Media monitoring is a concept often been associated with brand awareness or reputation management – managing how organisation’s brand, product or service is perceived in the media.
There’s media monitoring from a regulatory perspective in which media content is collected and assessed based on a specific framework, for example, code of conduct for the practice or journalism in Kenya.
This concept has been dominant topic in Kenyan media space following post-election violence that occurred in 2007/08 in which media was widely mentioned for having actively participated in fueling the violence.
And whether the media played a role in amplifying or inciting prejudices among the electorate continues eliciting debate. In a study, Internews reports that journalists, while covering the election, had failed to adhere to the ethical and professional standards of their craft. Key “TV stations were faulted for broadcasting provisional presidential results that were unconfirmed and at times contradicted results broadcast by other stations”.
Another key thing to remember is that media monitoring debate was further accelerated by radio alleged to have convinced thousands of people to take up arms against each other in Rwanda during in 1994 genocide.
By spreading lies, personal attacks, and prophecy of impending attacks, Allan Thompson in a book, “Media and the Rwanda genocide” argues that Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) created an atmosphere of fear among the Hutu that prompted them to take action. Arguably, more comprehensive, and accurate reporting about the Rwanda genocide could have changed the behavior of the perpetrators, mitigating the slaughter.
Studies in other countries such as Sweden revealed a correlation between social media stories concerning refugees and the number of attacks against them in a particular period. According to a recent study, the greater the number of Tweets and Facebook posts mentioning word ‘refugee’, the more arson attacks were committed by “extremists” against refugee accommodation. All things considered, it becomes arguably true that government agencies and other organisations should always monitor media platforms for regulatory purpose.
By setting up a strong media monitoring department, the Media Council of Kenya has continued to improve journalism as media monitoring reports are shared with the sector. What this means is that in analysing content to improve performance of journalism, the media can be fair especially when presenting two sides of a story. However, the challenge facing media monitoring field is the changing nature of the media environment, especially with emergence of new media.
At least, the Council is not only talking about media monitoring but advancing the debate further to begin looking at media intelligence which uses data mining and data science to analyse content.
Most certainly, the decision for media intelligence can be attributed to the growing media landscape in Kenya coupled with numerous social media sites which have been linked to several cases of misinformation and hate messages.
By monitoring such huge number of media platforms, it is absolutely right to say that the massive data generated from monitoring all these stations requires modern technology which allows data processing specialists to analyse massive volumes, initiate automated forecasts of behavior and trends, and detect hidden patterns easily and quickly.
Having said that, it is possible to conclude that data mining is a convenient and effective way of processing information and above all, it seems pertinent to remember that anyone with intent of monitoring media content should consider utilising advancing technology for better reporting.This has been informed by the fact that MCK began manually and progressed to acqui reits first media monitoring systems in 2012 which helped produce several reports.
We must remember that media monitoring isn’t about infringing media space but ensuring journalists and media professionals operate within an acceptable standard. In fact, media monitoring can bring benefits to the media sector because they use the findings to measure their individual performance against each and also improve their ratings which in many instances generate income through advertising.
The evidence points almost exclusively to the need to invest in media monitoring not only for regulatory purposes but also business benefits to media houses or anyone intending to own a media platform.