Digital Gender and Media Monitoring Tool

About the media monitoring tool

This digital gender and media monitoring tool is aimed at monitoring gender in media content. It provides a picture of the number of men and women in the news, the type of stories in which they are found and the roles they play in the news.

The tool is based on 15 years of media monitoring by Gender Links a leading Southern African women's rights NGO that has conducted the largest and most comprehensive media monitoring studies in this region. The tool was developed with Free Press Unlimited, that conducts media monitoring with partners around the globe, the tool incorporates all the parameters of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) that is conducted voluntarily every five years. 

The GL media monitoring tool offers customised monitoring and reporting for different clients to suit specific needs. It allows you to:

• Conduct your own gender and media monitoring project covering one country or more

• Have access to and analyse your own data

• Add to global data on gender and media content for research and advocacy purposes

With the monitoring tool, it is possible to monitor stories from the following media types:

• Television
• Radio
• Newspapers
• Internet news
• Social media

How to use this tool

This tool is divided into 14 sections. The first six sections provide the basic information

on gender gaps. Sections 7 to 14 delve into a greater detail on topics, and include images (for newspaper monitoring) and advertisements. The specialised topics include:

• Elections and Political Participation

• Gender Based Violence

• HIV and AIDS

• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

• Disability

• Peace, Conflict and Security

• Images

• Advertisements

The tool makes use of “skip patterns”, so the tool will display (or hide) questions based on previous selections. There are three versions of the tool:

• Full version (from Gender Links)
• Free Press Unlimited Full version
• Free Press Unlimited Light version (with a smaller amount of questions)

At the bottom of this page, you can select which version you want to use.

Explanation boxes
Some questions include an explanation. If you want to read this, hoover your mouse over the link, so that you can read the explanation box (don't click it).

Offline and online version

This tool is available in an online and offline mode. The offline version allows you to register responses and upload them once you have an internet connection. If you are working with an unstable internet connection, submit the answers in the offline mode and upload them once you are finished, in order to ensure that no data is lost.

Submitting your entry

When you finish capturing data for each story, submit your input to allow the system to save your entry. The webpage will automatically renew, so that you can submit another story. Instructions to "Save and Continue Later" are provided below in case you are not able to complete the entry in one go.

SAVE AND CONTINUE FUNCTIONALITY
After completing page 1 (so when on page 2) on the top, you will see a “Save and Continue later” band. 

If you want to go check something and return later, you can click on this and enter your email address twice.

Once you have entered your email address twice, whatever you have entered in the application form so far will be saved and you will receive an email with a link to continue. Kindly note that the email may be sent to your Junk mail box depending on your security settings. 

You can then click on the link and continue where you left off.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT AVAILABLE ON THE OFFLINE MODE

How to conduct monitoring

Make sure you have all materials ready when you start the monitoring. If you are analyzing radio or television, ensure that you have recordings of the items. If you are analyzing online news or social media items, it might be a good idea to make screen shots or download them.

Make clear agreements in advance on which items you will select for the monitoring. For example, you can choose to just analyze the main news items, or to also include the sports or entertainment sections, etc.

Finally, ensure that you select media houses that reflect diversity and balance. You should aim for a range of media houses that reflects the diversity of your media system.

Consider factors such as:

• Ownership: e.g. private, state-controlled.
• Political position: e.g. newspapers that support/oppose particular political parties, government.
• Target audience: e.g. political/cultural élites, business community, mass market
• Appeal: 'quality' and 'popular' newspapers
• Language: newspapers in different official languages of your country
• Geography: newspapers from different regions/areas of your country