On 7 September 2020 the coalition of civil society organisations consisting of Journalism Ethics Commission, “Human Rights Platform”, “Ukrainian Institute of Media and Communication”, “Stop Fake (Ukraine)” and association “Women in media” with the support of the Project “European Union and Council of Europe working together to support freedom of media in Ukraine” is launching the monitoring of media coverage of 2020 local elections in Ukraine.
The aim of the monitoring is to inform the society on the media coverage during the electoral campaign as well as to boost the discussion with regard to objectivity and quality of work of media on coverage of the elections and to promote their compliance with international standards and best practices on freedom of expression and independence of media. In addition, the results of the monitoring will contribute to a fairer and more impartial coverage of the electoral process in Ukraine in general, as well as to important changes and improvements in the coverage of future elections.
"This monitoring will provide the media, political candidates, international community and citizens with the criteria for assessing the fairness of the coverage of the electoral process at local level in the specific regions. It will also support the civil society in carrying out professional monitoring of media coverage of elections according to the Council of Europe recommendations and other international standards," said Galyna Smirnova, senior officer of the Project “EU and Council of Europe working together to support media freedom in Ukraine".
The monitoring will cover the period of 5 September - 25 October 2020. During this period 20 media monitoring specialists and 5 experts (analysts) will analyse the content of local socio-political online-media with the biggest audience in 12 regions of Ukraine, namely in Zakarpattia, Rivne, Chernivtsi, Lviv, Volyn, Chernigiv, Sumy, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Kyiv regions as well as in the separate territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions which are under control of Ukrainian government.
"Unlike the media monitoring of presidential and parliamentary campaigns held in 2019, this year's monitoring will cover almost half of Ukraine's regions, and therefore we expect extremely interesting results. Each region is unique, has its own political and media features, its own context in which the electoral campaign takes place. We will be able to compare how online media cover elections in different regions, where there will be the majority of violations, and where the journalists responsibly follow professional standards and ethics, and how balanced they represent all participants of the electoral process", said Diana Dutsyk, Executive Director of the SCO “Ukrainian Institute of Media and Communication”.
The media monitoring specialists will monitor local online-media as well as Facebook pages of political parties and their leaders at national level, profiles of key candidates for the post of majors in the regional centres and pages/profiles of the regional offices of the TOP-5 most popular parties at local level.
"Social networks constitute an influential part of the media landscape nowadays and represent one of the main sources of information for voters. It is a complex ecosystem that contains many aspects. We are focused on Facebook because, according to research, it has a significant impact on the political processes in Ukraine, and thus on the official communication of the TOP-5 parties in each region and TOP-3 potential candidates for the position of head of city council. Monitoring their Facebook pages will help to understand how responsibly the subjects of the electoral process use social networks, as well as to see the difference both between regions and political forces. We will also analyse the pages of TOP-10 parties and their leaders at the national level. The team will also monitor signs of Russian external influence in the online media and on the Facebook pages," - said Olga Yurkova, Co-founder of “StopFake”.
"The impact of the Internet on various spheres of public life, as well as the number of users, is increasing year by year. Thus, according to the State Statistics Service, as of January 1, 2020, there were 28 million 787 thousand Internet users in Ukraine, out of which 25 million 683 thousand - individuals. Global figures, according to the Digital 2020 report, are as follows: more than 4.5 billion people use the Internet, while the number of social network users amounts to 3.8 billion. In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic has speeded up the process of transition from offline to online segments of our daily lives. Consequently, our 2020 local elections will be held under bigger influence of the Internet, even compared to last year's campaigns. That is why the focus of our research is on online media and social networks”, - said Oleksandr Burmahin, Executive Director of the SCO “Human Rights Platform ”.
The monitoring will include both quantitative and qualitative analysis.
The quantitative analysis will focus on the amount of space allocated to certain political subjects, as well as on the tone in which they are covered - positive, neutral or negative. Attention will also be paid to the thematic structure of the news.
The qualitative analysis will be used to evaluate the performance of the media against such characteristics as ethical or professional standards that cannot be quantified.
In particular, media monitoring specialists will analyse the choice of issues, the omission of certain information, the appropriation of official position, the positioning of events, provocative vocabulary etc. In addition, they will evaluate the work of the media in accordance with the principles and standards enshrined in the Code of Ethics of Ukrainian Journalist. They will analyse gender aspects and identify violations of the law in terms of coverage of elections.
"Our media monitoring is becoming extremely relevant because of gender analysis given the introduction of a 40% gender minimum in party lists. This means that there must be at least two candidates of each sex in each five positions of party list. The results of the monitoring will show whether in this connection the qualitative coverage of women’s participation in the local elections will increase in the media and social networks”, - said Elyzaveta Kuzmenko, Media Monitoring Coordinator, Head of the SCO “Association “Women in the Media”.
The experts of the monitoring emphasize that the monitoring’s objective is not only to criticize, but also help local media improve the quality of their content.
Based on the monitoring results, the experts will publish two interim and one final reports with key conclusions and recommendations.
It is worth noting that a practical guide “Coverage of elections in Ukraine” containing useful tools for improving the quality of materials during election campaigns is available (https://bit.ly/3a63gDI) for journalists and editorial offices. The Guide was prepared based on the results of the monitoring of media coverage of the presidential campaign in Ukraine held on January - April 2019.
Additional information:
The Project “European Union and Council of Europe working together to support freedom of media in Ukraine” is aimed to enhance the role of media, its freedom and safety, and the public broadcaster as an instrument for consensus building in the Ukrainian society. The Project is financed by the European Union and the Council of Europe.
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