Media Monitoring Africa launches report on elections coverage
SANDTON – Media Monitoring Africa released a report highlighting different areas of coverage and whether or not it was fair.
Media Monitoring Africa launched their report of the media coverage in Bryanston and highlighted successes and missed opportunities within the media.
From 1 March to 15 May, Media Monitoring Africa monitored over 700 different media outlets in all eleven official languages. They monitored whether not the news that was reported was fair, encompassed a range of views and whether or not it was people-centred.
Sarah Findlay, the elections head for Media Monitoring Africa, explained that over 30 per cent of stories were primarily political and focused on party politics, national politics or electioneering, with only six per cent of stories focusing on service delivery. However, she said that this was a positive and they hope to see this more in future elections.
Almost half of the voices represented in the media belong to politicians, however Findlay said that it is encouraging to see that citizens had their voices included in 14 per cent of stories about elections. “It means that politicians are driving the media agenda, they are putting out what they want and we are just absorbing it. There isn’t a lot of interrogation or other perspectives.”
The top five parties had a very proportional media representation in line with the amount of votes they received, however there were a few outliers with the smaller parties. Findlay explained, that Good, the party started by Patricia De Lille, received just under three per cent of media coverage despite winning less than one per cent of votes. Parties including the United Democratic Movement, African Transformation Movement and Congress of the People also received a large amount of coverage compared to the amount of votes they received.
Findlay said that the representation of women in media was by far the most disproportionate, with male voices being represented 80 per cent of the time.
“Although 51 per cent of the population and the IEC [Independent Electoral Commission] note that there are two million more women registered voters than men, women are still only accessed 20 per cent of the time.”
Journalists Genevieve Quintal, Phatiswa Magopeni and Sipho Hlongwane shared their experiences working on the elections and said that one of the primary challenges was the lack of journalists. They also highlighted that regardless of the stories they published, they were accused of favouring opposition parties. Magopeni added that it was very important to be mindful of how the media could be used for electioneering.
Details: Media Monitoring Africa 011 788 1278.
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https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/223981/bryanston-high-learners-share-why-they-will-be-voting-in-the-upcoming-elections/
