Support to Media in Electoral Processes: Workshop Report and Conclusions

This report comes from a workshop-style meeting, held in March 2010 in London, United Kingdom (UK), which addressed how support to media around elections can be improved. For the discussion, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service Trust brought together donors, electoral and democracy support organisations, international organisations, and media support organisations.

The document gives as context the contribution that media can make around elections: an informed citizenry; a platform for inclusive public debate and civic dialogue; accountable government; and independent, journalistic scrutiny of election conduct made possible by free, independent, and plural media. These are contrasted with “worrying trends towards media being prone to increasing capture and cooption by political, ethnic, religious or other forces in society, and an accompanying trend towards media characterised by polarisation, extremism and, at its worse, hate and the fostering of violence. The role of some local language and online media in the Kenya 2007/8 election process (as well as SMS [text messaging] telephony) in fuelling violence has been particularly well documented."

The workshop's objectives were the following:

• "To provide an analysis of the quality and scope of current media assistance activities in order to inform the improvement of the electoral process;
  
• To identify gaps between the principles of effective electoral assistance and current practice in the field of media and democracy; and
  
• To develop strategic recommendations for future media assistance activities that take into account key lessons learned by donors, experts and practitioners in the field."

As stated here, "media support interventions tend to be conceived and implemented late in the electoral cycle and systematic approaches to understanding and supporting the role of media around elections are rare." Support to media around elections could be developed through:

• Mechanisms to map the implications of rapid media and communication changes for electoral outcomes - "Diagnostic systems that can assess whether electoral or media support strategies are sufficient to minimise the risk of media being captured or co-opted to foster violence, or to maximise their role in informing public debate and reinforcing scrutiny and accountability of electoral and democratic processes..."
  
• Mechanisms for lesson learning on which media support strategies have proved most effective (or ineffective) in different electoral and democratic contexts
• Coordination of media support around elections

Among its conclusions are the following:

• "The workshop identified a nascent community of practice of electoral support and media support organisations, as well as donors who support them, who uniformly saw a common purpose in being better networked, more mutually informed and more strategically coherent....
• The 'electoral cycle approach' constitutes a critical tool through which many of these concerns could be organised. The workshop made some initial progress in populating the electoral cycle approach with media relevant issues and potential interventions. Among the most crucial of these was a diagnostic analysis of the needs and roles of the media after an election in preparation for the next election, leaving a sufficient period to plan and address deep seated issues.... 
• A concrete recommendation was made that UN EAD [United Nations Electoral Assistance Division] might consider initiating a more formal process designed to address issues concerning the role of media in elections and to develop a set of agreed principles on support to media around elections. 
• The proliferation of new media technologies means new approaches are required for training electoral management bodies (EMBs), journalists, and citizens. 
• Approaches to media regulation need to focus on effectively sanctioning hate speech, establishing independent regulatory bodies and making self-regulatory initiatives work....
• ...Greater cooperation and coordination of donors, media development and electoral assistance organisations would improve the quality of support and the sustainability of impact on democratic institutions."