom, makes a conscious effort to compensate for the inequities of the electoral system in its allocation of time. Thus the third national party, the Liberal Democrats, which consistently receives parliamentary representation much lower than its share of the popular vote, nevertheless receives a time allocation that is actually proportionally higher not only than its number of parliamentary seats, but also than its vote.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++The timing of direct access slots is clearly of paramount importance. A broadcast when everyone is asleep or at work will be of little use to anyone. As with commercial advertising, everyone will aim for "prime time".
All this is obvious, yet it is surprising how often it is overlooked. In the 2000 Zimbabwe referendum campaign, the Yes vote campaign (supported by the government) almost invariably received slots at around the time of the main evening news. The No campaign had to go to court to get its own broadcasts aired - yet the ruling did not specify when these were to be aired, so they received less advantageous times.[i]
The issue may not only be when a slot is broadcast, but also what is on the other channels. In the 2000 presidential elections, Serbian television tried to reduce audiences for broadcasts by opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica by scheduling them simultaneously with a popular soap opera.
Yet the issue can be exaggerated. In Chile's 1988 plebiscite, broadcasts were deliberately put out at obscure off-peak times in order to dampen down political enthusiasm. But a population denied any active political debate for 15 years was not to be deterred and watched them eagerly.[ii]
The key point is equality of access to the best slots, whenever these may be. A popular way of achieving total equality is by drawing lots - an approach that is most common when there is also equality in the amount of time allocated.
A mechanism that found favour in the past was the simultaneous broadcast of party election broadcasts on all channels. This approach has something to recommend it, but has been generally abandoned in favour of a philosophy where viewer choice is sovereign. In practice, the proliferation of television channels in many countries made it unenforceable.
A second issue is the length of broadcasts. There are two competing trends here. Traditionally, the purpose of law and regulations has been to ensure that slots are long enough for parties to get their message across.
But in the age of slick advertising and sound bites, it is increasingly felt that the 10-minute election broadcast is a thing of the past. Previously in the United Kingdom, the main parties were allocated five 10-minute slots - but only actually broadcast for five minutes of each of them. If the rules permitted they would no doubt take 10 five-minute slots, but they do not. So the parties preferred to forego half their time allocation in order not to repel the voters by going on at too great length. More recently, timeslots have been shortened to under five minutes.[1]
In the United States, there are moves to ensure a minimum length for political advertisements in order to compel politicians to make appeals to the voters' reason rather than their emotions.
For the regulator, there are two alternative approaches. One is to specify precisely the time slot available - say a five-minute broadcast - and then it is up to the party to fill it. If they choose not to, then they lose the time not used. The second is to give an overall allocation of time that the party can then use as it chooses. The problem with the second approach is that it makes planning on the part of a broadcaster almost impossible.
A third approach might represent a compromise between the two. Parties could be given a total allocation of broadcast time in accordance with an agreed system. That time allocation could then be broken into different length time slots, allowing parties a mixture of lengthy and reasoned argument on the one hand and snappy advertising messages on the other.
[i] “A question of balance: The Zimbabwean media and the constitutional referendum” (Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe report, Harare, March 2000)
[ii] “Guidelines for Election Broadcasting in Transitional Democracies”, (London: ARTICLE 19, 1994),16
Party election broadcasts, as distinct from political advertising, are usually described as "free". But all this means is that the parties themselves do not pay for the time that is allocated to them. This leaves unanswered two questions:
In practice there are two possible answers to the first question: either the broadcaster is required to provide the time for free, or the government or electoral authority will purchase the time from the broadcasting company. For public broadcasters, the answers will almost always be the first. The charter or regulations governing the public broadcaster will require them to provide this service. In some cases a similar public service obligation might exist for private broadcasting licensees. But in the latter case it is more common that a supervisory body will buy the time on the parties' behalf. This is what happens in Mexico, for example, where the Federal Electoral Institute buys and allocates 15 minutes a month of television and radio time for each party.
In some exceptional circumstances, a third party pays. In Afghanistan for the 2004 and 2005 elections, direct access production and airtime was arranged, managed and paid-for by donors.
The second question - who pays for the programme content itself - is altogether more complex. Usually, the answer is the party, although this in itself may be constrained by legal limits on campaign spending. Costs can be kept relatively low by the use of sympathetic personnel - most famously the Hollywood film directors John Schlesinger, Hugh Hudson and Mike Newell, who have made party election broadcasts for the main parties in Britain (although in each case the saving on the director's fee was probably more than offset by the high production costs).
If the party makes its own election broadcasts, this clearly favours the richer parties.
An alternative solution is for the public broadcaster to put production facilities at the parties' disposal. This was the approach in the early days of party political broadcasts, which were studio-bound and really just an extension of the old-fashioned ministerial address to camera. It has been revived in transitional democracies where new parties are unlikely to have either the funds or expertise to produce their own broadcasts.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Whether or not a country allows paid political advertising in broadcasting is likely to depend heavily on the traditions in its style and ownership of broadcasting and consequently the type of regulatory system that has evolved.
The issue of paid advertising for political parties or candidates in print media is generally uncontroversial. The practice worldwide is almost universally the same: advertising is permitted, subject only to other limitations such as campaign spending ceilings and sometimes restrictions on content.
However, the fact that many countries have followed a different course with regard to political advertising on radio and television can be put down to two factors:
Of course, neither of these factors in itself automatically leads to a prohibition on political advertising over the airwaves. But they do perhaps explain why the approach has been different.
Broadly speaking, countries with a long tradition of public ownership of broadcasting, such as France, the United Kingdom, and Denmark, have tended to be hostile to paid political advertising. Those with a stronger commercial broadcasting tradition - the United States represents the extreme - have tended to regard political advertising as natural. It is notable that the European country where commercial broadcasting is most dominant - Finland - should also be the one where unrestricted political advertising is permitted.
This is the rough tendency, but there are many exceptions. Canada, for example, which has a public broadcasting tradition similar to the British, has an approach to political advertising much closer to its southern neighbour. Nor is the issue necessarily to do with whether a public broadcaster accepts commercial advertising. The British Broadcasting Corporation has always maintained a strict prohibition on commercial advertising, but French public broadcasting has permitted it since the 1960s. Each maintains an equally strict embargo on political advertising.
A common pattern, of course, is for the public broadcaster to give free direct access slots according to predetermined criteria, while private broadcasters sell advertising slots to parties and candidates, often according to different criteria. This is the case, for example, in Germany, and was too in Italy immediately after the legalization of private commercial broadcasting.
The Argument For Paid Political Advertising
The argument in favour of paid political advertising is a freedom of speech argument and finds its apogee in the United States. There it is generally assumed that the First Amendment to the Constitution - prohibiting Congress from passing laws "abridging" free speech - protects paid advertising. Indeed, existing campaign contribution limits are often criticized as being in violation of the First Amendment. Other arguments in favour state that paid political advertising promotes a greater quantity and diversity of views and encourages public debate; while simultaneously not being a burden on the tax dollar.
Some research also indicates that political advertising can be educational, for example a study that looked at long-term change (1952 – 2000) in the public’s assessments of presidential candidates in the United States, which concluded that
While news may be more sensational and less substantive than in the past, campaign advertising has become more substantive in content and has grown tremendously in reach, frequency, and sophistication.
Indeed, this study argues that
…the public's steady level of information and increased focus on policy in presidential politics reflects the high level of policy content in paid ads, which have compensated for the shift of news coverage toward candidate character, scandal, and the horserace.[i]
The Argument Against Paid Political Advertising
The argument against paid political advertising is an equality argument: all parties or candidates should have equal or fair access to direct broadcasting regardless of the state of their campaign finance. Countries that favour an equal direct access system almost always have a prohibition on paid advertising. But so do many, such as the United Kingdom, which operate "equity" systems.
Some argue that paid advertising in fact increases the "dumbing down" of political debate. It is clear that paid commercials are generally much shorter in length than free direct access slots and generally tend to sell a candidate or party (or denigrate the opponent) rather than develop an argument. The difference in length is striking: the average length of paid advertising slots in Finland is 10-25 seconds and in the United States 30-60 seconds. In France, the United Kingdom, and Denmark the length of free slots ranges from five to 10 minutes.
In addition, paid political advertising “can even lead to a political dependence on campaign fundraising, undermining the integrity of the democratic system.” In other words, leaders skew their decisions and direct their statements toward those likely to generate donations, instead of acting in the best interests of their constituents.[ii]
What is striking, however, is the number of countries that have a mixture of paid and unpaid direct access broadcasting. Usually, the approach will be to allocate parties a basic share of free direct access time, which can then be topped up with paid advertising if the party chooses to do so and can afford it.
[i] Martin Gilens, Lynn Vavreck and Martin Cohen, “The Mass Media and the Public’s Assessments of Presidential Candidates (1952 – 2000)”, Journal of Politics 69, no. 4 (2007):1160,
http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Mass%20Media%20and%20Public%20Perceptions/Gilens%20et%20al%202007
[ii] Michael Karanicolas Regulation of paid advertising: A survey, (Centre for Law and Democracy, March 2012), http://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Elections-and-Broadcasting-Final.pdf
The common characteristic of systems in which there is paid political advertising is that advertising is unlimited - parties and candidates can buy as much as they can afford - whereas free direct access broadcasts are limited to a pre-determined share.
But this is not always the case, and a number of countries that operate a mix of paid advertising and free direct access limit the share of the former in proportion to the latter. Canada has a system in which a ceiling is set on the amount of advertising time that each party can purchase, on a basis that is closely akin to systems elsewhere for allocating free direct access time.
It is, in fact, relatively unusual to find a system that is characterized solely by paid political advertising with no free direct access. For many years Finland was an almost solitary example in Europe, with most other examples to be found in the Americas.
Venezuela, for example, allows no political advertising on the two government broadcasting channels, but unlimited advertising on private commercial channels. Political parties generally appear to be prepared to pay the same rates as other advertisers. There is a state subsidy for spending on advertising. The electoral law authorizes the Supreme Electoral Council to contribute to parties' advertising campaigns. The way this has generally worked is that after the election the Supreme Electoral Council gives grants to parties that obtained at least 10 per cent of votes cast in congressional elections.
An extraordinary characteristic of the Venezuelan system is that the incumbent administration is also allowed to buy advertising. The administration's commercials are not allowed by law to promote the ruling party - but the government's and the ruling party's commercials can be broadcast one after the other creating a strong argument in favour of the incumbent. In 1978, the government spent almost as much on television advertising as the two main political parties. Venezuela has an extremely high level of spending on political advertising - according to some estimates the highest per capita rate in the world.[i]
The United States is the best-known example internationally of a system of paid political advertising. But contrary to first impressions, the US system is far from unregulated. Legislation limiting campaign donations has a particular impact on television advertising, which is by far the largest item in the campaign budget.
But that is not by any means the full extent of regulation. The Federal Communication Act of 1934 as amended requires broadcasters to offer to sell equal time to all candidates for federal office. This must be available at the lowest rate charged to non-political advertisers. Equal opportunity means that stations that sell time to one candidate must give the opportunity to others.[ii] These are important principles, which ensure that political advertising does not entirely become the preserve of those with the biggest campaign war chests. They have been emulated in political advertising regulations worldwide:
[i] Howard R. Penniman and Austin Ranney, "The Regulation of Televised Political Advertising in Six Selected Democracies", (Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, n.d.)
[ii] Robert M. Entman, "The Media and U.S. Elections: Public Policy and Journalistic Practice", in Media and Elections: a Handbook, eds. Yasha Lange and Andrew Palmer,(Dusseldorf: European Institute for the Media, 1995)
An indirect form of regulating paid political advertising in many countries is a limit on campaign spending. Such limits apply widely, and, since television advertising will usually be the largest item in the campaign budget, it is here that the greatest impact will be felt. In Canada, for example, spending limits mean that parties can never use up their allotted share of advertising time. Sometimes these limits are made explicit by law. In the 1994 South African election, for example, it was stated that all political advertising was subject to any legal limitations on campaign spending.
Venezuela, estimated to have the highest per capita spending on political advertising in the world, not surprisingly has no limit on spending. The United States, generally regarded as the home of political advertising, has a fairly complex system to regulate campaign financing, especially in presidential elections. The 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act (amended in 1974 and 1976) established equal federal financing of presidential elections and federal subsidy of primaries. It also set ceilings on what candidates could spend on TV advertising, although these were removed when the law was amended. In an important 1976 case - Buckley v Valeo - the Supreme Court upheld the principle of public financing but struck down limits on spending by "political action committees" (PACs) if these were independent from the presidential campaigns themselves. The court also decided that there would be no limit on spending by individuals.[i]
The effect of this is to create routes whereby presidential campaigners can bypass the limitations, and PACs are increasingly used as a workaround to ceilings on spending. Donors can give money to parties or political action committees rather than to the candidates themselves. It also means that a wealthy individual, such as the independent Ross Perot in 1992, can stand without any spending cap at all.
All political advertisements in the United States must carry a disclaimer indicating who paid for them.[ii]
Japan is another country that makes the distinction between parties and candidates in its control of campaign spending. Candidates themselves are not permitted to buy broadcasting time. Parties, on the other hand, can buy advertising time, provided that their advertisements call for support for the party, not for specific candidates.
Controls on campaign finance can be used as a means of giving opportunities to poorer parties in an environment of paid advertising. In Mongolia's first parliamentary elections in 1990, for example, each party was allocated the same amount of free and paid time. But the government subsidized the paid time of the smaller parties.
It is sometimes proposed that this "topping up" option be used to equalize campaign spending - as a way of enforcing spending limits but not in a heavy-handed manner. The idea would be that spending limits are set. If one party exceeds them, then the others would receive a top-up out of public funds.
[i] Howard R. Penniman and Austin Ranney, "The Regulation of Televised Political Advertising in Six Selected Democracies", (Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, n.d.)
[ii] Robert M. Entman, "The Media and U.S. Elections: Public Policy and Journalistic Practice", in Media and Elections: a Handbook, eds. Yasha Lange and Andrew Palmer (Dusseldorf: European Institute for the Media, 1995)
Besides political parties and candidates, there are other stakeholders who regularly – and increasingly – become involved in election campaigning. These are lobby or interest groups known as third parties, and they are important and legitimate elements of the democratic process, as they represent values or concerns held by segments of the public.
Many democracies have found it difficult to create enforceable rules around third party campaigning however. This is especially the case where lobby and interest groups straddle the line between party support and non-partisan lobbying. For example, a survey conducted by the Centre for Law and Democracy found that:
[In America], advertising by third parties…is almost entirely unregulated. The result of this approach in the United States has been a political atmosphere that is significantly influenced by money and where third party organisations – immune not only from spending limits but also, due to their arm’s‐ length relationship with candidates, from the basic tenets of democratic civility – play an increasingly prominent and ugly role in the discourse.
The depths to which these third party organisations can stoop was vividly illustrated by the attacks on 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry by “Swift Boat Vets for Truth”, a political action group. The group subjected Kerry, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, to a bevy of groundless allegations including having lied about his military service and about the engagements for which he was awarded medals. Kerry’s war record had been seen as one of his political strengths, which was problematic for his opponent, President George W. Bush, who had himself avoided military service. Had Bush attempted to attack Kerry’s service directly, he would have been criticised for practising dirty politics and for hypocrisy, given his own history. But since the attacks came from an arm’s length third party, the Bush campaign was able to deny responsibility, and to condemn the attack ads as “deplorable” even while they continued to air. Thus, third party advertising allows for a dirtier brand of politics, enabling candidates to wash their hands of particularly ugly attacks by claiming that they are the work of outside operatives over whom the candidates have no direct control.
Although the United States is the most prominent example of a country with a loose regulatory regime, especially as applied to third party advertising, there are other nations that take a similar approach, including Venezuela, where paid advertising has had a similarly problematic effect. In Latvia, where election advertising laws also do not apply to third parties, there was criticism of the role that third party advertisers played in the 2006 election campaign.[i]
Countries with tighter regulatory regimes for campaign spending also tend to extend campaign rules to third party messages “with a partisan political character,” to prevent domination of media outlets by these partisan organisations. Countries including the United Kingdom and Canada apply such rules. Meanwhile, countries such as France, Ireland and Belgian which ban paid political advertising on radio and television, but provide free direct access to political parties and candidates, thereby bar partisan third parties altogether from buying broadcast time.[ii]
[i] Michael Karanicolas, Regulation of paid advertising: A survey, (Centre for Law and Democracy March 2012), http://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Elections-and-Broadcasting-Final.pdf
[ii] Ibid.
It is important to note that provisions laid down in law are often breached, contradicted or ignored in practice - in all sectors. Governments sometimes do not create necessary implementing regulations to bring a law into effect. In other instances they might pass contradictory laws or regulations, or they might interpret legislation in ways in which it was not initially intended, or in ways run which counter to freedom of expression principles. In yet other cases, legislation might be in place but is simply ignored altogether.
Thus many countries have constitutions with strong guarantees of freedom of expression but weak implementation of those guarantees. For example constitution of the Ukraine enshrines freedom of expression, however the government has at times practiced extensive censorship and intimidation of the press, for example what freedom of speech organisations called in 2012 the harassment of the country’s only independent television channel, TVi.[i] In Thailand, the constitution provides for freedom of expression but also allows for wide-ranging curbs on that freedom when acting to preserve national security, maintain public order, preserve the rights of others, protect public morals, and prevent insults to Buddhism. In addition, a controversial and frequently used lese-majeste law makes it a crime punishable by 15 years jail for criticizing, insulting, or threatening a member of the royal family.[ii] Defamation is a criminal offense; despite the fact that there is a growing international consensus that criminalization of defamation is a rights violation.[iii]
Legal consistency is also an issue. In Lebanon in 2010, one journalist noted that
[…]regulatory frameworks [were], in the words of Minister of Information Tariq Mitri…“scattered and inconsistent,” “contradictory,” and “old and outdated.” Indeed, laws governing media in Lebanon can be found in the penal code, the Elections Law, the Law of Publications, the Military Justice Code, and the Audio-Visual Media Law, creating a logistical nightmare of overlapping jurisdictions.[iv]
Conversely, there are also instances of official legislation that contravene freedom of expression rights but are not upheld in practice. For example, Norway, which in 2012 ranked 2nd in the world in terms of press freedom,[v] still has a law against blasphemy - an out-dated restriction on freedom of expression. However there have been no cases of legal action pertaining to this law since 1933.[i] “Ukraine: The authorities should stop harassing independent television channel TVi,” (statement) Freedom House webpage, undated, accessed August 24, 2012, http://www.freedomhouse.org/article/ukraine-authorities-should-stop-harassing-independent-television-channel-tvi,
[ii]“Country Reports for Human Rights Practices, Thailand 2011”, Department of State (USA) webpage, accessed August 24, 2012, http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/humanrightsreport/index.htm?dlid=186310#wrapper,
[iii] “Libel law violates freedom of expression – UN rights panel”, The Manila Times, January 30, 2012, http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/news/top-stories/16100-libel-law-violates-freedom-of-expression--un-rights-panel,
and
“Critics Are Not Criminals Campaign Against the Criminalization of Speech”, Committee to Protect Journalists webpage, accessed August 24, 2012, http://cpj.org/campaigns/defamation/cat.php
[iv] Marwan M. Kraidy “Media Reform in Lebanon: New Media, New Politics?” Sada blog, January 26, 2011 http://www.carnegieendowment.org/2011/01/26/media-reform-in-lebanon-new-media-new-politics/6bhn
[v] “Press Freedom Index 2011-2012” Reporters without Borders webpage, accessed August 28, 2012, http://en.rsf.org/spip.php?page=classement&id_rubrique=1043
Open and consistent communication with media, voters and the general public facilitates an improved public image for the EMB. A positive image has obvious advantages in all aspects of EMB work. However, in a democratic election, the EMB is also obligated to communicate, for the following reasons:
One of the primary ways this information is provided to wider audiences is through direct interaction between EMBs and media who are covering the election. Media provide a vital conduit for information to the public while simultaneously acting as watchdogs of the process. It is often the latter that leads to an environment of distrust -and sometimes, outright hostility- between EMB officials and members of the media. Indeed, mistrust is often the single greatest obstacle to effective collaboration between electoral managers and the media.
A lack of constructive communication between an EMB and the media is a serious problem, making the policy and regulatory role of the EMB much more difficult to achieve. It will also create obstacles to accurate media reporting of the electoral process. Yet, far more serious than a breakdown of communication between an EMB and the media is the impact that this can have on the EMB’s overall capacity to communicate with the electorate. Media relations, important as they are, only form part of a larger media strategy. This overall strategy includes civic education, voter information, voter education, among other aspects. An EMB’s media work will be more effective if it is clearly placed within a well-considered approach to media relations.
Before proceeding, it is important that the reader has a clear understanding of the differences and overlaps of four main areas of EMB communications: voter information, voter education, civic education, and media relations. These definitions are taken from the topic area: Voter Education that can also be found in the Encyclopaedia. Please refer to this topic area for more detailed information on these EMB activities.
Voter Information refers to basic information enabling qualified citizens to vote, including the date, time, and place of voting; the type of election; identification necessary to establish eligibility; registration requirements; and mechanisms for voting. These constitute basic facts about the election and do not require the explanation of concepts. Messages will be developed for each new election. These activities can usually be implemented quickly (although sufficient planning is still required). Election authorities are typically required to provide this type of information, although contestants in the election and civil society organizations will also do so.
Voter Education typically addresses voters' motivation and preparedness to participate fully in elections. It pertains to relatively more complex types of information about voting and the electoral process and is concerned with concepts such as the link between basic human rights and voting rights; the role, responsibilities and rights of voters; the relationship between elections and democracy and the conditions necessary for democratic elections; secrecy of the ballot; why each vote is important and its impact on public accountability; and how votes translate into seats. Such concepts involve explanation, not just a statement of facts. Voter education requires more lead time for implementation than voter information and, ideally, should be undertaken on an on-going basis. Election authorities and civil society organizations most often provide this type of information.
In societies where there have been major changes to electoral systems, processes, and procedures, and in the case of the newly enfranchised and first time voters, both voter information and voter education programmes will need to thoroughly address both facts and concepts.
Civic Education deals with broader concepts underpinning a democratic society such as the respective roles and responsibilities of citizens, government, political and special interests, the mass media, and the business and non-profit sectors, as well as the significance of periodic and competitive elections. It emphasizes not only citizen awareness but citizen participation in all aspects of democratic society. Civic education is a continual process, not tied to the electoral cycle. Voter information and voter education, however, may be part of larger civic education endeavours. Civic education may be carried out through the school and university system, through civil society organizations, and perhaps by some state agencies, although not necessarily the election authority.
Media Relations involves a process of communication with media outlets and journalists who in turn create media coverage of electoral affairs as part of their normal work of producing news and current affairs. The Media Relations Department (also called a press office) is the first stop for media who have questions, concerns, and complaints; and the department that writes press releases, organizes press conferences, and provides media interviews. Unlike for voter information, voter education, and civic education, the EMB Media Relations Department does not have direct control over what is broadcast by the media; instead they act only to guide it by providing accurate, comprehensive and timely information. However, all of these areas of communication overlap in that they are attempts to provide the electorate the information they need in order to vote in an informed manner. Messages between each of these activities should be coordinated and compatible. Media relations are often termed public relations. There are notable differences between the two terms. Media relations deals specifically with the media, while public relations (or sometimes called public affairs) is responsible to a larger audience, including regular citizens who might require information from the EMB. For the purposes of this topic area, the discussion involves media relations specifically. However, it is also recognized that overlap will occur and that some EMBs will merge the two tasks into one department.
The overlap is even greater in the age of convergence of information and communication technologies. For example, the EMB team that manages its website may well be responsible for posting press releases and news stories written by the EMB, election results which are accessible by the media as well as the broader public, at the same time as hosting online voter registration services and brochures that explain the electoral system. In other words there is a certain degree of convergence between the media (website), the content (voter information and education, media relations), and the users (both media and the general public) in this example.
Despite this convergence, media are a distinct and crucial stakeholder and target audience, and their needs are often different from those of the public at large. In addition, media plays many roles. They are not just a mouthpiece for EMB education campaigns, but also a crucial and (usually) independent observer of the electoral process.
EMBs work in a constant cycle. Once a country has gone through its initial, transitional democratic election, it will be bound into an endless process of election organization: legislative (two houses perhaps), presidential, regional, local – even, in the case of Europe, international. There may be plebiscites or referenda. There may be votes on particular proposed laws. Democracy, in its nuts and bolts, is hard work. And the work does not stop. Communication with the media is crucial to this cyclical process, and while continual, each of the steps of the process requires careful planning.
Media relations planning benefits greatly from a pro-active and well-thought-through approach, rather than simply relying on well-tested techniques – press releases, news conferences, etc. Successful media relations strategies tend to start with overall objectives, messages and a clear understanding of the audience layout.
There are, of course, different approaches to media relations planning and implementation. Effective approaches are likely to have the following steps in common (in more or less this order):
Most of these steps go hand in hand with what other communication-related bodies in the EMB will also be required to do. For example, voter information, voter education and civic education all require solid understanding of the layout of audiences and the profiles of media that reach them. Furthermore, messages should be developed that can effectively impact these audiences. This further underscores the point that the Media Relations Department or office should make a concerted effort to be in close communication and collaboration with each of these other EMB activities.
Each of these steps is explored in the following pages.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Included in the establishment of an EMB overall, is the creation of a specific department that can focus entirely on relations with media. A Media Relations Department (sometimes called a press office) will be the focal point for media outlets to receive timely and on-going information on election management progress. In some cases this department is incorporated into a larger public relations (or public affairs) department that deals with both the media and the general public. For the purposes of clarity and consistency with the larger topic area “Media and Elections” this discussion only explores media-specific relations. As discussed previously, a Media Relations Department is distinct from voter information, voter education, and civic education department(s), yet many of the activities of each benefit from collaboration or consistent communication between them.
The physical structure of a Media Relations Department is determined by the size of the task as well as the resources that are available to the EMB. A department may or may not include a media or press centre (see section Media Centre below for more information), where media can gather for events such as press conferences or briefings. This addition is dependent on funding, available space and security considerations, but often provides a valuable resource to the Media Relations Department, limiting event preparation time, ensuring consistency (for media as well as department staff), and equipment reliability.
In some cases, there will be a central department headquarters with satellite field offices where most of the media relations staff will be located. In this case, a small headquarters will suffice. In other instances however, most of the media activity will take place in a central location and therefore the office facilities will need to adequately allow for many more staff.
Needless to say, efficient Media Relations Departments (including any satellite offices) are equipped with key fittings including reliable and fast speed internet hook up, computers, fax machines, copiers, scanners, landlines and cell phones and so forth.
Perhaps even more important than physical fixtures however, is staffing. Usually there will be at least one spokesperson who will be the main communicator with media for any “on record” exchanges. These are discussions between the media and the individual that the media are free to quote from or broadcast as is. This person will also provide responses to media requests for statements or comment on issues. Often the spokesperson is an elections commissioner, reflecting the importance and seniority of this position. The spokesperson will be the “face” of the EMB, it is therefore vital that this person be neutral, skilled in diplomacy and able to respond succinctly and clearly to (sometimes sensitive) questions from the media. The perils of an EMB spokesperson who acts in a partisan manner was highlighted in the presidential elections in Timor Leste in 2007, when the EMB spokesperson, also an Elections Commissioner, spoke out in favour of one candidate and criticized another, which reportedly damaged the reputation of the EMB. [i]
In addition to a spokesperson(s), the number of department staff will depend on the amount of work that is to be done. There will need to be enough staff present to adequately cope with any surge in media requests, particularly around sensitive phases of the election such as voting day itself, the counting period, and the announcement of results. There are also often staff members dedicated to research who can provide regular briefings to the larger department staff on news items of the day or the week. There might also be experienced message and news item developers, who write can in newsworthy and succinct styles. Staff members with journalism, public relations, or related backgrounds offer valuable expertise to the task of writing press releases, talking points, media networking, and so forth.
[i] “Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, Final Report: Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, April, May & June 2007”, (EU Election Observation Mission report, 2007),17 http://www.eeas.europa.eu/eueom/pdf/missions/final_report-timorleste-2007_en.pdf
Different EMB Media Relations Departments will have different mandates, depending on the scope of responsibilities. In some cases, a Media Relations Department might be responsible for media monitoring, for example ensuring campaign broadcasts regulations are adhered to. More information on media monitoring and the various bodies who implement it can be found in the chapter Media Monitoring.
A Media Relations Department is also likely to be responsible for accrediting media, enabling them to be present at electoral events such as voting centres and count or results centres. Furthermore, the department may be tasked with drawing up regulations, including the accreditation process as well as internal procedures such as determining who (within the EMB) can speak to the media and when, how field staff and/or other staff are to respond to approaches by media, a code of conduct for department staff, and so forth. They may even have a regulatory role, tasked with creating and enforcing a Code of Conduct for elections reporting, sometimes in collaboration with media organisations.
There are the above considerations, as well as many more, that EMB media relations staff will want to explore while creating an overall mandate and regulatory framework to work within. It is advantageous to determine this mandate, and regulatory framework, well in advance of any major electoral events.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++A media strategy is a roadmap for EMB media relations; it is a result of a variety of crucial considerations, namely:
1. EMB strengths and weaknesses;
2. Consultation with a range of stakeholders;
3. Charting the electoral cycle / phases;
4. Audience analysis;
5. Media mapping;
6. Tools and techniques; and
7. Message development.
Essentially, the strategy is one overall plan of action that specifies the “when, how and to whom” of engagement with the media. Each of these components is critical to ensuring an effective strategy, and should be completed prior to finalising the strategy. As such, they are explored in greater detail in subsequent pages.
A strategy need not be overly restrictive in is content. In other words, it is not necessary to detail everything such as how many news releases the EMB is going to issue, or who is going to speak at press conferences. These are questions that can be resolved as the strategy moves forward in implementation. Furthermore the media relations department should hold regular internal gatherings as well as occasion gatherings with other EMB departments, to ensure that the strategy continues to be relevant and practical to election operations and decisions, and that the strategy is mutually understood by the EMB at large.
In summary, an EMB developing a media strategy may consider the following questions:
An effective media strategy is based on a realistic assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the EMB. These strengths and weaknesses will obviously include the attributes and resources of the EMB itself such as its level of funding or access to trained and experienced staff.
Just as important, however, is an evaluation of how the EMB is perceived by the world outside; and how the EMB perceives other stakeholders. Does the EMB have a high profile? Is it trusted by the public? By the media? Is it perceived as professional and competent? Is it seen as being independent of the government of the day? Conversely, what is the perception inside the EMB about the media? What are current relationships like? How is the general public perceived and understood by the EMB? These are all important questions that should be answered honestly. If there are negative perceptions of the EMB these need to be addressed. If the EMB perceives the media as an adversary to be avoided at all cost, or the public as ignorant or hostile, these attitudes also need to be addressed. Any media relations plan will need to include strategies for dispelling mutual misinformation, misunderstanding and mistrust.
One common tool for evaluating strengths and weaknesses is to chart them out using SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for:
Media strategy planning works much more effectively if media and other relevant stakeholders are involved. Consultation with media may happen naturally through the course of a Media Relations Department’s normal activities (such as at press conferences or through one-on-one meetings), but there are other, perhaps less obvious, stakeholders who should also be considered as valuable contributors:
The EMB media relations process would benefit from a consultation process that takes place prior to the establishment of a media strategy. However, to be most effective, the EMB may want to consider continuing these consultations through the entire process of the electoral cycle.
There are a number of reasons why consultations (both pre-operations and during-operations) can be beneficial:
Consultations offer a chance for the EMB to sit down with media and stakeholders to develop media related regulations and codes of conduct. These legal frameworks will work best when all those affected, particularly in this instance the media and political parties, are involved in the planning process.
It is important for both the media and EMB to understand each other’s differing priorities and deadlines.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of dedicated time to establishing open and genuine relationships between the EMB and media (and stakeholders) prior to operations. Consultations can help overcome mistrust and establish these relationships, which in turn can be crucial for troubleshooting problems and can paving the way for smooth relationships when press coverage of elections heat up, and the electoral calendar gets busy.
This is a good opportunity to get to know who you are dealing with, the media organizations who show intent to be involved in election coverage, the personalities and relationships between media organizations.
The media can offer the EMB insightful advice on which techniques work best in which circumstances, and for which media organizations. This includes language use, audience profiles, as well as formats (for example press conferences versus pre-recorded messages, and so forth).
A consultation will provide the EMB a general picture of the degree to which media and stakeholders are “election literate” (understand the processes and rules). This can influence the EMB’s plan for election reporting training or similar.
Consultations will provide participants with an understanding of ‘who is doing what’, such as election reporting training, investigative journalism training, special media programming, and so forth.
This is a good opportunity to establish a media monitoring plan as well as to discuss candidate/party access to media, if this is something that is within the mandate of the Media Relations Department.
The number and frequency of consultations is determined by the circumstances at hand. Perhaps the situation is conducive to implementation of a series of all-inclusive consultations, or maybe it is more manageable and appropriate to divide the stakeholders and media into categories, and hold gatherings separately. Similarly, perhaps the series of consultation should be pre-scheduled throughout the electoral process (such as monthly), or maybe it is better to hold them in an ad-hoc manner as issues arise. Certainly a pre-scheduled series would ensure greater participation however, as stakeholders and media are better equipped to plan ahead. Here are two examples of how stakeholder consultations might work in practice. The first demonstrates the benefits of EMB involvement, which the second illustrates the pitfalls of EMB absence from the coordination and consultation process.
As an example consultation process, before the Tanzanian parliamentary elections of 2000, the Media Council[i] convened a meeting of media, journalists, non-governmental groups concerned with media freedom and the National Electoral Commission. This gathering drew up a Code of Conduct for media coverage of the elections. The Media Council and other NGOs then organized a media monitoring project that was aimed at determining how far the media complied with the Code of Conduct. It reported regularly throughout the campaign, before issuing a final report after the elections.
The final report was only released after a further consultation, involving all the same stakeholders, along with political parties and candidates. The monitoring findings were thoroughly debated and the Code of Conduct evaluated, with lessons drawn for future elections.[ii]
[i] According to its website, the Media Council of Tanzania “is an independent, voluntary non-statutory body with the objective of assisting and maintaining freedom of the media in the United Republic of Tanzania.” (see: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Media_Council_of_Tanzania)
[ii] Media Council of Tanzania webpage, accessed August 29, 2012, http://www.mct.or.tz
This period, not surprisingly, is a thoroughly preparatory one. Unfortunately this is usually the phase that is most neglected, despite the number of “lessons learned” from elections that emphasize its importance. One of the common reasons it is neglected is a lack of funding, or resources in general, particularly in countries in transition to democracy that are approaching their first or second elections. Unless well-established, an EMB is likely to be busy focusing on securing funding, hiring staff, fixing facilities, and so forth during these crucial weeks or months. Yet, by overlooking the preparatory stage and delving straight into an electoral cycle, the Media Relations Department risks being continuously one step behind the game and scrambling to make up for the lack of a clear and targeted plan.
This is the time to conduct audience analysis, media mapping, message testing, and finally to devise a comprehensive strategy. In addition, this period is the time for the EMB to be consulting, communicating and educating both media and stakeholders about their rights and responsibilities during the elections, the relevant laws and regulations, complaints mechanisms, and so on. The EMB may be involved in media briefings and trainings on these issues, organised by themselves or others.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++For the implementation of a single election, there are a number of processes or phases that are involved. In some cases more than one kind of election is held at the same time, creating an even further complicated set of phases. If the EMB Media Relations Department has a clear understanding of what these phases are and what each entails, specifically with regard to engagement with media, they will be better able to fashion messages accordingly. These phases will be different for different countries and different kinds of elections, however the following are fundamental to all democratic elections:
Much of the preparation for media relations during these phases can be done in advance. Even when the exact content of media materials cannot be predicted, the schedule of communications can be included in a comprehensive plan that can be developed at a very early stage in the election process. This plan will be the EMB media strategy and was discussed in the section Developing A Media Relations Strategy. Having an overall plan for the phases will allow the whole process to run more smoothly by, for example, establishing exactly the moments when a press release needs to be distributed or a media briefing held.
The following is an in-depth look at of each of the phases.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++The notion of "pre-campaign" of course presupposes that there is a specified campaign period. Some countries, such as the United States, effectively impose no limits on the time of campaigning. Of course, in many systems, there may be little gap between different sets of elections: presidential, legislative, local, or provincial - even, in the case of the European Union, supranational.
But under any electoral system, there are issues that relate to elections and the media that occur, essentially, in the months leading up to elections. These are primarily:
There might also be other pre-campaign tasks such as boundary delimitation, establishing electoral legal frameworks, population censuses, and so forth. The EMB will need to communicate to the public, through the media, on all these issues.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++This period is guaranteed to be an intense one, involving preparation for voting itself, along with a variety of campaign issues. If the EMB has regulatory responsibilities in relation to the media, these will also come to the fore during this phase.
For the media themselves, the start of the campaign period is when election coverage really takes off. A pre-organized EMB Media Relations Department will be better equipped to cope with the sudden media interest, than one that still has loose ends. Similarly, if an EMB is responsible for monitoring the media, it is recommended that all legal frameworks and an effective monitoring system are established well before the campaign period begins By this stage the fundamental regulatory questions will already have been answered, with the media and contestants clearly understanding their roles and responsibilities:
At this point the process of accreditation of journalists, if there is one, is also started.
A Media Relations Department will also be involved in numerous other communication activities. They will be holding press conferences, releasing press releases and statements, holding media tours and so forth, in order to provide media with accurate and comprehensive information about the operations and decisions of the EMB, as well as progress of the election in general. Spokespersons and media relations staff members will be fielding questions on a wide variety of topics such as:
Commonly, an EMB will hold several press conferences on Voting Day, at the opening of polling, the close of polling, and at other times depending on the need. There may, for example, be incidents that need to be responded to publicly, such as violence at polling booths, logistical problems such as flooding, integrity issues such as accusations of fraud. To maintain its reputation, and to prevent escalation of problems, it is important that an EMB responds to these issues as quickly as possible to reassure the public about measures being taken. It might also be issuing statements from EMB officials aimed at encouraging people to vote, and confidence in the process. A Media Relations Department might post regular updates on the EMB website to give up-to-the-minute information on the progress of the polls. A Media Centre at an EMB might be hosting elections reporters as a hub for reporting on Voting Day.
Media Relations staff might also be actively engaged in ensuring that the media clearly understand their rights of access to the voting process and are complying with these guidelines. They will do this through consistent communication with voting centres around the country, as well as with media. They might also have as many staff as possible, rotating through voting centres. This serves a dual purpose: to monitor whether media are respecting regulations, as well as to provide media an opportunity for interviews with an EMB staff member if EMB regulations do not allow voting staff to talk to media.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++The transparency of the count, and the public announcement of results are some of the most important tasks of an EMB. The election result is the news the whole country – and sometimes the world – has been waiting for, and is sometimes marked by clamouring and conflicting news coverage.
Depending on the circumstances and specific procedures of an election, the count period might be a matter of hours to a matter of days, or even weeks. The length of this period greatly affects the nature and size of a Media Relations Department’s task.
In cases where the count is only a matter of hours, or at the most a day, an EMB Media Relations Department is likely to release continual updates on the count’s progress until finally announcing the final and official results. During this time, media will usually be present at counting centres, results centres, or both. Depending on the regulations on media reporting during the count, there might be a media coverage silence or it may be buzzing with activity such as speculated results, opinion polls, results from exit polls and so forth. For more information on reporting of exit polls and opinion polls please refer to Reporting on Opinion Polls.
On the other hand, the counting period might take a number of days or even weeks before official results can be announced. In other cases, preliminary results might be announced, after which there is a period for an election complaints process to conclude before official results are announced. This process can take months such as during the Afghan presidential, parliamentary and provincial council elections in 2009 and 2010. The role of EMB media relations during drawn out count periods is likely to be more challenging than during short counts. This is because of the sensitivities and suspicions that tend to be born out of protracted processes. This is one particular time when it is advantageous for EMB media relations staff to remain alert to media trends, and fully informed of all count operations. This will also be a period of time when transparency is absolutely critical to the legitimacy of the election.
There is much that can be done on the part of an EMB to promote accurate and professional results reporting. What is particularly important when results emerge gradually is that all results are reported promptly and accurately. This facilitates public scrutiny of the counting process and lessens the possibility of manipulation of the count.
Chain of command is also paramount when results are reported. All EMB staff and commissioners need to know who is in charge of announcing results, when and where they will be announced. In Papua New Guinea in 2012, accusations were made that Voting Centre staff were asking for bribes from journalists to provide information on election results.[i] These practices must be avoided and sanctioned by an EMB.
The provision of a Media Centre will enormously facilitate media access to results, especially if the counting process is centralized. The facilities and procedures in decentralized count centres will also greatly determine the degree to which media are able to report accurate figures.
There may be simultaneous results-generating activities that the media will be engaged in. These include exit polls, unofficial quick counts and opinion polls. It is important that an EMB Media Relations Department is aware of what these are, which ones are going on, and how they may impact the overall public debate.
All in all, the count period is an extremely busy one; an EMB Media Relations Department is likely to have “all hands on deck” with staff members working around the clock to ensure media are provided accurate and timely information.[i] “Interference in Media Reporting of Elections in PNG,” International Federation of Journalists Asia Pacific, July 16,2012, http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/media-interference-in-electoral-reporting-in-png
The post-election period is a time for evaluation, capacity-building, planning and consultation for an EMB Media Relations Department. In addition, the post-election period may throw up a number of issues where an EMB is required to communicate with the public. This may be the case, for example, if there are disputes over the probity of the election process or challenges to the official results. But in some instances, as discussed above, merely communicating the results may be a long drawn-out process, resembling more of a post-election than current- election environment.
While any formal regulation of the media on elections-related matters usually ends with the announcement of the result, involvement with media continues. As it happens, a Media Relations Department might stay busy much longer than other EMB departments (such as logistical departments), and will likely remain engaged with media until any lingering disputes or results are concluded.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Defining the audience is an essential step in developing a media strategy. This step lays down much-needed groundwork for the entire media strategy. An EMB must know whom they want to target in order to be effective in their outreach. This might seem too obvious to need doing: the audience is the electorate, of course. However, there are three reasons in particular why defining the audience is indispensable:
In general terms, then, defining the audience is not difficult. An EMB will wish to communicate information to the entire electorate at different points during the electoral process. The messages will vary, as will the means of communicating these, but this something to consider later in the planning cycle. However, it is useful to have a clear understanding of primary and secondary audiences as well as the sub-categories within each. The primary audiences are voters, while the secondary audiences are those who will relay messaging to voters. Sub-categories are defined by the fact that they either require different messages or can only be reached by different media than the main electoral audience as a whole.
Examples of important primary audience sub-categories:
In each of these examples it is clear that there is likely to be a distinct message, as well as a different medium to be used. Hence, for example, voters overseas will need information about casting a postal or proxy ballot. They may not be able to be reached through the national media of their home country, so other channels of communication will need to be found. First-time voters may require detailed information about registering to vote, as well as the mechanics of voting. They are likely to be reached more effectively through those media targeted at young people. And so on.
Examples of secondary audience sub-categories include:
Each of these groups is classified as secondary, not because they are of lesser importance, but because they are a means of getting the message across to the primary audience and because there are specific messages that an EMB may wish to communicate to them.
What is most important is that an EMB Media Relations Department is aware of profiles of the various audiences at hand, where they are, their individual needs or circumstances, and understands how this factors into the overall outreach programme. A clear understanding of this landscape will allow an EMB to craft effective and accurately targeted messages.
[i] “Audience Market Research in Solomon Islands: Qualitative and Quantitative Research Report,” (report for Solomon Islands Media Assistance Scheme, 2010),
http://www.dfat.gov.au/about-us/corporate/freedom-of-information/Documents/solmas-report.pdf
A resource of substantial benefit to any EMB media relations endeavour is a comprehensive and up-to-date “map” of the media layout in the country. Without a clear grasp of this layout, EMB outreach will be stunted at best.
Media mapping is not only a process of charting geographical locations of media outlets or even their coverage footprints (although these are critical elements of it); it is also an in-depth look at aspects such as:
All of this information will enable any EMB communications body, but specifically for the purposes of this discussion an EMB Media Relations Department, to make informed decisions on the nature and reach of outreach to media. It also provides the department valuable insight into how media ownership and trust might impact EMB messages. An EMB’s media strategy might change, for example, if it becomes clear that only opposition newspapers are attending EMB press conferences, or if only the government broadcaster, which is biased towards the ruling party, is accessible in rural areas.
Media mapping can be a time consuming activity and requires a fair degree of specialized skill and experience. For example, any credible gauge of media usage or trust would involve surveys and sample analysis. Mapping coverage requires special software and knowledge on how to use it. An EMB Media Relations Department may be in a position where they do not have the resources or necessary staff skills to conduct a complete a media mapping exercise on their own. It might also be the case that an EMB does not have the funds to outsource this activity to an external research organization. However, an EMB can often make use of what has come before, combining a collection of research results so as to get the most complete picture as possible.
In many countries, media audience data is now captured for a range of different purposes. Media development organisations, behaviour change communications projects, advertising agencies, opinion polling outfits, government information departments, media peak bodies, international and domestic civil society organisations and others carry out surveys which are quite often available online, or sometimes able to be purchased. Some organisations, such as The Asia Foundation in Afghanistan, carry out broader regular surveys that cover a range of issues, including media usage, from which this information can be extracted and analysed. If this type of data is currently not being collected, an EMB may want to consider encouraging a partner organization to collect it as part of their programming, as this information has multiple uses. EMBs can also carry out their own smaller research projects to get a sense of audience reach of different media, including the extent to which EMB material is reaching its intended public. Here is an example of a 2009 (released in 2010) media mapping exercise in Rwanda, conducted by Search for Common Ground and funded by the European Commission and USAID: www.sfcg.org/programmes/rwanda/pdf/Media_Mapping_Report.pdf
One of the key purposes of this media audience mapping is to understand audiences that may be falling through the gaps of an EMB’s current media work, which will often include women and minority groups, remote and rural areas. Innovative strategies will need to be used to address this, including considering technologies which the EMB may not have used before such as SMS (many rural poor now have mobile phones but not access to mass media), face-to-face processes, and other activities, some of which are explored in the Voter Information and Civic Education section of the Encyclopaedia.
One aspect of media mapping that an EMB Media Relations Department will almost certainly want to compile itself, is a media database. This will be the basis for contacting the media for press conferences, briefings, tours and for delivery of information such as press releases and statements. It is advised that an EMB Media Relations Department compile this database on their own rather than utilizing other list-serves or databases, as it is more than likely that only certain journalists will be tasked with election coverage. A Media Relations Department will want to directly contact relevant journalists in addition to sending information to outlets in general. While the department might initially use other lists in order to get started, best practices demonstrate that a targeted, organized, and easy to use database of elections-specific media will make media relations a less complicated or haphazard process.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++There is a diverse range of techniques and tools that EMBs can utilize to reach audiences through media and ensure that messages are on target, accurate, and effective. This portfolio includes media briefings, press conferences, press releases, briefing packs, websites, new media, press tours, and so forth. It is important to emphasize these points about developing and implementing such techniques:
Various techniques and tools available to EMBs will be examined on separate pages:
Preparing a package of basic information for the media can be an immense time saver, while simultaneously helping to ensure that media are informed and their reports are accurate. Journalists need to know a substantial amount of background information: the number of registered voters (per electoral district, if that applies), the names of the candidates, the offices being contested, the results last time, the number of broadcast slots and their timing, electoral legal framework, and so on. Journalists may need even more basic political, institutional, and demographic information. In addition, they will want to know what facilities and resources are at their disposal such as a Media Centre, regular briefings, press badges, and so on.
This is all valuable information to include in a briefing pack (sometimes called a briefing package). Most, if not all, of this information can be compiled in advance of the campaign and the election itself. Much of the material may double up with information that is made available to others, such as election observers.
Here is a typical checklist of material that might be included in a briefing pack:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
An effective EMB Media Relations Department is one that is proactive rather than reactive. This means that staff not only stay informed of events and trends, but also pre-equip themselves with messaging for outreach. Preparing audio, video, and print material in advance is one way of ensuring that an EMB gets its own message across in exactly the way that it chooses.
A voter/civic education department will be preparing an array of educational messages to be aired or distributed through slots on public broadcasters (sometimes as a license condition for private broadcasters, or through bought airtime/advertising slots). While a Media Relations Department need not duplicate these efforts, it may consider bolstering them by acting as a conduit for voter and civic education to reach a large array of media outlets. This effort would need to be in collaboration with any voter/civic education department.
However pre-recorded audio and video material as well as print hand-outs that are media relations specific is also a way for a Media Relations Department to ensure that media receives accurate messages promptly. This technique goes back to the need to be ahead of the game. For example, if a Media Relations Department has been informed that the EMB management body has decided not to open a polling location due to security concerns, the Media Relations Department might consider crafting a video clip, audio clip and press release that explains the reasoning behind the decision as well as any efforts to remedy or compensate for the decision. This is an example of being proactive, and may safeguard the media relations staff from being caught off-guard by media questions or unable to adequately explain the situation. It also signals to media and electorate that an EMB is taking extra care to be prompt with communication, and transparent.
The advantages of pre-preparing electoral material are the following:
A common way of distributing pre-recorded material is to put it on the EMB website along with a written statement. It can also be given out on CDs or in other recorded formats.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Press releases and statements[i] are an example of pre-prepared material, but warrant discussion of their own due to their specific nature and frequency of output.
Press releases/statements are essential tools of EMB media relations. These easy to use documents allow media to run accurate and timely news. Some media organizations will publish or broadcast a press release/statement in its entirety, or publish large sections of it intact. This is an advantage for the EMB as it guarantees that its message is transmitted as intended.
There is a subtle difference between a press release and a press statement, although organizations often use the two terms interchangeably. A press release is generally used for new information such as an announcement or update. Press releases are also useful for conveying information such as statistical data, lists of candidates, or lists of polling sites. A press statement is utilized for a reactionary statement. In other words, if an event has taken place and an EMB wants to make a public comment on it (such as support, or disproval), this would be done in the form of a statement.
Press releases/statements can be distributed by a variety of means: email, hand delivery, fax, post, or posting on the notice board of a Media Centre. They may often accompany press conferences as a way of ensuring that detailed information is recorded accurately. More information is provided in Press Conferences.
There is a delicate balance in how often to issue press releases and statements. The danger of too many, with little information of significance, is that the media will lose interest and neglect to see vital information when it does finally arrive. The danger of not enough is that the press officers will be left constantly responding to questions. The precise balance will be a matter for an EMB Media Relations Department. This is an important discussion area to bring up during consultations with the media, as they will be able to provide useful advice on the amounts of information an EMB is putting out. See section Consultations with Media and Relevant Stakeholders for more information.
Writing a Press Release/Statement
One reason why it is useful to have press officers with journalism experience and training is that authoring press releases, as well as a statement, requires an understanding of how audiences “tune into” and consume information. Journalists in most countries are trained to write stories in an "inverted pyramid" style, starting with a lead paragraph that conveys the essence and essential fact of the story, which is then developed in detail in subsequent paragraphs. Aside from making it clear to the reader from the outset what the story is about, this also allows an item to be cut from the bottom upwards, without losing its essence. These are the qualities of an effective press releases and statements as well.
Like a good news story, a press release or statement should be presented in plain language, not jargon. It should also be concise and to the point. The average journalist does not necessarily have an attention span any longer than the average newspaper reader, so it is not safe to assume that they will read the press release come what may.
Another significant reason for writing a press release/statement like a news story is to have a written record. There also is a hope that it will be used directly in a print article (online or on paper), or be read aloud on broadcast media. This is another reason to keep the release/statement short. In poorer countries, where editors often scramble to fill their news rolls each day, they may be grateful for a ready-made piece of well-written copy.
[i] There are many different terms: press release, press statement, media release, press announcement, news release, etc. Some practitioners use these interchangeably, while others separate the uses and meanings depending on length, content, goal and timing of the release. Here we describe two kinds – press release and press statement – commonly used by EMBs, acknowledging that many EMBs (and other organisations) use other terms and types.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++An EMB website provides an efficient one-stop location for media, electorate and greater public alike. An EMB website will have many different sections, one of which should be media relations (or public relations). This is a place to post press releases/statements, pre-recorded audio and video material, news articles of relevance (that are neutral or explain the work of an EMB), contact information, invitations to press conference and briefings, election footage and so forth. By maintaining a website, a Media Relations Department can create, in effect, a virtual briefing pack. Moreover, it is one that can be constantly updated by the addition of new material as it becomes available. It will also be possible to run a results service through the web site.
In addition, EMBs are increasingly taking advantage of other new media to communicate with the traditional media and the public. Many have active Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Some will respond to media inquiries and feedback by email, or even SMS. Some opt for announcing press conferences by SMS to their list of media contacts. As access by media and the public to new media grows, so will the need and potential for EMBs to utilise it for media relations.
Of course, levels of access to the Internet and other new media vary dramatically from location to location and this should be taken into account (See the section on New Media for information on Internet access around the world, and on EMBs’ utilisation of new media). It is important that any information distributed via a website is simultaneously distributed via other means, guaranteeing that outreach is nationwide and/or accommodates lack of Internet resources. Something a Media Relations Department might also want to consider is the provision of access to a public computer(s) at EMB field departments, and subsequently inform media in these areas that they can access EMB information freely at these locations.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++A press conference is a means of conveying more information than can be carried in a single press release. It is also a way providing a venue for all media to gather and ask news questions of an EMB during one occasion. As such, press conferences are also good opportunity to place senior officials in the election administration before the public (in the form of the media) to explain the electoral process.
Broadcasters like press conferences, of course, because a press release will only give them "white copy" - that is, a story with no picture or sound. At a press conference, broadcasters will be able to record and film. If a customized Media Centre is available, then this will make the practical requirements of broadcasters easer to meet. (Establishing a Media Centre is further explored below). Otherwise, the organizers of a press conference will have to prepare for the needs of television and film crews, radio journalists, and photographers.
A usual format for a press conference is for the spokesperson, a commissioner, or other representative of an EMB to make a statement, which is then open to questions from journalists. Someone other than the official making the statement should chair the press conference. It is useful to establish a clear timeframe for the conference (and to start promptly - journalists have deadlines). A chairperson should ensure that journalists from a variety of different media, with different political viewpoints, have a chance to ask questions. Sensitive and balanced chairing will create a trust between the media and the authority holding the press conference.
A Media Relations Department should ensure that any senior EMB official is adequately informed of media trends surrounding issues that both intended to be discussed at the press conference as well as those that are not. This is because journalists may bring up other issues, or maybe just questions that the official is not prepared for. A Media Relations Department may also want to provide talking points to officials who are speaking to help guide the discussion and provide a reference point for specific messages.
Speakers at press conferences should also be skilled in deflecting questions, declining questions, or changing the subject, if topics seem inappropriate or disruptive to the context of the press conference. This skill walks a very fine line; evasion of questions can also be counter productive, fuelling suspicion or accusations. Speakers should also constantly uphold the ethical code of members of an EMB, in terms of neutrality, transparency, and accessibility.
There should be plenty of supporting material provided at a press conference. This includes contact information for the EMB Media Relations Department, briefing packs, press releases and or statements (including older ones where relevant), and so forth.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++A media briefing is different than a press conference in that it usually just involved members of a Media Relations Department and members of the media. Media briefings are not normally meant for broadcasting. In other words, they are usually completely "off the record". “Off the record” is an understanding between media and sources that direct quotes, source names, or identifying information cannot be provided in any media coverage. Media briefing are less an opportunity for “news” and more an opportunity to ensure media understand a concept, a ruling, a decision, or a process. It is an informal setting for members of media and EMB staff to discuss confusing or complicated issues. With detailed briefings, as with other information for the media, invitations should be issued to all media, regardless of political persuasion or ownership.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Media tours provide an excellent opportunity for media to witness processes and facilities first hand. Tours are similar to press conferences only in that they involve an assembly of a larger group of media at once. However, media tours need not be open to all media at once, as this could become unmanageable or would disrupt on-going processes at the locations of the tours. Instead, a Media Relations Department may choose to implement a fixed number of spots that media need to sign up for in advance.
Media tours can be of any facility or process that allows media to get an inside view of processes. This is good for transparency and it provides participants video or audio footage for their own broadcasts. Examples of media tour locations and events include:
Media relations staff members need not prepare statements for these tours. Instead they will simply guide media participants through the sites, explaining the various steps to the processes as well as answering general questions.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A Media Centre is a media-friendly location for an EMB to conduct its engagement with media. This means that it has the necessary space, quiet or privacy, accessibility, and fittings for events such as press conferences, media briefings, individual interviews and so forth.
The practicability of having a Media Centre, and the facilities that are put into it, will depend entirely upon the resources available to the electoral authorities. There is no doubt that if the funding is available to provide such a centre, then the quality of media coverage will improve. Gathering the media in a single centre makes many of the basic functions of media management - press releases, press conferences, briefings, etc - much simpler. Donors are sometimes willing to provide funding for at least a modest Media Centre, particularly if it is seen as building the long-term capacity of the EMB. For many electoral authorities, however, it is simply beyond their capacity.
A Media Centre should include some or all of the following:
Where space constraints dictate, it is reasonable to establish time slots and sign-up procedures to ensure that all journalists will have at least some access to these facilities.
Depending on circumstances a single Media Centre may not be enough for the entire country. While in other countries this is not at all practical. In India, for example, the Election Commission of India requires there to be a media room in each counting centre, as well as a Media Centre with full facilities in each State.
It is useful to have a Media Centre up and running well before the election so that journalists will become familiarized with the facility and the briefing schedule prior to Election Day. Contacts with service providers (e.g., the telephone company) should be undertaken well in advance to ensure that the Centre is up and running on schedule. It is also best to maintain the Centre in operation at least until the final announcement of official results.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++One-on-one interviews allow members of the media to have a more in-depth and focused discussion with EMB media relations staff members or officials. If an interview is with a non-media relations staff member, it is best if it is still scheduled through the Media Relations Department. An EMB interviewee may benefit from reviewing talking points to guide his or her answers, prior to participating in the interview and should be experience with talking with media. A Media Relations Department may suggest certain topics to focus; a skilled interviewee will know how to redirect conversations back to these topics when faced with questions they wish not to answer, are not authorized to answer, or are not constructive to answer.
Interviews can be live or pre-recorded depending on the resources of the media organization as well as the preference of interviewee.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Individuals who are planning a media strategy are usually advised to define a clear and simple message, reducible to a single slogan. This works for many organisations, from a company selling a product to a group lobbying for policy change. Electoral managers, by contrast, have a large number of different messages that they need to communicate to different audiences at different stages in the campaign through different mediums.
While an EMB Media Relations Department will need to devise a schedule of key messages, most of these will not be deliverable as brief “sound-bites”; primarily due to the nature of direct engagement with media rather than outreach through advertisements or media spots (which is what voter education would utilize example).
Instead, a strong media relations plan uses a list of key messages, drawn up according to election phase and target audience, as its backbone, but incorporates them as determined by media profiles (from media mapping exercise) and the particular format of delivery (such as a press conference or press statement).
Much of the core list of messages will correspond directly with those of the voter information and education department. There will be a number of others however that may directly target media themselves (such as pertaining to polling day coverage, or campaign silence).
The main benefits from drawing up a list of core messages to guide the process is to ensure message accuracy with other communication activities of an EMB, to reinforce outreach to the electorate and stakeholders, and to ensure timely information on the various processes of the EMB in general.
Staff member’s understanding of the media present, the audience they reach, and the format of the delivery, each influence the message. For example, while a press conference or press release may be opportune methods to announce deadlines, new developments and results, they might not be the most effective means for encouraging new voters to register. Instead, a more targeted approach might be to invite a media outlet with a high listenership of young adults - perhaps a university radio outlet or such - for a one on one interview.
It is also worthwhile for an EMB Media Relations Department to determine messages for different scenarios. What would their response be in different instances of accusations made by members of the press, if the official results are delayed, if voting centres are not opened or need to close early due to security concerns? While an EMB Media Relations Department can only conduct limited speculation of potential events, it is worthwhile to think through various scenarios in order to be as prepared as possible.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Media monitoring involves collecting data and carrying out analysis of elections-related content of print, broadcast and online media, and presenting the results. As well as being a tool for regulation, media monitoring also provides broader benefits to an electoral process. These include evaluating the extent to which elections were fair in terms of freedom of expression by the media, voters and candidates; acting as an early warning system for elections-related violence; promoting the participation of women and minorities; and enhancing media literacy of elections officials and the public at large.
Despite the importance of media monitoring, it has only recently become standard practice in the management of elections. The importance of media monitoring in assessing electoral integrity and democratic development is highlighted by these quotes from observer missions:
Armenia 2012, OSCE / ODIHR
In many cases, TV channels broadcast in their news the same campaign material already used by contestants in paid political advertising, instead of relying on their own material…Such practices damage the credibility of media reporting, undermine the autonomy of the media from the political sphere, and weaken the diversity of media outlets. Where this occurred, the unclear distinction between news and political advertising deprived the viewers of independent reporting.[i]
Cambodia 2007, Comfrel
The vast majority of political coverage [on state-owned media] (around 93%, equal to 167 hours 15 seconds) is dedicated to covering the activities of the Royal Government of Cambodia, including the Prime Minister. Additionally, [other than two specific programs funded by UNDP and the EMB] the state media do not appear to be open to parties other than the ruling political party: the great majority of political party airtime is dedicated to the CPP (about 82%). This unbalanced coverage made for an uneven playing field, meaning that other parties found it difficult to compete with the ruling party through the media. [ii]
Comfrel also noted minimal coverage of women in politics, and no coverage of disabled, youth or indigenous candidates in any media.[iii]
Nicaragua 2010, European Union EOM
The media…are not only reflecting the profound polarisation that characterises the Nicaraguan political scene, they are becoming active parts of this polarisation. The media appears to be one of the battlegrounds of the next political phase. The two main newspapers in Nicaragua, the dailies La Prensa and El Nuevo Diario, due to their historical importance and tradition, are the media dictating the media political agenda in the country.[iv]
Sudan 2010, SMEC
The number of hate speech cases and use of inflammatory language in the media increased significantly as Election Day approached, and continued after the election date, albeit with less intensity. While defamation of political actors was the main type of hate speech prior to the elections, calls for violence and accusations of electoral rigging were the main types of hate speech after Election Day. Both the political actors and the media were responsible for conjuring up hate speech.[v]
As these diverse examples from around the world demonstrate, media monitoring is key to understanding the quality of electoral processes.
What do media monitors do?
Media monitoring has become a common feature of elections since the mid-1990s. Monitoring usually uses "quantitative analysis" or "qualitative analysis" of media content, or both. The first is the least complicated and controversial, and often has the greatest impact. Quantitative analysis simply entails counting and measuring election coverage in the media - number and length of items devoted to different parties, length in column inches, timing and number of direct access programmes and so on. The amount of coverage each party or candidate receives is usually the first criterion that will be looked at in order to evaluate allegations of bias.
Qualitative analysis is, as the name suggests, an approach that measures the quality of the coverage that parties and candidates receive. This kind of analysis applies predominantly to news coverage, although it should also be applied to voter education. Qualitative analysis will look at language use in content as well the over all message conveyed by the content. Qualitative analysis will provide depth and context to quantitative findings. For example, it may not be very useful to say that Party X has received a certain percentage of news coverage, if a large part of that coverage is biased in its content. Inevitably, the measurement of bias is more subjective than simply counting minutes, seconds or column inches accorded to each candidate.
Media monitoring organisations – be they national civil society groups, international or domestic observer teams, EMBs or others – now often use fairly similar methodologies. International NGOs, such as the European Institute for the Media, and national organizations, such as the Osservatorio di Pavia (Italy), MEMO98 (Slovakia), the Media Monitoring Project (South Africa), and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (United States) have popularized easy, effective and surprisingly subtle monitoring methodologies and created a large pool of people familiar with their use.
Media monitors usually focus on a combination of major television, radio and print. Recently some monitors have started to look at social media as well.
Who monitors the media?
Generally, three main groups undertake monitoring of the media during elections:
Other bodies that monitor media during elections can include media peak bodies (such as Rwanda’s High Council of the Press[vi]), media regulatory bodies (such as the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa[vii]), and internal monitoring by media agencies themselves who are concerned with ensuring fair coverage.[viii] The publicly-funded Australian Broadcasting Commission, for example, sets up an Election Coverage Review Committee prior to each national election. This Committee is made up of senior ABC managers, which meets weekly during the election period and gives input to editors on the ABC’s on-going performance and adherence to law and standards of elections reporting.[ix]
The purpose in each instance may be rather different. EMBs and media regulatory bodies will normally monitor the media in order to determine whether they have adhered to the regulations or laws governing media behaviour during elections. If they have a direct regulatory function, they will use their monitoring findings to make sure that media comply with the required standards and to warn or discipline media outlets if appropriate.
International observers are also concerned with media compliance with local rules and laws. However, they are also concerned with monitoring the contribution of media to a free and fair election, and ensuring that universal rights to freedom of expression are upheld. Observers have no powers of enforcement or interference however, and will adjust the timing and tone of their recommendations accordingly. International electoral observation missions contribute to media monitoring by including analysis of fair media coverage into their overall external assessments of the conduct of the elections.
Domestic observer groups and other civil society groups may have more leeway in how they they can monitor election coverage. These domestic bodies can utilize more varied or in-depth methodologies to determine different types of media bias. EMBs, by contrast, are often restricted to a simple analysis of the allocation of time to parties and candidates. Civil society monitors usually have a strong understanding of the local contexts, actors, languages and so on. Many have good networks with the domestic media and can communicate with them quickly and directly about their findings. For example, the civil society group Sudan Media and Elections Consortium published biweekly Media Monitoring results before, during and after the 2010 elections. This means that civil society monitoring can often be used as part of an effort to raise journalistic standards or to address other issues while the election campaign is still going on. Some organisations may be interested in specific issues such as hate speech, electoral violence, or the representation of women or minorities during elections, and focus on those issues.
Media peak bodies and media agencies will tend to focus their monitoring on ensuring balanced coverage in order to uphold the credibility of media outlets and the media sector as a whole, and to ensure adherence to the law.
The efforts of these different monitoring groups can be complementary, coordinated and even co-operative. In some cases, as in Malawi’s first multi-party election in 1994, an EMB may take notice of civil society media monitoring and use its powers to try to make media coverage fairer. In other instances, the EMB may hire a civil society or private monitoring group to be its eyes and ears. The Indonesian Election Supervisory Board, the government’s broadcasting regulator, and the independent Press Council cooperate directly by setting up a joint committee to carry out media monitoring. In the Ukrainian presidential elections of 2004 there was media monitoring from both intergovernmental groups and local human rights and media freedom organisations. Local observation groups published their findings regularly (as well as on a broader set of issues). Their conclusions were bolstered by findings by international monitors.
[i] “Republic of Armenia: Parliamentary Elections 6 May 2012” (OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission, observation report, Warsaw, June 26, 2012),9, http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/91643
[ii]“Final Report of the Media Monitoring: Commune Council Elections 1 April 2007”, (Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia monitoring report, 2007), 13
[iii] Ibid
[iv] “Republic of Nicaragua – Regional Elections, 7 March 2010, Final Report,” (European Union Election Expert Mission observation report, April 2010),13
[v] “Media and elections in Sudan: Monitoring the coverage of Sudan 2010 elections, Period 13 February to 31 October 2010,” (Sudan Media and Elections monitoring report, December 2010),10
[vi] Eugene Kwibuka,“Press Council to ensure fair election coverage”, The New Times, June 12, 2012, http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15041&a=9158.
[vii] ICASA monitors broadcasters only. For an example of an ICASA elections monitoring report see here.
[viii] Sometimes Press Councils are officially asked to do the monitoring work, See for example, Nepal.
[ix] See example ABC report: http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/ABC-ECRC-ChairmanReportFedElection2010.pdf
Electoral management bodies may choose to monitor media coverage for a number of reasons:
The first two reasons entail gathering extensive quantitative data - in effect, a full-scale media monitoring project. The other two can be achieved by a more casual and non-systematic review of media coverage, of a type that the EMB may anyway conduct as a matter of routine practice.
As official bodies, media regulatory agencies tasked with media monitoring during elections tend to have similar goals and mandates to EMB media monitoring. Sometimes media regulatory agencies focus only the type of media in their remit, for example broadcast media.
As experience of media monitoring grows, and methodologies are more widely disseminated, it has become more common for EMBs (or other regulatory bodies) to contract outside experts to monitor the media, or to collaborate with them. These may be university media studies or other social science departments or civil society organisations.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Media monitoring has become a common component of international election observations missions (EOMs), since the late 1990s. This development within observation missions is testament to growing recognition of the importance of fair media access to the overall credibility of an election process, and the health of democratic institutions.
Some organisations, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the European Union, invariably include a media team in their EOMs. Commonwealth bodies such as the Commonwealth Press Union have themselves undertaken media monitoring, quite separately from the EOMs organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat.
EOMs often task one or more members of the core observation team to develop an overall analysis of the media scene and its potential impact on the election. This ‘overview’ understanding of the media environment – ownership, laws, past history of restrictions on media activity – provides the background for interpreting the quantitative data gathered in the course of monitoring.
A media analyst in the core team is often responsible for training a team of monitors. These will usually 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. In addition their participation may increase the domestic skill base in media monitoring.
The value of incorporating media analysis into international EOMs is that this makes for a more comprehensive evaluation of the overall credibility 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 observation groups and civil society organisations and have a broad range of incentives for monitoring media coverage of an election. Their primary aim is likely to be the same as that of an electoral management body or international observation mission: to ensure that news coverage is fair and professional and that different parties and candidates have access to the media.
Beyond this, like international observers, they may be concerned, for example, with the content of electoral coverage. What topics do media reports cover? How far do these reflect the particular agendas of parties or candidates? Is electoral debate portrayed in a professional and dispassionate manner or do the media inflame partisan sentiments by their language or the style of their coverage?
Do the media actually meet the information needs of voters (an obvious question, but one that is perhaps asked too infrequently)? Are the positions of parties and candidates evaluated from viewpoint of the voter – see Voter’s Voice Reporting – or are the media complicit with the candidates in the uncritical presentation of their policies? Are the media playing an effective educative role? Do they tell voters what they need to know about where, how and why to vote?
How far are the interests and voices of minority or marginalized groups reflected in the media? Are women’s voices being adequately heard in the election campaign through the media? If not, why not? Are the media reflecting social gender bias uncritically, or are they making an effort to challenge it?
The range of issues that civil society media monitors and domestic observer groups have tackled is broad. Seldom is a media monitoring operation going to be able to address all these issues. What they can do, however, is to bring their particular expertise to bear upon particular aspects of media coverage. Sometimes this area of expertise will be in the area of the media itself. NGOs concerned with media freedom and with professional standards are often engaged in monitoring. The purpose may be both to defend the media against political interference, whether from governments or private proprietors. Or it may be to promote professionalism in coverage.
On other occasions, the relationship between civil society monitors and media has been more difficult. Hostility between government media and civil society monitors is common. The latter are accused of promoting their own quasi-political agenda. Sometimes private media houses exhibit a similar reaction – for example in Moldova in 2005 – questioning the qualifications and bona fides of a monitoring group that produced critical findings.
On occasions, monitoring groups will address other issues too. An example of a broader focus came in media monitoring of the Ukrainian presidential election in 2004. One NGO, Equal Access, conducted comprehensive media monitoring focusing solely on media access allocation to candidates. In parallel, two other organisations, the Institute of Mass Communication and the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, ran a monitoring project that addressed other issues in addition to the allocation of time and space to candidates. They looked at coverage of issues of particular concern to minority ethnic groups – including Crimean Tatars – and at the representation of women in election coverage. Their findings were hardly surprising – under-reporting of minority concerns and a low frequency of women’s voices as news sources. These findings however, provide an important baseline information if these issues are to be tackled in future.
Domestic organisations monitoring the media can often do so for a longer period than international agencies or EMBs are able to. They are also better equipped to look at subnational elections which may be of less interest to other monitors. For example, the non-government Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia monitored media coverage of the 2007 Commune Council elections for three months including the campaign and counting periods. They revealed major bias in the reporting of these elections.[1]
[1] “Final Report of the Media Monitoring: Commune Council Elections 1 April 2007”, (Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, monitoring report, 2007)
Media peak bodies, journalist unions, or professional associations, are consortiums made up of media organisations and/or individual journalists and editors. These bodies are usually fully independent of governments. They are often keepers of a code of conduct (and sometimes a specific elections code of conduct) which member organizations and individuals must ratify. In some cases media organisations cooperate with the EMB to produce a code of conduct for elections reporting, and in this case may be asked specifically to monitor its implementation. These consortiums have a particular interest in election media monitoring to ensure that codes are adhered to, thereby protecting the reputation of the media large. The issue of safeguarding reputation is often particularly the relevant in countries or regions emerging from conflict or an authoritarian past, and as such media feel compelled to actively monitor, as well as promote and demonstrate impartiality and professionalism.
In Tanzania’s 2000 elections, a media monitoring project was initiated by the Media Council, a voluntary professional body, in conjunction with other NGOs concerned with media freedom and professionalism. The project began with a conference, attended by representatives of the main media, which drew up a code of conduct for election coverage. The purpose of monitoring was explicitly to examine whether coverage complied with the standards that the media themselves had agreed upon. Inevitably, media houses often disputed the findings of the monitors. However, they also proved ready to engage in dialogue, which can only have benefited the quality of coverage.[i]
In addition, individual media agencies often establish internal rules and guidelines for elections reporting, such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); and / or carry out extensive internal monitoring of their elections coverage, for example the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC).
[i] “Interim Report, Elections 2000 Media Monitoring Project”, (Media Council of Tanzania monitoring report, Tanzania, November 2000), 3 http://aceproject.org/main/samples/me/mex23.pdf
Media monitors – whether electoral administrators, international observers, civic activists or academics –should address a number of practical and methodological questions before embarking on their project:
The answers to each of these questions have an important impact on the monitoring methodology that is adopted.
Most media monitors employ methodologies that utilise a technique known as ‘content analysis’. This kind of analysis is essentially quantitative in nature. In other words, it is concerned with elements of media output that can be measured and counted. Content analysis has sometimes been criticized for reducing media coverage to what is measurable, omitting important aspects such as tone and language, or identifiers such as audio or visual. There are many things that content analysis cannot do – most simply and obviously, it cannot reveal whether news coverage was accurate or inaccurate.
Typically, quantitative monitoring of media election coverage will focus time allocation according to the various parties and candidates. This may then be qualified by an assessment of whether the coverage is favourable or unfavourable. Although these measures may also be quantified, they are essentially qualitative judgments.
Some monitoring methodologies introduce other types of quantitative measures in an attempt to avoid relying on monitors’ assessments of whether coverage is positive or negative. They may, for example, count the sources that journalists use, assigning them to different political or social categories. This may be a more objective measure of balance. They may classify media items by topic. This can be useful since, in an election campaign, political parties often campaign not only with different positions but also on different issues. The media’s selection of topics may therefore be a sensitive indicator of their political sympathies.
Another aim of quantitative monitoring may simply be to measure the amount, and perhaps timing, of political advertising or free direct access programming. This may be to ensure that what is actually published or broadcast conforms to the laws or regulations governing direct access.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Monitoring solely the output of the media will never provide a complete picture regarding level of professionalism and degree to which the electorate are being appropriately informed. Media monitoring should always be part of a broader process of media analysis. Indeed, many monitoring findings will be inexplicable without placing them in context. Without the context, quantitative and qualitative findings of media monitoring will be meaningless.
Specifically, media analysis examines the following factors:
Quantitative media monitoring methodology is often described as content analysis. This has been an influential, but not universally accepted, approach to media studies for more than half a century.
The various criticisms of content analysis generally charge that such analysis entails imposing arbitrary and inflexible categories upon content which may in reality be subject to subtler interpretations. Hence, for example, content analysis takes no account of how an audience will understand a message conveyed through the news media. It simply undertakes a quantitative analysis of that message. Quantitative analysis implies the selection of elements of the content of media output that can be counted. In many examples of academic content analysis, the indicators selected may be words. Researchers will measure the frequency with which certain words, or combinations of words, feature.
Whatever the validity of the criticisms of content analysis, the fact is that it is often used in media monitoring in the context of elections. The analysis very seldom focuses on selection of words. Rather, monitors will identify and count one or more of the following variables:
There are a number of other variables that monitors might wish to identify. These might include: gender of cited sources, geographical origin of the story, the time that an item is broadcast, the position of an item in a news bulletin and so on.
Different methodologies will incorporate different indicators. The common characteristics of any well-chosen indicators, however, will be that they are reliable and valid.
Reliability means that there will be the same results, whoever the monitor is. In other words, there will be a scientific classification system that can be replicated in most instances. For example, measuring the amount of time directly spoken by a particular candidate is reliable. Classifying topics according to a predetermined set of codes is also reliable, provided that monitors are trained in how to apply that classification system and will usually – say 95 times out of 100 – yield the same result.
Validity means that the data gathered actually show what they are supposed to show. For example, a mere counting of the sex of the voices cited by the media is unlikely to be a valid measure of gender bias. Too many other factors would have to be taken into account: general social attitudes towards women, the gender distribution of candidacies in the different political parties, and so on. Likewise, the amount of time allocated to a particular candidate would not be a valid indicator of bias on behalf on the part of a media outlet. (Other considerations would need to be taken into account, such as the content of the coverage.)
Quantitative monitoring – some possible approaches
All quantitative media monitoring of election coverage is likely to focus on the time allocated to different parties or candidates. Exactly how this will be computed is a matter of choice, with various advantages or disadvantages to the differing approaches.
Many European media monitoring organisations – including the European Institute of the Media, the Osservatorio di Pavia and MEMO98 – use an approach that is predicated upon the frequency of mention of a number of predetermined “political subjects”. Each mention of these subjects within the monitoring period will be logged separately and the amount of direct speech times allocated will be recorded. Each mention will also usually be classified as positive, negative or neutral towards the “subject”.
A slightly different approach is not to count frequency, but to break broadcasting bulletins and publications into “items”. An item will normally correspond to a story within a news bulletin or a newspaper, or a political advertisement. All overtly identified sources for the item will be recorded, both by name and by category (such as political party). Direct speech times will also be counted. The entire item will be assessed to determine whether it favours and/or opposes any candidates or parties. The advantage of this method is that counting the number of sources for each item and evaluating their diversity gives an objective measure of the professionalism of media coverage. The disadvantage is that it does not strictly count the frequency of mentions of a party or candidate. Methodologies of this type are used by organisations such as the Media Monitoring Projects in South Africa and Zimbabwe and ARTICLE 19, which does media monitoring in Africa and Eastern Europe.
Each of these methodologies has to address the common problem of how to assess whether a mention of a political subject or an entire news item (depending on the exact methodology) favours or opposes a candidate or party. Some methodologies use a scale of assessment, in which the monitor places the item somewhere on a measure between +2 (very positive) and -2 ((very negative), passing through positive, neutral and negative.
There is clearly always going to be an issue of reliability. How will it be possible to ensure that monitors apply the same evaluation? This can only be achieved thorough training and practice. This will determine the margin of error in evaluating items on the scale.
Determining positive and negative coverage
The more fundamental problem, however, is how to apply objective criteria. It is important, first, to understand that evaluating whether an item or speech is positive or negative about a particular party or candidate is not the same as determining if it is biased. The measurement of bias comes only when it is possible to assess the aggregated measures of positive or negative coverage.
One effective approach is to use two sets of criteria in determining whether an item is positive or negative: context and content.
The first of these, content, refers to the way in which the story is framed. For example, if a story is about a politician appearing in court on charges of fraud, the frame is clearly negative. (Note that this has nothing to do with whether the story is accurate or fair.) If the politician is rather receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, the frame is positive. If the politician is addressing a political rally, the frame is most likely to be neutral.
The second criterion, content, refers to the overt facts and tone of the story. If the politician charged with fraud makes a particularly effective speech from the dock, this may be positive (despite the negative framing of the story). If the journalist says that the politician did not deserve to receive the Nobel Prize, this is negative, despite the positive framing. More commonly, of course, the framing and content coincide.
If context and content do coincide, then it is clear how the item will be classified. If the context and content lead to opposite conclusions (one positive, one negative), then they will cancel each other out and the item will be classified as neutral. If either content or context is neutral, while the other is positive or negative, then the latter will determine how the item is classified.
Other quantitative methods for evaluating coverage
In the second family of methodologies already described, there are a number of other quantitative indicators that can be used:
The final point – selection of topics – may often be a sensitive quantitative indicator of the political inclinations of the media. Political parties usually campaign on somewhat different issues from their opponents. The selection of stories covered by the media will often suggest how far they subscribe to the political agenda of one party or another.
Statistics on sources say something about balance, but not automatically about bias. A one-source story is unbalanced, but it need not be biased. If the governor of the central bank announces a rise in interest rates, no other voice is required because it is a straight news item. (Good journalistic practice might suggest that a comment from the political parties and independent experts would be helpful.) On other hand, coverage of political violence that only quoted from one party would probably be biased.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Quantitative analysis alone will not adequately explain strengths and weaknesses of media coverage. It is not enough to claim that the ruling party is receiving more media coverage than the opposition - there may be good reasons for this, such as larger public support, and therefore interest. Similarly, a simple count of news items may conceal the fact that some parties' coverage "quota" may include items that show them in a negative light
Extremely important aspects of election coverage are not readily susceptible to quantitative monitoring. Reporting of inflammatory speech, for example, will require close textual analysis of the approach that the media uses.
Monitors also analyse content of voter education material to ensure that party political messages are not being conveyed. Often monitors compare the treatment of the same stories in different language services. Often in post-colonial contexts, indigenous language content that is broadcast is remarkably different that of in colonial language broadcasts. The latter will to some extent, be for external consumption. Broadcasters and politicians might assume that international monitors do not pay attention to what is conveyed in local languages.
One very important consideration for monitors to address is the extent to which media reporting is accurate. Media monitors measure bias by comparing media reporting to their own understanding of events, as influenced by a variety of sources. ‘Source monitoring’ is when the media monitors attend a newsworthy event, such as a political rally or a press conference, in order to see how media coverage compares with their own perceptions. The Internet has made it easier for monitors to compare domestic coverage with international reporting on an election. The two sometimes bear little similarity to each other.
Evaluating implicit messages contained within media coverage is at the same time important, difficult and highly contentious. Subtleties of language and visuals convey a variety of messages that are not always absorbed by an audience in a conscious manner. For example, pro-government media may have a president ‘state’ something while his opponent only ‘alleges’. Reporting does not have to be inaccurate to be an improper influence on the audience's perceptions. In South Africa before the 1994 election, for example, monitors noticed that coverage of African National Congress demonstrations consistently noted the amount of litter left behind by the participants. The message was that the ANC was disruptive and irresponsible. Foreign news items can also be used to encourage a particular interpretation of domestic news. In Malawi in 1994, coverage of opposition parties on the state broadcaster was placed alongside news of the Rwandan genocide. The subliminal message was that an end to one-party "stability" would lead to bloodshed.
Television has complex visual vocabulary. Figures who are regarded as authoritative - such as incumbent politicians - may be portrayed at an upward angle, while others are filmed at a level angle or from above. Figures in authority will more often address the camera directly, while others will address an unseen interviewer to one side of the camera and thus will not address the viewer directly. Ordinary interviewees - opposition members, trade unionists, or a member of the general public - will usually be interviewed in the open air. Government members will be seen in their office, often shuffling papers and apparently engaged urgent and important activity. An office background tends to emphasise the authority and expertise of the interviewee. And so on.
Graphics and logos that accompany news broadcasts may also convey a message. In the Zimbabwean elections in 2000, a special current affairs programme that ran through the campaign period had as its logo the tower at the Great Zimbabwe ruins - exactly the same as the symbol of the ruling party.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++New media and social media are growing in importance as tools for campaigning, voter education, policy debate, opinion polling, and scrutiny of elections – in other words, all the roles played by traditional media but with more decentralized, interactive and user-driven mediums. A description of the roles of new media can be found under New Media.
Should new media be monitored as part of elections media monitoring? Given their increasing importance and impact on electoral processes in many contexts, it is logical that they should be monitored. However tools to do so are still nascent, and the challenges of monitoring social media are both substantive and logistical. The prospect of monitoring new media elicits a number of substantive questions such as: Given the convergence of new media and more formal, traditional media, at what point does elections-related regulation kick in? (Some regulatory systems now have answers to this question, making the monitors’ job easier). How is it possible to judge if and when new media is important enough that it needs to be monitored? Is it necessary to monitor both formal new media (such as the online versions of newspapers) as well as informal social media (such as personal blogs), even if these are not regulated under elections-related laws? Logistical questions need to also be considered such as: What social media should be monitored? Will the monitoring be cost-effective?
A few recent international Election Observation Missions have acknowledged the roles new media plays, and commented on them, but have not included them as part of formal media monitoring. The 2011 EEAS mission to Nigeria, for example, acknowledged that
[t]he seven largest dailies have their on-line editions, which alongside with citizen journalists' reports posted on-line became a meaningful source of information during the elections. Different types of social media (like Twitter and Facebook) were broadly used by both electorate and politicians, since more than 40 million Nigerians have access to the Internet. [i]
The 2012 OSCE/ODIHR mission to Russia stated that
[t]he penetration of Internet continues growing and it is increasingly becoming a source of alternative information [with 50% internet penetration amongst Russian adults]. In particular, social media are evolving as a forum for political debate and are used as a new tool for mobilizing and organizing people. [ii]
Both of these missions, however, carried out formal monitoring only on traditional media.
There are now many social media monitoring (SMM) tools that trawl blogs and social networks for key words, and are primarily used by the private sector to track ‘buzz’ about brands. Currently, SMM tools are used in elections mainly to track voter intentions and electoral campaign issues, for example in the lead-up to the US Presidential elections of 2012.[iii] Social media have also been monitored by organisations interested in preventing electoral violence in real-time by monitoring keywords cropping up in social media, for example in Nigeria in 2011.[iv] Election media monitors can use SMMs to find out, for example, whether campaign and direct access rules are being broken, whether voter education and political campaigns over social media are reaching wide audiences, whether in general freedom of speech is thriving, or if there is censorship or self-censorship in the social media environment[i] “Nigeria: Final Report, General Elections April 2011”, (European Union Election Observation Mission, observation report, 2011), 30 http://eeas.europa.eu/eueom/pdf/missions/final-report-nigeria2011_en.pdf
[ii] “Russian Federation Presidential Election, 4 March 2012”, (OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report, 2012),12
[iii] One example of such tracking is Meltwater Buzz. See: http://election2012.meltwater.com/index.php/wordcloud/index/all/2012-05-11#
[iv] Michael Terrazas “Crowdsourcing Democracy through Social Media,” Georgia Tech College of Computing (blog), October 11, 2011, http://www.scs.gatech.edu/news/crowdsourcing-democracy-through-social-media
Media and Parliamentary Election in Egypt is a media monitoring report on the 2010 Egypt Elections published by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies: http://www.cihrs.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Elections-Report.pdf
Final Report of the Media Monitoring: Commune Council Elections 1 April 2007 is a media monitoring report published by the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel): http://www.comfrel.org/eng/components/com_mypublications/files/4397221187756051Book_of_Media_Monitoring_Report__Final_.pdf
Media and Elections in Sudan; Monitoring the coverage of Sudan 2010 elections, is a monitoring report produced by the Sudan Media and Elections Consortium and the United Nations Development Program: http://www.mediasupport.org/publication/monitoring-the-coverage-of-sudan-2010-elections/
European External Action Service observation reports with significant media monitoring components can be found at http://eeas.europa.eu/eueom/missions/index_en.htm
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) election observation reports with significant media monitoring components can be found at http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/
OSCE/ODIHR has developed a Handbook on Media Monitoring for Election Observation Missions: http://www.osce.org/odihr/92057?download=true (2011) OSCE/ODIHR and the Venice Commission have also provided Guidelines on Media Analysis During Election Observation Missions describing international and regional standards underpinning observation work, techniques of media analysis and basics of media monitoring methodology: http://www.gpb.ge/uploads/documents/bea833c7-2a31-4eb3-9518-6ed509639532Guidelines%20on%20Media%20Monitoring.pdf.
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) published Media Monitoring to Promote Democratic Elections: An NDI Handbook for Citizen Organizations to provide organizations tools and skills necessary to media monitoring: http://www.ndi.org/node/12997
A media monitoring manual, titled Election Coverage from A Gender Perspective: A Media Monitoring Manual, was published by International IDEA and UN Women: http://www.idea.int/publications/election_coverage_gender_perspective/index.cfm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Media development is the process of strengthening the capacity and quality of media. This process includes advocacy, technical assistance, education as well as many other activities that address the media sector as a whole. The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) provides the following recommendation:
Media development requires an integrated approach. Professional development is critical, but insufficient; well-trained journalists need supportive laws; editors need supportive publishers; and owners need managers with business skills to make their enterprises sustainable. A public that understands the value of quality journalism and government officials who understand the role of an independent press are equally important. Change will happen faster if all the factors—professional development, economic sustainability, legal-enabling environment, and media literacy—are addressed simultaneously.[i]
Election coverage will almost always benefit from concerted efforts toward media development in general. Here are some of the key points explored in this chapter:
o Advocacy and Legal Support
o Business Development
o Media Infrastructure
[i] David E. Kaplan, Empowering Independent Media, U.S. Efforts to Foster Free and Independent News Around the World. Inaugural Report: 2008, ed. Marguerite H. Sullivan, (Washington DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 2008), 8
Media professionalism is the conduct of media coverage and activities according to high standards of ethics, accountability, legality and credibility, while exercising rights such as freedom of expression and information.
An important element in a media environment is the degree of professionalism and experience of journalists and other media practitioners. It is common that journalists in a country that has only recently emerged from a highly restrictive political system will lack many of the skills and professional standards of their counterparts in a country with a long history of media freedom. However, the experience of an authoritarian regime may not be entirely negative. In many cases, courageous independent journalism has played an important part in pressuring dictatorships to open up the political space. Journalists who have successfully investigated and published sensitive stories in such a media environment will have developed professional skills that are unmatched by their colleagues in friendlier circumstances. In the context of an election, the professional challenge will be to bring these skills to bear on a new and unfamiliar set of stories to be reported.
Most of the ethical and professional issues that journalists encounter in covering elections are variants of what they confront in their everyday working lives. However, these issues and dilemmas may present themselves in particular ways during elections.
Examples of such professional dilemmas might include:
The following pages explore the following elements of media professionalism:
Codes of conduct provide essential principles to guide actions of media and journalists. A code of conduct may be declared by an association or trade unions of journalists, a media house, a regulatory body (such an EMB), or by individual journalists. Such codes are most effective if they are the outcome of a collective process, however, in which journalists and editors themselves participate. There are overarching codes of conduct such as that agreed by the International Federation of Journalists (http://www.ifj.org/about-ifj/ifj-code-of-principles/). This code of conduct enunciates several principles that will be relevant to journalists in election coverage:
A code of conduct for election reporting will likely include a mixture of general ethical standards, applicable in all circumstances, and those specific to election periods. This is a possible check-list of standards, derived from International IDEA’s (http://www.idea.int/) proposed code of conduct (which is itself based upon many existing codes from different countries):
Many of these standards are examined in greater detail in the following pages. The following are examples of election-specific codes of conduct:
A thorough understanding of the laws governing elections is a precondition for reporting elections.
Senior editors and executives involved in planning coverage will need to know what their legal obligations are. What, for example, are the laws or regulations relating to content of either direct access programming or news coverage, and systems can a media house put in place to meet its obligations? Media personnel will also want to know reporting or access restrictions in place for the various stages of an electoral process. For example, will journalists have access to the count and will there be restrictions on reporting results prior to an official results announcement? More information about regulations can be found in Legal Framework for Media and Elections.
Editors and journalists and will also need to be well versed in an EMB’s operational and procedural plan for the elections. For example, staff will want to know what provisional precautions exist to safeguard the security of ballot boxes and ballots, including sourcing of seals, boxes and ballots; the existence of databases for tracking ballot stub serial numbers; plans for ballot box transportation; and provision of storage facilities.
If journalists are to report accurately – and hold election administrators to account – they should also become familiarized with the electoral system employed in an election. If this seems obvious, the reality is that all too often reporters simply do not understand how the system works. For example, they are unable to analyse the criteria for delimitation of electoral boundaries to determine if delimitation has been carried out fairly. Furthermore, journalists often do not understand how an election result is reached, particularly in elections involving more complicated formulae than “first past the post” systems.
Most of these areas of knowledge can be addressed through journalist training as well as other vital elements of media development such as incorporation of electoral law into university degree programs, advocacy for electoral legal frameworks that encourage media access to electoral events (thereby also encouraging learning and skill building), building electoral law literacy within the general public, and so forth.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Accurate reporting requires close attention to a plethora of details such as correct spellings of candidate names, precise numbers of attending audiences at election events, exact quotes and attribution, and so forth.
Journalists also have a broader responsibility to place words and events into a clear and accurate context. A news report can easily become skewed in favour or against a particular candidate if context of a statement is not accurately provided or portrayed. Often this task will require a journalist or editor to place one candidate’s remark in correct correlation to statements of other candidates.
The media will always compete to get a story quickly. However, journalists also have an ethical responsibility not only to be timely but also accurate in doing so. There are pragmatic reasons for this, as well as principled ones. Media or journalists who are cavalier with facts will lose trust, and as a result will often face obstacles in gathering further information.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++One measure of quality election reporting is impartiality. Impartial reporting is closely related to accuracy. Accurate reporting is a precondition to impartiality; however, it is not a sufficient alone. One-sided reporting that conveys the position of a favoured party or candidate without reporting alternative positions is biased election coverage. A news story that includes different points of view is always going to be a stronger and more balanced one.
It is sometimes a challenge for media to establish balance within a particular story. For example, a journalist may be assigned to a particular party campaign and will not have opportunity to seek comment from other parties. In such cases, editors are responsible to make sure that different party positions on the same issue are reported. This is done by compiling composite stories or by running parallel stories that portray the different positions.
One characteristic of impartial election coverage is separation of fact and comment. In other words, if a journalist or editor expresses his or her own opinion, it should be labelled as such. This applies even to campaign journalism. A media outlet may endorse a candidate, party, or political position however they impartial election coverage obliges coverage still be accurate, even when such accuracy may undermine that endorsement. This ethical obligation lies with individual journalists and editors, as well as with higher management of a media outlet.
So is it ethical for journalists and editors to voice opinions? Generally speaking, credible newspapers – both print and online – will often have opinion sections in which editors and others make statements of their views, often clearly in favour of a particular party or candidate. According to an NDI media monitoring manual, “[i]n many countries, there are a large number of private newspapers and magazines that present a wide variety of political views. Political parties may even print and distribute newspapers to present their views”[i] none of which is fundamentally unethical so long as readers know the source of the content and are provided with a range of options and perspectives. For example, the highly respected international news magazine The Economist frequently endorses a particular candidate, for example Barack Obama in the US in 2008 and Nicolas Sarkozy in France in 2012.
When it comes to bias, expectations differ for public media (particularly public radio and television stations) and print media. Public broadcast media is usually expected to provide a wider range of views and less editorial content. This is because public media are owned by the public, often have a large national audience, and can be quite influential, particularly in contexts where audiences have limited choices, including limited access to new media.
Finally, an important measure of journalists’ impartiality is that they do not hold prominent office in any political party or movement. Journalists are as entitled as anyone else to political beliefs and loyalties, however any work-related affiliation to politics will compromise a journalist's credibility as an impartial chronicler of events.
It goes without saying that the acceptance of bribes is neither responsible nor impartial journalism. Yet this topic warrants special attention due to the prevalence of bribery in electoral processes and in journalism in general. While “cash for coverage” may be a conventional form of bribery, other forms exist that do not involve exchanges of money. These other manifestations of bribery may be subtle, such as provision of transportation, resources, or gifts.
Here are a few examples of media bribery. These have been drawn directly from a report by the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), Cash for Coverage: Bribery of Journalists Around the World:
In South Africa, a journalist admitted in an affidavit that he and several others had set up a media relations firm that received cash payments for helping an African National Congress official in his struggles with party rivals…he described receiving payments of 5,000-10,000 South African Rand…He understood, he said, that he “could not write negative reports about [the candidate] or his allies.”
[…] In Lebanon, “the practice of ‘gifting’ journalists remains widespread… “Certain politicians have a budget for bribes. Depending on your rank and the media you work for, it could be a car or a laptop.” [ii]
It is poor practice for journalists to accept any form of inducement in exchange for writing favourable reports of politicians or prominent individuals. Just as equally, promising negative or no coverage of opposing candidates is also unethical. Some of the ways in which cash-strapped media organisations have tried to overcome the problem of inducement are through: enforcing strict hiring and firing policies that prohibit journalists from receiving bribes; providing ethics training for all staff members; providing non-salary incentives to compensate poorly-paid journalists (for example training programmes and other professional development); advocacy for investment in, and donor funding of, media and media development. In addition, press councils and media ombudsman can uphold a code of ethics that contains measures for sanctioning journalists who accept bribes. Furthermore, stakeholders are beginning to increase advocacy for salary transparency within the media sector. Overall, international advocacy and recognition of the seriousness and pervasiveness of bribery of media has increased substantially in recent years.
[i] Robert Noris, Media Monitoring to Promote Democratic elections: an NDI handbook for citizen organizations, (Washington DC: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 2002), 3
[ii] Bill Ristow, Cash for Coverage: Bribery of Journalists Around the World, (Washington DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 2010), 9
Journalists have various ethical obligations, both to society as a whole as well as individuals with whom they have professional contact. These responsibilities are the same with election reporting as with any other reporting. For example, journalists are obligated to protect the confidentiality of sources if requested to do so as well as in instances where the source may be in danger. Similarly, a journalist cannot resort to dishonest or illegal methods of gathering information.
The serious nature of this responsibility is a result of the seriousness of media’s overall task of exercising rights to freedom of expression and information –crucial human rights that are essential to the functioning of democracy-. In other words, it is not ‘just a job,’ and impacts a society directly.
It is crucial, for example, that media coverage be fact based and not derivative. Too often inaccurate observations are widely disseminated through repetition. Journalists often use cuttings libraries or the Internet and reproduce claims that they are unable to substantiate, creating rumour-mills. Often well-established and reputable media outlets are just as to blame as small and ill-resourced outlets, in this regard.
Credible journalists also exercise responsibility in how they report damaging allegations against individuals or social groups. They allow those affected a chance to respond, creating a balanced and non-inflammatory report. Furthermore, they are aware of potential impacts of their reports. Inaccurate reporting may swing the outcome of an election. Inflammatory media reports can also cause protests or violence.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++In order to report elections in a professional manner, journalists benefit from adequate training, support and practice. Some additional areas of knowledge that journalists need for elections reporting include:
Journalists covering elections tend to come from a range of backgrounds. Some have joined media organisations as young cadets, with or without first obtaining a university degree; some are autodidacts who have written or broadcast their way into a professional journalism job. Some have university-level journalism education; others have received a number of on-the-job short courses; and some have received no formal training at all. Those with university education may have had exposure to elections-relevant course content, for example political science or public policy, while others may have degrees in less directly related subjects. In many countries, there are few educational institutions that offer specialised journalism courses.
Yet, despite the imbalance or the considerable variations between programs, the number of journalism education and training programs is growing around the world. A survey conducted in 2008 by the University of Oklahoma and backed by the Knight Foundation had amassed information on 2850 programs. Roughly 21% of these programs were in Asia and the Pacific, surpassing the 19.3% in North America.[i] The World Journalism Education Council (WJEC) is currently compiling a database of journalism education programs worldwide. At the date of this Media and Elections encyclopaedia update (2012) WJEC had amassed information regarding 2332 educational programs roughly 50% of which were in North America and Europe.[ii]
A statistic of educational programs does not indicate quality or nature of said programs, however. In some countries there is journalism training, however it may cater to an authoritarian establishment that does not encourage, or permit, democratic practices. Furthermore, where a wide range of quality long- and short-term courses are available in journalism, they may not specifically cover elections reporting.
A variety of institutions such as media development NGOs or EMBs, may provide election reporting training courses or workshops, thereby compensating for any lack thereof in formal education. These courses are usually a few days to a few weeks in duration and may take place in-country or internationally. In-country training carries with it the advantage that more journalists can attend. International training may provide journalists access to resources not available in-country, and provide them with diversity as a learning experience. Training courses usually provide journalists a few key tools necessary for election reporting, but occasionally result in duplication of content between offered courses. Furthermore, there may be few opportunities for journalists to attend more advanced courses that allow them to systematically increase their skill levels. Ideally, election related training should be implemented over the course of entire electoral processes. This ensures that trainees are able to fully grasp a variety of tools and challenges unique to each phase.
There are a number of potential questions to be addressed when institutions or organizations plan training courses:
There are no simple answers to these questions. However, they can best be addressed if training is organized with close consultation with the most important stakeholders: the EMB, media regulators, media proprietors, and journalists’ professional bodies and trade unions. A media mapping exercise can also be useful as a precursor to training programmes, to ensure that media that have the greatest impact are invited to the training, and that a plurality of media participate.
There are a number of useful resources for journalists and trainers regarding tips and training for professional election coverage:
A recent publication released by the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) titled Covering Elections: The Challenges of Training the Watchdogs, provides an overview of election reporting training as well a substantial list of example courses in different countries. It can be found here: http://cima.ned.org/publications/covering-elections-challenges-training-watchdogs
The International Federation of Journalists has produced a number of valuable resources for journalists to draw from for election reporting (and in general). These include a code of ethics as well as an Election Reporting Handbook found here http://www.ifj.org/nc/en/news-single-view/category/meeting-1/article/election-reporting-handbook/
The Handbook for Journalists During Elections prepared by Reporters Without Borders, provides a comprehensive guide to election reporting including nuances of each step of an election as well as in depth guidance on campaign coverage. http://en.rsf.org/handbook-for-journalists-during-20-07-2012,43063.html
The Handbook for Journalists, also by Reporters Without Borders, provides advice on how journalists can stay safe in dangerous situations (http://en.rsf.org/handbook-for-journalists-17-04-2007,21744.html).
The Journalist Security Guide by the Committee to Protect Journalists is a handbook on covering news in dangerous situations and includes information on digital security: (cpj.org/security/guide.pdf)
Although the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (IMPACs) is no longer in operation, their publications are still valuable resources for media personnel. Of particular importance to this discussion is their 2004 publication titled Media + Elections, An Elections Reporting Handbook found here.
The BRIDGE (Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections) training modules are primarily aimed at election administration personnel, support providers, observers and other stakeholders. These trainings are also valuable to members of media as they provide an in-depth look at the processes and mechanisms of each step of an electoral process. This level of detailed knowledge will greatly aid any journalists endeavouring to cover an election. Furthermore, one module is dedicated to Media and Elections, exploring the role of a Code of Conduct as well as working relationships between the EMB and the media. More information can found at http://bridge-project.org/
Media and the Elections Process by the Reuters Foundation, provides useful and easy to read information on electoral processes such as voting systems, counting systems, issues pertaining to electoral boundaries or campaign financing, and so forth and can be found here.
[i] David E. Kaplan, Empowering Independent Media, U.S. Efforts to Foster Free and Independent News Around the World. Inaugural Report: 2008, (a product of the Center for International Media Assistance) ed. Marguerite H. Sullivan, (Washington DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 2008),48
[ii] “World Journalism Education Census”, World Journalism Education Council webpage, accessed August 30, 2012, http://wjec.ou.edu/census.php
An important part of Media Development is working to improve the legal environment for media. As explained by American non-profit the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA):
Legal assistance plays a pivotal role in creating the environment necessary for independent media. Despite its importance, the legal-enabling environment has not received enough attention. Regulatory reform, the decriminalization of libel and other onerous laws, passage and enforcement of freedom of information laws, and punishment of those who attack journalists are among the key measures needed to protect and nurture independent media. Also important are training programs for judges and legislators on the importance of protecting the media.[i]
While CIMA, and many others, conclude that too little is invested in this key area, a number of international and national advocacy organisations are devoted to conducting research, advocacy, training and programming on some of these issues. For example, the UK-based non-profit organization Article 19 campaigns worldwide for freedom of expression. An important part of Article 19’s work is providing in-depth legal analysis of domestic, regional and international legislation that impact media freedom, including as it relates to elections. In 2011, for example, Article 19 carried out an extensive review of the draft Electoral Code of the Ukraine from a media perspective, providing recommendations to the government and stakeholders.[ii] At a domestic level, media peak bodies, human rights organisations, and others also carry out legal analysis to promote positive regulatory reform for media activity.
Meanwhile, achievement toward the implementation of freedom of expression is measured annually by organisations like Reporters Without Borders (also known as Reporters san Frontieres - RSF) and Freedom House. Each of these organizations provides press freedom indices to assist international, regional and domestic organisations in understanding and advocating for press freedom. In addition, the international organization Committee to Protect Journalists tracks and exposes attacks on journalists, in addition to providing direct support to journalists under threat. Advocacy is carried out by journalist organisations at the domestic level, such as the Uganda Journalists Association, the Hong Kong News Executives Association, and similar bodies worldwide. Non-government organisations (NGOs) working in a wide range of sectors also work to promote freedom of expression.
[i] David E. Kaplan, Empowering Independent Media, U.S. Efforts to Foster Free and Independent News Around the World. Inaugural Report: 2008, (a product of the Center for International Media Assistance) ed. Marguerite H. Sullivan, (Washington DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 2008),7
[ii] Memorandum on the Draft Election Code of Ukraine (London: ARTICLE 19, 2011) http://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/reports/memorandum-on-the-draft-election-code-of-ukraine.pdf
A diverse media landscape requires media that is well managed and financially sustainable. This is a particular challenge in contexts where media have been suppressed, and where weak economies result in limited investment in media and/or the advertising market. To quote CIMA:
Experts broadly agree that more should be done to ensure that media enterprises are sustainable. Business practices bolster independent media’s efforts to survive and contribute to a stronger marketplace. A commitment to long-term support is widely seen as integral to crafting successful media development strategies.[i]
CIMA lists the key problems and possible solutions to this issue as:
Key problems:
Key solutions:
There is much that can be done by domestic and international actors address this issue. For example, the US-based Media Development Loan Fund provides low-interest loans to media in developing countries to boost independent media.[iii] Another example is media development in Afghanistan, where NGOs such as Internews work with media managers to provide business development training, while independent news syndicators, such as Salaam Watandar, coordinate advertising for networks of – often tiny – community radio and television stations, thereby boosting the stations’ revenue. The Timor-Leste Media Development Centre is another country-example of a domestic organization providing business development to “help community radio stations become financially sustainable through training in fundraising and financial management.”[iv]
[i] David E. Kaplan, Empowering Independent Media, U.S. Efforts to Foster Free and Independent News Around the World. Inaugural Report: 2008, (a product of the Center for International Media Assistance) ed. Marguerite H. Sullivan, (Washington DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 2008),7
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Media Development Loan Fund website, accessed August 30, 2012, www.mdlf.org
[iv] “Timor-Leste Media Development Centre (TLMDC)”, The Communication Initiative, submitted January 18, 2006, http://www.comminit.com/democracy-governance/node/131460
The World Bank describes media infrastructure as follows:
A functioning media infrastructure is the basic underpinning for the rest of the media sector. This does not necessarily mean a host of sophisticated broadcasting or other media systems. Vibrant media sectors exist even in the least developed countries; indeed, in some developing countries that lack traditional telecommunications infrastructure, cell phone infrastructure has enabled people to ‘catch up’ with the information age more quickly. Infrastructure is not limited to the traditional media components of broadcast and print; it may include the transportation system (to deliver print goods), the telecommunications system (which is rapidly converging with broadcast and cable to form the backbone of the digital information era), cable and other networks, radio towers, financial infrastructure, and even social institutions such as literacy and the culture of communication in a country.
Even in environments where sophisticated systems exist, however, people may not be able to access reliable news and information. A comprehensive media development program will first seek to determine the news and information needs of a population, then recommend the infrastructure improvements that will have the greatest effect.[i]
Media infrastructure development can be costly and technically complex. Often governments, aid agencies, and media development agencies assist in in this effort. The World Bank offers the following guidance for this process:
[i] Developing Independent Media as an Institution of Accountable Governance; A How-To Guide, (Washington DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 2011),7 http://issuu.com/world.bank.publications/docs/9780821386293
[ii] Ibid,8
Effective coverage of an election is coverage that is planned. Whether planning entails complex deployment of resources or skilful maximising of scarce ones, election coverage will not work properly without it.
An effective election plan addresses the following questions:
The answers to these questions will differ enormously depending on whether the media outlet concerned is, say, an international satellite television network or a local newspaper. Scale of operations will also vary, however planning issues remain essentially the same.
The following checklist highlights issues that editors will need to address before the start of an election campaign (this list is adapted from the International Federation of Journalists’ Election reporting Handbook.[i]
As indicated in the checklist, journalists covering an election require different knowledge and tool sets for each of the electoral phases or periods of the election. Not only will content of coverage differ, there will also be variations in rules and regulations applicable to each period. Common electoral phases or periods that journalists will need to contend with are:
Each of these phases is explored in greater detail on subsequent pages.
[i] Jean Paul Marthoz, “An Editors Model for Election Coverage”, chapter three of Election Reporting Handbook, (International Federation of Journalists, n.d.),19-24 http://ethicaljournalisminitiative.org/en/contents/a-editors-model-for-election-coverage
In countries with a history of democratic elections, voter registration is not necessarily a particular “phase” or “period” of an electoral process but rather on-going. Citizens simply register to vote when they have come of age, have made the decision to take part in elections, or have moved electoral precincts (districts or subdivisions). In countries transitioning into democratic rule however, certain steps must be taken in order for EMBs to establish official lists of voters.
In such instances, this task entails much more than simply establishing registration offices. The public must be informed of their right to vote, the reason for voter registration, and where or how this registration will take place. In cases where it is applicable, voters should also be aware that where they have registered is where they must vote. In some cases voter registration might be easily combined with a country’s existing citizen identification card system. In other instances, an entirely new registration process, and sometimes even a new census, is necessary. Boundary delineation is also necessary, separating voters into precincts or electoral districts.
Where voter registration is an actual event undertaken by an EMB (as opposed to an on going process by government institutions) media play a vital role as both watchdog and vehicle for outreach (voter education) on registration. If voters are not aware of their right to register or, indeed, how to register, or if they are unlawfully not permitted to register, this will negatively impact an election before the process has even taken off. How voter registration is implemented will also greatly affect the credibility and fairness of an election. During this phase, here are just a few issues or questions for media to pay attention to:
The candidate nomination period is sometimes combined with the voter registration period. In truth, both are part of the “pre-campaign” period. Yet there are distinct issues regarding nomination of candidates which the media should pay specific attention to. The media may play a role in informing voters about candidates’ platforms at this point; but they are also a source of information for potential candidates. Media will need to be familiar with the process this phase, and should be able to answer the following questions:
This pre-campaign period also involves a number of other key issues that media should follow, such as an EMB’s progress in finalizing operational plans, determining voting centre and station locations, and conducting voter education and information.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++For the media the start of the campaign period is when election coverage really begins to take off. This is often the longest part of the electoral process, with the greatest media resources allocated, and the greatest likelihood that media will be able to impact the electorate. This is also a period of time when regulatory framework surrounding media and the elections begins to become more complex or nuanced.
Although campaign reporting might reasonably be seen as an extension of normal reporting skills, there are several distinct considerations at point out:
Parties and candidates frequently use a range of techniques for campaigning, however, journalists should be familiar with, and cast a critical eye on, these techniques in order to ensure they are carrying out incisive and balanced reporting. This is important both in order to ensure that media are not themselves manipulated, but also so that they can explain these strategies to their audience.
Some common approaches parties and candidates use during campaigns can be summarized as follows:
The Reporters Without Borders Handbook for Journalists During Elections provides these tips in dealing with campaign tactics and rhetoric:
[i] Herve Barraquand and Martine Anstett. Handbook for Journalists During Elections (Paris: International Organization of La Francophone, nd), 52-53
In most countries, stage-based political events such as town hall meetings, rallies, or public debates, remain an important tool of party and candidate media strategies. These events serve three key purposes:
The political rally may do other things as well. Political rallies are often used to showcase the support of a well-known singer, actor, or television personality, thereby increasing a candidate’s “likeability” through proximity with popular figures. As such, celebrity endorsements are a common feature of political campaigns.
Each of these aims requires, to some degree, cooperation of the media. Candidates remain in the public eye only if the media cover events. Positions remain unchallenged only if the media fail to report alternative views. This presents journalists and editors with a noteworthy dilemma: rallies are big events and as such are newsworthy; on the other hand however, the substance of such rallies is usually highly predictable and therefore is not newsworthy. Pack mentality tends to win over this dilemma however – the assumption standing that other media will report and therefore so must all outlets.
Subjecting politicians' political platforms to critical scrutiny is still a necessary part of election reporting, however. Mere stenographic repetition of politicians’ statements is not adequate journalism. Balance needs to be sought, both through quoting reactions to what politicians say and through ensuring that political events of different parties and candidates are fairly reported. A comprehensive and balanced report on a political rally or other event is likely to include all these elements as well:
The public and media have become increasingly interested in campaign finance in recent years. This is in part because of the growing sums of money spent on campaigns and the challenges of fairly regulating this support. The interest is also a result of concerns regarding the undue influence of money in democratic processes.
Regulations on campaign financing and spending vary considerably from country to country, and indeed between different types of elections within a country. Some countries have detailed legislation regarding campaign financing but very little legislation regarding spending. In the United States, for example, there are number of limitations on how and where campaign money is sourced, while there are no limits for campaign spending. In the Britain, on the other hand, campaign-spending limits are determined by the size of an electoral district.
A journalist covering a candidate or party campaigning will need to become well versed in relevant legislation for that election. They will also want to consider what particular issues are important to the public. Here are a few questions relevant to campaign finance reporting:
In new democracies, campaign finance information might not be readily available to the media or public. Indeed, much of this information might not be reported to the EMB, whether or not it is required. Furthermore, information parties and candidates report on might be difficult to verify. Determining both sources and spending may therefore require some degree of investigative journalism skill. In some circumstances this issue is particularly sensitive, or even dangerous. It is therefore extremely important that both electoral laws and general legislation on rights and protection of media are robust, and furthermore, that enforcement mechanisms are in place.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Elections have often been reported in a top-down manner. This means that the media tend to focus on relaying, and perhaps commenting on, manifestoes, pledges, and speeches of parties and candidates. An electorate consumes these messages as relayed by the media and makes its vote choice accordingly. This is not always the case of course, and any top down reporting is increasingly challenged, or offset, through the advantages and diversity of new media, including what is broadcast by established news agencies as well as by citizens themselves (through blogs, Twitter, and other social media sites).
Bottom-up reporting has also been labelled “voters-voice reporting” (coined by the Institute for Media Policy and Civil Society - IMPACS), as well as citizen-oriented journalism. This takes as its focal point concerns of citizens in elections - rather than agendas of politicians or candidates. From this starting point, bottom-up reporting attempts to do two things:
IMPACS argued that, in order to reverse the top down reporting approach, journalists should think like the public, not the politicians. In doing so, journalists seek to discover voters’ preoccupations – which may often be local and ‘un-newsworthy’, as judged by traditional news criteria. IMPACS pointed out that this is usually more challenging work for journalists as it may involve going out and interviewing voters, while simultaneously attending press conferences and political rallies. In addition, bottom up reporting requires substantial background research on the issues.
However, new media has dramatically increased the access of traditional media to the ‘voice’ of the public, and media’s ability to gauge – and engage with – the public and their views. It has also improved traditional media’s ability to promote interaction between candidates and citizens. Perhaps even more significantly, new media has allowed the public to bypass traditional media altogether and create their own forums for discussion, debate, organising, lobbying and so on, on issues they feel are important.[i]
[i] Ross Howard, Media + Elections, An Elections Reporting Handbook, (IMPACS Associate, 2004), 20-22
Used properly, opinion polls can be an important way of measuring what voters think about particular issues, parties, and candidates. Newspapers and broadcasters often commission their own polls to give them information about voters' intentions. An opinion poll can also be a means of determining what voters think about a particular issue - or what they think the important issues are. These issues might not be the similar to those deemed important by politicians. Arguably, opinion polls help enhance democratic choice. For example, in a first past the post system, a poll might assist those who wish to vote tactically to ensure certain candidates fail. This is done by not voting for a favourite (or first) choice but instead, voting for a candidate who is more likely to win over a less favourite option.
The danger with opinion polls is that they are often subject to manipulation or inaccuracies at many levels: question choice and wording, sample choice and size, survey timing, and so on, can all impact the results of a poll. This impact is quite distinct from a normal margin of error form of survey, and furthermore. A well-conducted poll is often remarkably accurate. Poll limitations must be clearly understood as well however. That is why media reporting of opinion poll findings demands high professional standards. It is also why reporting on election related opinion polls is often subject to regulation by an electoral supervisory body to make sure that the media are not communicating deliberate falsehoods.
Accuracy, and relevance, is clearly improved if media report the result of all opinion polls, hence minimizing the impact of "rogue" polls, which can occur even with the most professional of polling techniques.
Professional coverage of opinion polls means not only reporting the results of the poll, but also addressing a number of key questions about how the survey was conducted - and conveying this information to the audience:
One of the greatest professional challenges for journalists covering an election campaign is the question of how to report inflammatory language and sentiments conveyed during political campaigns. From a journalist’s point of view, this challenge is a balancing act between two potentially conflicting ethical obligations: reporting accurately and declining to report on anything that will discriminate on racial, religious, national, gender, or other grounds.
In practice, however, and while using professional reporting practices, the dilemma may be more imagined than real. Balance is usually the key in ensuring the critical balance. Balance involves citing differing or opposing viewpoints. It also entails placing the words of politicians in accurate contexts.
In certain circumstances, accurate reporting of inflammatory or hateful language or images may serve to undermine intentions of the source, in this case parties or candidates. Often, extremist politicians present themselves to an electorate as “moderate” and simply articulating widely held sentiments (whether it be immigrants, national minorities, gender, or the like). In addition to exposing inflammatory comments and actions of parties and candidates, and thereby potentially undermining their broader credibility, it is also the responsibility of the media to document the consequences of such words and actions. If members of an audience leave a political rally and inflict violence on opponents or supporters, this is vital context that must be reported.
The balancing act of reporting hate speech and actions plays a positive and useful purpose. Not only does it provide an opportunity for factual content of inflammatory messages to be challenged, but it also gives voice to those who are the targets of the inflammatory messages, thereby nulling the dehumanizing effects of hate speech and actions.
More broadly, accurate reporting of hate speech and actions is a valuable early warning tool, indicating the potential for serious social conflict or human rights violations within a campaign. One of the most important arguments against banning hate speech is that it provides an opportunity for a society to address causes of, and solutions for, prejudice and hatred, rather than avoiding the topic altogether. Responsible media reporting plays a crucial part in this. For more information, see section Hate Speech – Operators of the Regulator, within the chapter: Legal Framework for Media and Elections.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Once voting centres have opened, the role of the media changes from what it was during the campaign period - and specific rules may be devised to govern this shift. Candidate and party campaigns will have come to an end and in some countries there will be little to no news coverage allowed during this phase. Nevertheless, this period is one of the busiest for newsrooms and journalists alike, as each attempt to gather information on how the vote is progressing and the likely outcome of the election. Journalists will be present at voting centres to ensure they can provide first hand accounts in their reporting. Media outlets might also be conducting exit polls during this period. The vitality of media presence is key to ensuring peaceful, free and fair conduct of voting day or days.
Campaign Silence and Coverage Silence Period
In practice, the shift from the campaign period to the ‘voting period’ may have taken place earlier much earlier than voting day itself, through an embargo on political campaign reporting, opinion poll reporting, direct access broadcasts, or advertisements - or all of these. For more information, see section: News Blackouts.
Issues posed by a ban on voting day or period reporting become considerably more complex depending on how long the vote actually takes, as well as how many time zones a country spans. In the later instance, results in one time zone may become available before voting has finished in another. Similarly, if results are tallied on a state-by-state or precinct-by-precinct basis, individual tallies may become available before others.
In essence there are two main imperatives at stake:
The first of these is more straightforward than the second. It is usually not difficult to strike a balance between allowing the media some sort of special access to report on the voting process while simultaneously ensuring voters' secrecy and security is not breached.
However, ensuring maximum transparency and flow of information without unduly interfering with the process itself can pose more challenging difficult, and as such, a greater variety of approaches have been adopted.
Media Access to Voting Centres
Media presence at polling stations is important for the media’s role as watchdog. Presence is also important in ensuring voters are kept informed of progress of the vote and count. New media has particularly enhanced both of these roles by allowing updates to be filed in real time. In order to safeguard the transparency of the process, it is essential that an EMB facilitate this important presence of media at voting centres.
What the media require, for the most part, is fairly general access - film or still photographs of queues of potential voters, of ballots being cast, and so forth. Journalists are often provided a degree of access that is not granted to the general public. Sometimes non-voters are excluded from polling stations altogether – in an attempt to avoid last-minute intimidation – however journalists and observers who can produce accreditation are exempt from this. Media and observers are subject to the same basic constraints as everyone else however, despite this privilege. This means that actions of journalists within a voting centre (or anywhere else, for that matter) cannot constitute intimidation or influence on the election process. Furthermore, journalists' access to voting centres is only under the control, and with the agreement, of the election officer presiding.
The Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) produced a useful list of "do's and don'ts" for the media in the 1999 South African elections. Media workers could:
The guidelines also pointed out that some voters might not want to be interviewed or have their photograph taken.
What media workers were not allowed to do was:
The EISA guidelines also pointed out that there were a number of general prohibitions that also applied to media workers, who could not:
[i] Raymond Louw, A Handbook on the Media and Electoral Law, (Johannesburg: Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, 1999) http://www.eisa.org.za
Election results are the culmination of an election and the news that everyone is waiting for. It is important that the media report these results accurately and as quickly as possible. It is just as important that EMBs facilitate this process. Reporting results may sound the least complicated aspect of an entire election reporting process, at least in principle. Yet it is remarkable how often this can be the most chaotic or confusing stage of an election, for media and audiences alike. In the Zimbabwe referendum of 2000, not a single newspaper or broadcasting station succeeded in reporting the correct results as issued by the Registrar General's Office.[i]
Depending on election procedures, a country’s infrastructure, or any unforeseen issues, results counting can last a matter of hours to a matter of weeks. In Afghanistan, counting periods in elections in both 2009 and 2010 took months. Manual counts are especially time consuming processes. A recount, or the proceedings of a complaints mechanism might also delay the announcement of official results.
Any protracted counting period prior to the release of final results, is likely to be a sensitive one. EMBs will usually endeavour to complete all processes as quickly as possible as any delay in results might result in the perception that results have been tampered with. Diligence and promptness is a challenging balance for election officials.
Meanwhile media outlets will often compete with each other to be the first to release predicted results. While poorly founded predictions have the potential to add confusion and potentially harm an electoral process, well-founded predictions have the potential of benefiting and bolstering the process.
EMBs will sometimes release gradual results. However, there are also other means for media to predict the final outcome. These include quick counts and exit polls. In some instances these tools can also be valuable in deterring counting fraud through illuminating significant differences between predicted results and final results. This is useful or accurate if quick counts or exit polls were conducted on accurate and credible statistical premises. For example, it is important that the size and nature of sample selections is representative of the electorate. However, even accurate exit polls or quick counts have the potential to harm an electoral process. This is particularly true for exit polls conducted in dangerous circumstances. The following pages provide a discussion of these two methods and include potential dangers of each.
[i] Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, A question of balance: The Zimbabwean media and the constitutional referendum (Harare: March 2000).
An exit poll is a survey of people who have just voted – as they “exit” from a voting station or centre. Results allows ‘pollsters’ to predict the overall result.
Advantages of an exit poll are that they provide the public with an immediate gauge of the likely election outcome. This is all the more true given the advantages of immediate broadcast via new media, such as Twitter. Exit polls can act as a valuable safeguard against counting fraud. The potential pitfalls however, are obvious: voters may provide misleading information or refuse to take part, a sample size may not be adequately representative, and so forth. Well-constructed exit polls, however, are usually an extremely accurate means of predicting the result; hence their popularity with the media.
Information gathered in exit polls can often be complex. Detailed demographic information – sex, age, ethnicity, and income, for example – will allow more reliable predictions. Sometimes, exit pollsters also gather additional information about why voters made the choice they did. In reporting exit polls, the same considerations apply as with opinion polls. Only exit polls run by reputable organisations should be reported. Reporting should include information about the location of the polling and sample size, along with the margin of error. However, since exit polls are not, strictly speaking, predictive, there are various other questions to consider:
Inconsistencies between exit polls and results are only indicative. They do not prove that there was rigging or malpractice. As in Venezuela, further investigation would be needed to establish the cause of inconsistency between results. There would be cause for concern, however, if news media did not try to explore and explain these inconsistencies, as in the US in 2004. And, of course, actually altering exit poll findings is seriously unethical.
What has also become a matter of controversy is the reporting of exit poll results before actual voting has finished. This is particularly an issue in large countries spread across several time zones. The country where this has been a particular issue is the United States – spread across several time zones and with widespread Internet access. The main argument against reporting exit poll findings before the end of voting is that these might influence people who have not yet voted. Journalists maintain that just because they have acquired a piece of information (like an exit poll result) does not mean that they have to publish it immediately. Sometimes journalists may consider it an ethical obligation not to do so. This is a debate that has no definitive resolution.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Unofficial quick counts are a parallel counting mechanism that is important to distinguish from exit polls. A quick count is a partial count of actual results (whereas exit polls are simply a variation of an opinion poll), used to predict the actual full result. A quick count may often be used as a means of forestalling any manipulation of the results. For the media, of course, the interest is similar to that of an exit poll in that a quick count enables them to run an early results story.
Much the same as with exit polls, it is crucial that media report quick counts with precision and contextual information (what count actually measures, where, and how the information was gathered).
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Media responsibility in an election does not stop with the announcement of the result. Indeed, it is a continuing story, of important to the public, and includes reporting on electoral disputes mechanisms and the outcome of related cases[1], the inauguration of those who are newly elected, the selection of a new government, and implementation of campaign promises.
Post election reporting is one of the most important elements of election coverage and of political reporting more generally. Reporters in healthy democracies continue to scrutinise electoral authorities and elected officials, through assessing their promises, actions, and policies, as time progresses. It is important for journalism education and training programs to include this on-going ‘watchdog’ role in courses, providing journalists with necessary research, analytical and writing skills to continue to carry out quality reporting of all branches of government between elections.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Media and Elections topic area was first added to the ACE website in 2001. The topic area’s lead writer was Richard Carver of Oxford Media Research Limited and developed under the supervision of IFES.
International IDEA managed the 2006 revision of the Media and Elections topic area for this current version of ACE. Richard Carver was again the lead writer, working under the supervision of Virginia Beramendi Heine. Linda Ederberg and Maiko Shimizu of IDEA provided extensive administrative and copyediting services and uploading material to the website.
The 2012 update to this topic area was carried out by Vanessa Johanson Alpern. Ms. Nellika Little (independent), Dr. Andy Williamson (independent), Ms. Bronwen Harvey (Centre for Democratic Institutions), Ms. Ann Cooper (Columbia Graduate School of Journalism), and Mr. Abdullahi Boru Halakhe (International Crisis Group) are gratefully acknowledged for their input on sections of the topic area.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++There has been considerable worldwide attention given to the fact that new media played a critical role in the wave of Arab Spring revolutions that began in 2011. However, new media has also played a critical role in providing transparency in post-revolution elections as well. This case study provides information on one such election transparency endeavor, highlighting how “netizens”[i] organized to broadcast information about voting day activities in the 2011 Egypt parliamentary elections.
New media is not a new phenomenon for Arab Spring revolution countries. Facebook, blogs, Twitter, YouTube and other social networking sites, gained traction there over the years, just as they did elsewhere. However, the revolutions provided an environment that further fueled dramatic growth and diversification in new media usage. Of course, there is little grounding for claiming that the revolutions were a result of new media per-se. Instead, the revolutions were born from a host of circumstances that gave rise to social unrest, including spikes in wheat prices, decades of political repression, poverty, as well as many country-specific circumstances.
However, new media facilitated a hereto-unprecedented means for social unrest to pronounce itself, mobilize support, and organise. New media put information in the hands of regular citizens and through its internet-based nature, was able to evade strict environments of information censorship in each of the Arab Spring countries. As one dissertation case study on the Egyptian revolution states:
Due to the recent nature of these events, the scholarly and academic discourse is still developing, and there is fairly limited data and analysis of the role of social media in the Arab Spring. This is not to imply that there is a lack of information. What sets the information apart is the nature of its sources: for one of the first times in history the tumultuous events of the Arab Spring have been covered by ordinary citizens via Twitter, Facebook, online blogs, and videos on YouTube, more so than the mainstream media. According to the 2011 Arab Social Media Report, 94% of Tunisians get their news from social media tools, as do 88% of Egyptians. “Both countries also relied at least on state-sponsored media for their information (at 40% and 36% of people in Tunisia and Egypt respectively).” Equally noteworthy, in Egypt there are now more users of Facebook than there are subscribers to newspapers. In addition to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, personal blogs have been used as an insider perspective to the ongoing revolutions. The fact that these tools of social networking that have previously had a reputation strictly for socializing are now being used as sources for information and data, speaks volumes of their relevance in contemporary political mobilization.[ii]
While analyses of new media is usually devoted to its use in facilitating these revolutions and political mobilization in general, it is also important to recognize the critical role new media played in providing transparency to elections which came afterward. The parliamentary elections in Egypt that began in November 2011 were the first genuine elections the country had witnessed since the overthrow of the monarchy in 1952. And new media was there to scrutinise and debate those elections.
The groundwork had been laid less than a year before the revolutions began, when one activist organization, U-Shahid (“You are a witness” in Arabic), began organizing a network of social media-savvy citizens to observe the 2010 parliamentary elections, elections which would prove to be fraught with problems, oppressed opposition, stifled independent media, and stacked results.[iii] In this YouTube clip, organizer and well known Egyptian activist Esraa Abdel Fattah explains to Human Rights First, the group’s motivations in calling for reform using new technologies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ANkpNSVplDs#!
The organization was up against great odds in their endeavor to monitor the upcoming (pre-revolution) elections. However, that experience gave the activists an opportunity to put methodologies to the test, fine-tune techniques and approaches, and garner support. Once the revolution had taken place, resulting in the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, U-Shahid found itself operating in a new environment in which new media flourished, while local traditional media as well as election observation groups were struggling with the evolving (and oscillating) environment of freedom.
Here is an excerpt from a Christian Science Monitor article on the group’s plans prior to that election:
"Unfortunately most of the indications are very terrible, very negative, very worrying, especially the fight which has been launched against the independent media," says Bahey el-Din Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.
While that bodes ill for Mr. Mubarak's promise that the election will be clean, a group of bloggers and activists are using the Internet, cellphones, and citizen engagement to create a monitoring process they predict will expose government misbehavior.
How Twitter could tweak the election scene
The website U-Shahid.org, which means "you are a witness," will plot reports of election irregularities on an interactive map of Egypt. Citizens can submit reports via text message, Twitter, or e-mail, along with photo or video verification. The effort's organizers hope it will push regular citizens toward political participation.
"We think it's a new tool for election monitoring that will attract more people to participate," says Esraa Abdel Fattah, a project organizer and activist who was arrested after she used a social-networking site to help organize a national strike in 2008. "We want them to feel there is something happening in Egypt. They should participate and they should see there is something illegal going on. This election is window dressing to say to the world that we have elections and democracy in Egypt. But we have no democracy. It's fake."
The group has recruited 125 volunteers from around the country, and those people have used their own networks to recruit and train more volunteers. Most of the people involved are regular citizens, not seasoned activists, says Kamal Nabil, director of the Development and Institutionalization Support Center, the Egyptian nongovernmental organization administering the project.
On a recent afternoon, about 35 volunteers gathered for training. As the late-afternoon sun streamed through the window, they learned how to manage the mapping technology and contribute photos and videos through Twitter to report election violations.
They will be filling a void. In addition to barring international election monitors, local civil society groups are expecting obstacles to their own monitoring efforts. The government recently closed a slew of satellite stations and placed restrictions on live television broadcasts and mass text messaging.[iv]
On election day, U-Shahid put their expertise to work, stationing citizen journalists at voting stations around the country so as to be able to report findings unhindered and in real time. Their findings were compiled and uploaded to the U-Shahid website. U-Shahid’s 600 voting station reports transmitted through social media showed that only in only 5% of locations voting was occurring without incident. The majority of the reports indicated minor voting problems such as voting centres opening late (although some reports indicated considerable delays of more than 6 hours) or missing material (official stamps and so forth). Thirty-five per cent of the reports were able to expose serious issues such as illegal campaigning, while 4% indicated incidents of violence.
[i] Citizens who are active users of internet communities, such as blogs and social networks.
[ii] Madeline Storck, “The role of Social Media in Political Mobilisation: A Case Study of the January 2011 Egyptian Uprisings” (dissertation at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, December 20, 2011), 5-6
[iii] See for example this BBC report from November 28, 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11855691
[iv] Kristen Chick, “Volunteers go hi-tech to map Egypt election irregularities:
President Hosni Mubarak's regime has rejected US calls to allow foreign observers at Egypt elections this weekend. But volunteers, armed with innovative software, are undeterred,”
Christian Science Monitor, November 22, 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/1122/Volunteers-go-hi-tech-to-map-Egypt-election-irregularities
This case study from Georgia highlights the way observers can give recommendations during election periods by using the results of media monitoring.
Media Part of the Debate in Georgian Election
With just over a week to go before Georgia's parliamentary vote, attention is increasingly focusing on how the country's television reporters are affecting voter sympathies.
"Journalists cover press conferences and air politicians' statements, but that's all," said Maia Mikashavidze, dean of the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management in Tbilisi. "There are no follow-up questions why it happened, why he or she said this. ... in the end, the voters suffer because of it."
In its April 2008 interim report on Georgia's election environment, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's observer mission took issue with coverage of the election campaign. Observer mission media analyst Rasto Kuzel said that monitoring of national broadcasters Rustavi-2 and Mze (part of the same company as Rustavi-2) and local broadcasters Adjara and Kavkasia "all show [a] lack of balance."
The stations provide "overwhelmingly positive and neutral coverage" for the governing United National Movement, while opposition coverage swings more neutral than positive, he continued.
A string of boycotts during April could have contributed to that imbalance. The nine-party United Opposition Movement ran a nearly month-long boycott of Rustavi-2 and Mze for allegedly biased coverage that was suspended on April 19. In turn, Rustavi-2 announced that it was suspending coverage of the opposition bloc for insults delivered by Movement leader Levan Gachechiladze and supporters. The two sides finally resumed communications on April 28.
The frequent intersection between official and campaign events could also play a role. On May 7, Rustavi-2, Mze, Adjara TV and Georgian Public Broadcasting all aired a 20-minute segment from a meeting between President Mikheil Saakashvili, cabinet members and regional officials about plans to revive Kutaisi, Georgia's second largest city. Promises of such social welfare projects have featured prominently in the National Movement's campaign.
"The media should not only be engaged in [the] positive description of projects which are submitted by the government, but the media should also play a role to question and also [to] offer a critical point of view whether the public money is [used] properly or whether there are some problems," said Kuzel.
As was mentioned in the OSCE's presidential election reports, Kuzel noted, "there is still visibility of political influence on the main TV networks. This, of course, could prevent the media outlet from offering more balanced coverage."
Based on its program lineup, however, Georgian television's interest in mixing up its election coverage would appear to be running strong.
In addition to its popular political talk show PrimeTime, Rustavi-2 has unveiled two new talk shows (Answer the People and Triangle) that focus on political debates and viewer Q&As.
Mze, owned by Rustavi-2, has restricted its election programming to brief news reports about the campaign. Although Imedi TV, once the most popular Georgian TV outlet, has returned to the air, it will not be broadcasting news programs until after the May 21 parliamentary vote.
Meanwhile, Georgian Public Broadcasting, a key target for opposition criticism during the January presidential elections, receives cautious kudos from the OSCE for improving the balance of its campaign coverage.
The station, now headed by a new president and board of trustees, airs election debates twice per week, a political platform presentation show once per week, and offers free airtime for party presentations three times per week. It has also signed a memorandum with political parties to provide "balanced, impartial and objective" coverage of their activities.
The coverage has already won the approval of one debutante opposition politician. "Public television's coverage is the most objective compared with the others," said Magda Anikashvili, a former Imedi TV anchor now running for parliament with the newly formed Christian-Democratic Movement.
Nonetheless, as with Rustavi-2 and Mze, the OSCE observer mission found that public television "devoted significant and favorable coverage to activities of the authorities, outside the campaign context, thus benefiting candidates with a pro-government orientation."
A recent call by President Saakashvili for government ministers and regional governors to refrain from taking part in the campaign has changed little, she added.
The predominance of United National Movement advertisements sparks much of that frustration. The party dominates paid advertising on television spots can cost anywhere from $16,000 for 30 seconds (Rustavi-2; evening PrimeTime talk show) to $1,500 per 30 seconds (Mze; evening newscast). The United Opposition Movement and the Christian-Democratic Movement are so far the only opposition parties to have taken out fee-based TV ads.
Free time slots ranging from 30 seconds per hour on private stations to 60 seconds per hour on Georgian Public Broadcasting are available for parties that received more than 4 percent of the vote in Georgia's 2004 parliamentary elections and 3 percent of the vote in its 2006 local elections.
Billboards are also cause for some rancor.
In an apparent bid to reduce the omnipresence of ruling party ads in Tbilisi streets, Saakashvili recently called for the National Movement to hand over billboard space to opposition parties "to let them introduce to society what they want to do for the country." To date, no party has taken him up on the offer.
One opposition election campaign budget manager, however, says that money is not the main issue. While ad placement companies may not openly refuse to sell ad space to a party, reasons are usually found to block the deal, alleged the Republican Party's election campaign fund manager, Gigla Agulashvili.
"They say that conditions have changed, they delay signing the contract or use other arguments and ways to avoid the deal with us as soon as they get to know who we are," said Agulashvili. "It is hard to say whether it is businesses being careful, trying to avoid possible
Editor's note: Nina Akhmeteli is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi. 12 May 2008, http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav051308b.shtml
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++This case study is an example of the (often hidden) impacts of media ownership and bribery on election reporting, and some measures taken to make election reporting fairer.
Breaking Mould of Election Coverage in Nigeria
IWPR programme works with local journalists to improve credibility of political reporting.
IWPR has sought to tackle two of the main problems bedeviling Nigerian journalism as part of its innovative reporting project that has aimed to enhance local journalists’ coverage of Nigeria’s elections.
With so much of the news sector controlled or influenced by political interests and poorly paid reporters supplementing their income with bribes from politicians, IWPR’s Nigerian Election News Report, NENR, pursued a determinedly independent line and paid its contributors decent rates for their stories.
NENR was established by IWPR and its Nigerian partner, the International Press Centre, IPC, in March 2011 in the run up to national elections later in the year. It continues to hold elected politicians to account in the post-election period and to keep Nigerian journalists up to date with what is happening across the country. It runs up to six political stories every day - which can be accessed in both audio and print format – from contributing journalists.
Editor of the service, and IPC director, Lanre Arogundade said NENR has been breaking new ground in Nigerian election coverage, “We’re offering something quite unusual. We tell our stories without political prejudice and, because of our network of contributing journalists across the country, we can access news and report it fast – often faster than more mainstream sources, like newspapers.”
The audio versions of the news stories are delivered free of charge to the mobile phones of over 1500 subscribing journalists across Nigeria. Those with access to the internet can also view and listen to the stories online at www.nigerianelectionnewsreport.com. The website, even in post-election period, has been registering hundreds of hits each day.
Journalists say they like NENR because of its accuracy and brevity. “NENR has been useful; I access the site regularly for brief and straight-to-the-point stories on the elections… the inclusion of audio in all the reports is remarkable,” said Chinedu Echianu from the radio station Vision FM, in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.
The service directly addresses two of the most pressing issues in Nigerian media, ownership and journalists’ remuneration.
Media ownership in Nigeria is heavily concentrated in political hands. Broadcast media, in particular, are mostly owned by the federal or state governments.
IWPR surveyed 100 working journalists on the impact of media ownership on their journalism, with some 45 per cent saying the owners influenced editorial content a great deal.
Indeed, analysis of media coverage in past Nigerian elections has been damning. The Commonwealth Observer Group said in its report on the 2007 elections that “significant state ownership of the broadcast media negatively impacted on and influenced the coverage in favour of incumbents’ parties”.
It noted that there were also numerous official complaints from candidates who claimed to have been denied airtime or coverage because of political bias of media owners.
NENR has been politically neutral and therefore provided a much needed outlet for stories of public interest in the run-up to the recent election and now, in the post-election period.
Observer groups are yet to pronounce on this years’ election coverage but journalists who contributed to NENR and used its output for their own reports say it was a source of fair and balanced news.
NENR contributor, Bulama Yerima, who comes from the strife-torn state of Borno, where he works for the state- owned radio and TV corporation, said the stories he sent NENR would not have been aired on his station. “I can’t write these stories for my station because of censorship,” he said.
Meanwhile, journalists working for independent outlets exercise a degree of self-censorship: because their wages are so poor, many take bribes from politicians they write about in order to make ends meet.
"Many Nigerian journalists are paid very poorly." Arogundade said. "Often their only source of income is 'thank yous' for the stories they write. But journalism's role in democracy is diminished when those thank yous come from politicians.
“The Nigerian Election News Report offers an alternative income for the Nigerian journalist by rewarding good political journalism and, as a result, provides a source of reliable news for the public at this politically sensitive time."
The service has won praise from the president of the Guild of Editors, Gbenga Adefaye, who understands the day-to-day challenges faced by journalists.
“This service is not just to show your skills - it gives the platform to present your report objectively.” he told prospective contributors at the launch of NENR. “What the website will do is improve journalism generally.”
That has certainly been the case for Yerima, “The experience is rewarding… the editing skill of the news editors is such that it teaches me a lot.”
NENR is the second of a two-part programme funded by the International Republican Institute, IRI, through a grant from USAID and DFID.
The first part was a series of training workshops that prepared journalists across Nigeria to contribute to NENR. IWPR trained over 100 working reporters and 40 trainees. The sessions gave the journalists the confidence to conduct rigorous interviews with politicians, gather views from street, write in-depth reports and cover conflict in sensitive manner.
Journalism professor, Ivor Gaber, was one of the trainers on the course, says the main challenge was to get journalists to think beyond the political horse-trading that dominates election coverage.
“Who is up and who is down within political parties may be fascinating for politics addicts, but in a country with over 50 political parties, it can become pretty tedious. What most people I talk to care about is much more practical – they want to know who will sort out the power shortages, improve roads and transport and improve job prospects for their children. Our workshops encouraged journalists to focus on issues, not political squabbles.”
Workshops also included sessions for journalists on how to stay safe – crucial in a country where elections are associated with violence. Journalist, Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, from the Daily Trust newspaper said, “The workshop helped tremendously in shaping the way I cover most of my reports especially in the areas of conflict and security threats.”
When northern Nigeria erupted into violence, these skills proved their worth and NENR was able to receive reports from the worst-affected areas.
As Nigeria settles back into post-election life and the violence recedes, IWPR hopes NENR will continue to hold Nigerians to account.
Nigeria has greater oil resources than Qatar and Libya and its geo-political influence extends far beyond its own borders. Yet, democracy has under-delivered for Nigerians. Electricity and power services are notoriously unreliable, personal security is poor and wealth disparities are extreme.
Veronica Oakeshott, who coordinates the IWPR programme in Nigeria, said, “Our mission is to hasten the day when politicians no longer feel they can promise the world and deliver a pittance. When they know their every move is being watched by skilled reporters, they will raise their game, and with it the fortunes of ordinary Nigerians.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++This case study shows the results of media monitoring from a gender perspective in the South African elections of 2009. The monitoring was carried out, and reported on, before during and after the election.
Elections Through a Gender Lens: A South African Perspective
By
Colleen Lowe Morna and Deborah Walter
On 22 April 2009, South Africa went to the polls in hotly contested national elections. Jacob Zuma emerged as the country’s president, with the African National Congress (ANC) just narrowly missing a two-thirds majority.
On the gender front, South Africa soared from 17th to 3rd place in the global ranking of women in parliament, with an 11 per cent increase in women’s representation in the national assembly, rising from 34 to 43 per cent. Only Rwanda (56 per cent) and Sweden (47 per cent) are now ahead of South Africa.
Yet, while the elections and media coverage of them were, by and large, deemed free and fair, some bemoaned the lack of depth in media coverage. Media watchdogs such as the Freedom of Expression Institute raised concerns about the relative absence of serious coverage of the issues involved in the elections. This was also evident in media coverage of gender issues, which constituted a mere 2.4 per cent of election coverage.
For example, much of the media focus on President-elect Jacob Zuma’s polygamous life style centred on who would be the first lady and what it would cost tax payers to have such an extensive first family, rather than what this reflects about his views on the Constitution and women’s rights.
Starting from the premise that freedom of expression means that all views and voices are heard, formal censorship is only one way to silence certain voices. A far more pervasive and worrying form of silencing takes place when the views and voices of certain segments of society are persistently and systematically excluded from the media. That is more often than not the case with gender.
Gender Links (GL)1, in partnership with Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), monitored media leading up to, during, and following the elections, and conducted a televised debate on the findings with key editors and stakeholders.
On the plus side, while women constituted only 10 per cent of all sources in the 1994 elections, that figure had risen to 24 per cent in 2009. That is higher than the global average of 21 per cent women news sources in the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) of 2005. However, considering that women now constitute 43 per cent of members of parliament, and 52 per cent of society, the inescapable conclusion is that we are only half way to where we need to be.
The stock response from editors to these kinds of numbers is that they report what is newsworthy. Sure, most political parties are led by men. But South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance is led by Helen Zille. And the spokesperson of the ruling African National Congress, Jesse Duarte, is a woman.
What about the voters? How often did media reflect their views? According to Gender Links’ Deputy Director Kubi Rama, election media coverage was largely dominated by events, rather than issues. “The issues are what are important and the issues really didn’t get much play,” said Rama. “How are you going to have improved service delivery, what improvements are there going to be around health or welfare, without focusing on parties’ and candidates’ positions on such issues?” If hot button issues like poverty, education, crime, gender violence, HIV and AIDS had been covered with due seriousness, and if journalists had bothered to consult them on such matters of life and death, the voices of women would surely have rung loud and clear.
Qualitative analysis of election coverage conducted by GL also yielded several examples of blatant gender stereotypes. Among them were the prominent coverage given to Zille admitting that she used Botox (Sunday Times, 28 December), references to Zille as the “poster girl” and references to the wife of the leader of the relatively new political party, Congress of the People (COPE) – Wendy Luhabe – as the “Sugar behind Shikota” (Mail and Guardian, 31 October).
The male dominance of politics was underscored by several articles bearing the headline “All the President’s Men” (for example, the 28 August cover of Financial Times; and an article in The Star on 7 April). Several other articles bearing the title “All the President’s Women” – such as the Sunday Independent on 25 January and The Star on 26 January – referred to rumours and allegations concerning a young woman said to be carrying the baby of President Kgalema Motlanthe, who is separated from his wife.
However, there were some positive developments as well. For example, sexist comments like the offside by ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema on women who are raped not asking for taxi money in the morning prompted spirited discussion and a well- positioned piece in the Mail and Guardian (30 January). This, in turn, prompted a debate on whether or not the personal is political.
To its credit, the Mail and Guardian (M&G) also ran an opinion piece by GL on the subject, which prompted several on-line responses. In addition, the Mail and Guardian Critical Thinking Forum partnered with Gender Links, the Human Rights Commission and Constitution Hill in posing this question to a panel on which all the political parties were represented, providing the substance for an M&G special supplement on Gender and the Elections (20 March).
Similarly, South Africa’s public service broadcaster, SABC International, hosted a debate on the place of polygamy in Africa, with two speakers for and two against the practice. The debate took place in front of a regional audience, with questions phoned in by viewers across Africa. Throughout the election period GL ran Gender and Leadership debates that resulted in a checklist for transformative leadership.
Several South African newspapers also ran lengthy profiles of prominent women in politics, including new and emerging leaders in opposition parties. Examples include “Cope’s eager new girl on the block” (on Lynda Odendaal) in the Sunday Independent on 21 December; “Woman with her heels on the ground” (on Wendy Luhabe) in the Sunday Independent of 9 November; “The love of my country has guided me” (on COPE’s Lyndal Shope) in The Star 7 November; “On the campaign with superwoman” (on Helen Zille) in the Saturday Star of 18 April; and “Die-hard had to eat her words” (on former Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo- Ngcuka) in the Sunday Independent of 29 April.
While white male commentators and analysts predominated in all media, the Mail and Guardian frequently used black female experts and opinion shapers like Nikiwe Bikitsha and Phumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who shed refreshing views on the issues (like the Sunday lunch disputes in Bikitsha’s home over whether to vote for COPE or ANC).
The Mail and Guardian also consistently consulted “ordinary” women and men in equal numbers for their views on the elections. The newspaper’s election cover, showing Zuma and Zille, and flagging a supplement on women’s economic empowerment, is an example of the kind of gender balance that GL and media partners who promote gender equality in and through the media hope will be achieved in future coverage.
Although coverage often ignored the gender dimension, there is indication that there is a growing recognition within the media that addressing both sexes makes good business sense for media houses.
During the post-election debate, Nicholas Dawes, incoming editor of the Mail & Guardian, reflected on the print media’s coverage of the elections. “I think it’s a very mixed bag as far as gender goes,” he said. “There were instances where people made a real effort to try and make sure that women’s voices came through more strongly and that questions of gender, both at policy level and in terms of how they play out in our representation of leadership, were represented, but there were clearly other situations that weren’t so great.” Dawes also highlighted a particular approach that M&G used for a more human perspective on the elections. “One of our correspondents, Mandy Russo, went to the rural Eastern Cape, discussing with them what their choices were and why they’d made those choices,” explained Dawes. “We also had a series of profiles of ordinary South Africans, looking at the way they were approaching the elections. It was evenly split between men and women and, gender concerns came through there, implicitly or explicitly.”
Izak Minaar, Head of Research at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), pointed out during a televised debate that women constitute the majority in the country, and that it makes sense for the media to service all audiences, especially the majority. Media monitoring can play a role in helping newsrooms to do so.
“It’s really important that we have people watching over us, checking what we are doing and presenting us with a good analysis as to how we fare in the daily running of the newsroom,” said Minaar. “It’s sometimes difficult to achieve all the goals that you set yourself at the start and I think a regular, good look at how we are doing can help us do better.”
Unfortunately, progress to date continues to be slow, as Sandra Roberts of Media Monitoring Africa pointed out. “In 2009, women constituted 24 per cent of sources and five years ago they constituted 23 per cent. One per cent improvement over five years is not satisfactory at all.”
If women constitute half the population, it’s surely not too much to ask that they be equally seen and heard in the news - at all times but especially during the important process of elections in a democracy. spent some time with a poor family there, and particularly with the women in that household,
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