Media Tenor
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Media Tenor was founded in 1994 in Bonn, Germany and calls itself "the first international institute specializing in continuous and comprehensive media evaluation. Guided by a simple yet comprehensive vision, mission and values, Media Tenor focuses on providing an objective and transparent view of media content." so they say about themselves.
Media Tenor calls itself an independent, non-partisan organization. Founded in Germany in 1994, the institute has offices is Bonn, (Germany), London (UK), New York (U.S.), Pretoria (South Africa), Israel (Jerusalem), Namibia (Windhoek), Lugano (Switzerland), and Ostrava (Czech Republic) [1]. Their research methods have been criticised as 'questionable' by German public TV officials.[2] and their research results often defend or speak out for Israel.
- Financial and Ideological Independence
Approximately only thirty percent of the research Media Tenor is paid for by its clients (organizations paying for monitoring and analysis) - financing its seventy percent of general research. Having started as a non-profit organization, Media Tenor soon found itself in the position of being dependent on the goodwill of donators - which has led the institute to believe that it can only really maintain its independence and finance its own research interests through its own income. This income structure leaves it at the mercy of its donors, not ideal if you call yourself 'independent'.
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[edit] Projects
Media Tenor has analyzed the coverage of the presidential campaigns in leading media (TV networks, newspapers, weeklies and newsgroups) in Germany, the U.S., South Africa, UK, and other countries, with the goal of highlighting trends, critics say biassing opionions, in the political coverage and studying the influence of media on polls and voters' behavior.
Other projects the continuous monitoring of the coverage of AIDS/HIV in South Africa, the image of Middle Eastern countries in international media, anti-Americanism in European and Middle Eastern countries and media profiles. Media Tenor also issues monthly updates on the correlation between the media coverage of the economy and the consumer confidence index.and rankings of the most-mentioned politicians, companies and executives in international media.
[edit] Methodology
Media Tenor's research methodology was designed to minimize the potential effect of personal opinion on the data.
Oriented by a pre-defined set of more than 250 criteria – established in cooperation with professors from Columbia University, University of Mainz, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Oxford University, University of Economics Prague, Emory University, Augsburg University and University of Stellenbosch, analysts uncover the breadth and complexity of news content.
Media Tenor’s approach begins with over 150 coders examining each relevant piece of media. This is followed by identifying and categorizing each report according to a comprehensive topical index, which includes companies, focus industries, and selected political events. Each report's content is then encoded into an internationally networked database. Coded content includes the primary and secondary protagonists, primary and secondary topics, locations, explicit valuations, implicit ratings, sources' identities, genders, nationalities as well as other pertinent information. Some topical areas are coded in even greater detail, with each of these aspects fully documented for each statement within the report.
Researchers then analyze the data for trends in the media coverage. That is in terms of individual businesses, industry sectors, political events, countries' images, and special research areas, such as HIV/AIDS, Holocaust reparations, the Iraq war. Media Tenor places this research into the context of overall media content trends as well. Individual media are each analyzed for general content trends and are then compared to one another. The same analysis is also performed on overall types of media, such as Internet newsgroups, daily newspapers, and television news programs, providing an objective, comprehensive overview of media types and their relative influence.
The end result is a highly accurate and dependable source of information that is used for consulting by organizations, international journalists, publishers, media firms and academics.
- How a Subject is Rated as "Positive" or "Negative"
The overall ratings (positive/neutral/negative) are determined by the content of the text and words used by the journalist in the article - according to very strict criteria that don't allow the analyst to infuse personal opinions or judgment into the analysis. The ratings are derived from the combination of context (when the content is embedded in positive or negative context) and explicit ratings (when the journalist uses or cites words of clearly positive or negative judgment).
- Accuracy
With 90% accuracy, Media Tenor’s inter-coder reliability (accuracy of data) is above the industry norm, minimizing the potential effect of personal opinion on the data. Drawing qualitative conclusions based on a scientific base of quantitative information, Media Tenor’s research in the fields of agenda setting, agenda cutting and agenda surfing is recognized internationally as one of the most transparent and reliable.
Based on that data, Media Tenor can measure, without interference from subjective bias and opinions, what the media reports and what is left out.
[edit] Publishing
Media Tenor publishes a quarterly journal, Media Tenor International, with information on the latest research in media content analysis and articles from Media Tenor's researchers as well as from professors, politicians, executives and journalists. The publication highlights trends in the coverage of current issues and provides a unique point of view for understanding the media and further research of the effects of media coverage on business, politics, society and economy. The Media Tenor International is distributed worldwide.
[edit] International Media Tenor Award for Media Diversity
Every year during the Agenda Setting Conference, Media Tenor announces the media and organizations which presented the best performance in categories such as Media Diversity, Global Corporate Communication, Financial Analyst Communication, International Online Media, Global TV and Business Media.
The main criteria applied to evaluate the quality of the nominated media and select the winners are diversity, objectivity, style, sources, number of quotes in other media, opinion leadership, analyst quotes and others.
