The Academy of Ukrainian Press (AUP) presents the results of the content analysis of news broadcasts by the leading Ukrainian television channels (October 2003 – December 2004) and materials of periodical press (April 2004 - December 2004) within the project “Monitoring of Political News”.
The research method is content analysis of media materials for one entire week of each month.
The project is carried out by research teams of the Academy of Ukrainian Press and the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine through the support of the International Renaissance Foundation, US Embassy in Ukraine, and Representative of the OSCE. The team leaders are Dr. Nataliya Kostenko and Dr. Valery Ivanov.
(14th Wave)
Before the revote of the second round of the presidential run-off, the media picture changed: journalists are trying to comply with professional norms of the news reporting, and in particular, for the first time this year the opposition is widely presented on the television channels. News have become more balanced: 1) attention to key political subjects and figures have become more equal; 2) positive and neutral assessments of the opposition and its leader have been legalized; 3) A “Power bonus” in the attention of the news is not present.
Political news is approaching the norms of professional journalism.
During the entire presidential campaign, the share of the internal political news in the general information flow is gradually increasing: from 25% in June to 55% in November. The increase of the number of channels that are being monitored did not cause any changes in the share of news reports without mentioned source (9% in November and December 2004 ).
The main events of the week were the election campaign of V.Yanukovych (12% of all news reports about Ukraine with variation on the channels of 10-16%), activities of the “orange revolution” (11%, with variations on the channels of 7-14%) and a danger of an economic crisis (8% in general, 12-15% on ІCTV, Inter, ТRC Ukraine). The 5th Channel paid special attention to voting regarding the constitutional changes in the Verkhovna Rada (13% with 3% on average in the flow), СТБ – reporting about the Verkhovna Rada seeking a compromise amongst the elites (7%), Tonis – relations of Ukraine with the international community (7%). Revoting on December 26 was the most frequently mentioned as an additional event in the context of main political developments (12%), and was viewed as a perspective conditioned by the current political activities.
In the beginning of December, the main political events happened mostly in Kyiv (45% in general, 58% on TRC Kyiv, 52% on СТБ). Other major events were coming from the East of Ukraine (15%), and most frequent reports were from Donetsk 4%.
The share of news with only one point of view has remained on the level of previous months – 10%. However, the share of reporting and reflecting two points of view had quite high percentage (regarding voting for the legislative “packet” of the constitutional changes in the Verkhovna Rada – 54%, Yushchenko’s illness – 43%, activities of Yanukovych’s supporters – 25%, resignation of the Prosecutor General – 24%). Though the political situation remains tense, the context of discussing news was more or less neutral (62%), which is the highest indicator for the entire period of the monitoring. Conflict and negative context is the smallest in the news of UT-1 and TRC Kyiv – 20%, and the largest – on TRC Ukraine (43%). Events are mostly commented by journalists and politicians (89% and 41% of the reports), as well as by experts in в 4% of the news reports (7% on СТБ).
Tendency to balanced coverage is realized by the TV channels also through redistribution of attention to main participants of the presidential election. As compared to November, attention towards those have somewhat decreased (from 38% to 33% towards Yushchenko, from 41% to 29% towards Yanukovych), and improved a little in favor of the Opposition leader. This also can be said about assessments of the presidential candidates. V.Yushchenko is presented in a positive or neutral tone more often than Yanukovych (31% reports vs. 26%, in November 37% vs. 41%), and a little more rarely in an ironic or negative tone (7% vs. 8%, in November 13% vs. 6%). In general, Yushchenko’s share of negative assessments has been reduced two-fold: from 13% to 6%, whereas Yanukovych’s share has gone up (from 6% to 8%).
At the same time, amongst all politicians who were most frequently mentioned in the news, more than a half are Yanukovych’s supporters (53%, in November 52%), and a third are Yushchenko’s supporters (37%, in November 38%).
In the beginning of December, one of Yanukovych’s advantages was better access to the news in live-time as compared to his opponent. Indicators of the live-time coverage have increased twice as compared to the previous month (from 1884 sec. to 3880 sec.). In December, Yushchenko’s live-time coverage has gone up too (3 times: from 447 sec. 1420 sec.). However, the disproportion in access access to live-time in the news between Yanukovych and Yushchenko has remained. Yanukovych’s live-time coverage remained at 6,2% of all the news about Ukraine and took 4,3% of the time of the whole information flow, Yushchenko’s live-time coverage - accordingly 3,8% of all reports, and 1,6% of the total news time. On the channel TRC Ukraine, Yushchenko’s live-time was not present at all whereas Yanukovych’s occupied 16% of the weekly time volume. Only on the channel Tonis, V.Yushchenko had somewhat more live-time as compared to Yanukovych (2,0% vs. 0,6% of the weekly time).
Amongst collective subjects of the electoral process, the Opposition is leading in terms of attention in the news (14%), CEC (13%), and “Our Ukraine” (11%). Political parties and factions that support Yushchenko were mentioned in a third of all the news reports (37%), those that support Yanukovych two times less - 16% of the news reports. CEC received most of ironic and negative assessments (7%). The context of discussion of the Opposition and Our Ukraine became more neutral and positive (a share of positive assessments increased from 7% to 11%, the share of negative assessments of Our Ukraine has reduced from 5% to 2%).
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