10.1515/nor-2017-0206 Current Research Projects More Balanced Election Coverage with Media Researchers on Location TOMAS ANDERSSON ODÉN On 15 August 2004, the Bolivarian Republic of monitoring project. A group of Venezuelan students Venezuela held a referendum to decide if the current who had been trained and had participated in the president, Hugo Chávez, should remain in office un- 2004 monitoring were recruited as coders.4 til the end of his six-year term or be recalled. Be- The purpose of the 2006 monitoring project was cause of strong social tension, including friction to analyse the balance in the coverage of the presi- between Chavez and some of the private media dential election campaign, and to evaluate the meth- companies, the Atlanta-based democracy organisa- odology of the 2004 project. tion The Carter Center sent a mission to Venezuela The main question was whether there were rea- to observe the referendum. The Carter Project in- sons to assume that the increased balance in media cluded a Scandinavian media monitoring project to reporting in 2004 was due to the media monitoring assess whether election coverage in the major TV project and the weekly presentation of its results. channels’ newscasts was balanced or biased.1 The result of the media monitoring was reported each week to the media companies and to the Ven- Tension after Coup ezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE). The first Tension between the Venezuelan president and report, released on 22nd of July 2004 demonstrated some of the privately-owned TV channels was that only one of the newscasts had a relatively bal- partly due to the media’s alleged role in a coup anced election reporting while the others had a con- d’état that briefly deposed of Hugo Chávez in April siderable bias.2 One of those was state-owned chan- of 2002. He had then been president for four years, nel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), where news re- but had harboured power ambitions for much longer. porting strongly supported the president. Shortly Chávez made a first push to gain power in 1992. He after the report was presented, the chief editor of was a lieutenant colonel in the paratrooper regiment VTV, Mr. Vladimir Villegas, announced publicly that at the time, and tried to seize power from then he accepted the methodology and the results of the president Carlos Andrés Pérez by launching a mili- monitoring, and promised that reporting on his tary coup. The coup failed, and Chávez was sent to channel would become more balanced. prison but pardoned a few years later (Cederberg & The monitoring that followed showed that Källstrand, 2003). VTV’s election reporting in fact did become more In 1998, Chavez became president through an balanced in the weeks leading up to the referendum. ordinary election process. Disenchantment with the The same happened with newscasts on several com- old parties increased his popularity, also among the mercial channels. media. Some of this media support had disappeared On the 4th of December 2006, Venezuelans by 1999, however, when he was re-elected after a should once again decide on the future of president new Constitution was approved by referendum ear- Chávez, this time in normal presidential elections lier the same year. The media were afraid that this and with less presence from The Carter Center, new constitution would limit the freedom of the wich devoted no resources to monitoring of the press (Tanner Hawkins, 2003). However, Chávez media.3 Nonetheless, JMG at the University of won the re-election with a clear majority. Gothenburg, in collaboration with Norwegian jour- In April 2002, some of the opposition tried to nalist Stein Ove Gronsund, Miami carried out a overthrow Chávez. One of the opposition leaders, 127 businessman Pedro Carmona, functioned as presi- ently form opinions on social issues. And for citi- dent for a few days before Chavez returned to zens to form opinions, the media has to inform power. The media’s role in the attempted coup has them about political issues, and disseminate fair been the subject of intense debate. It has been as- views and opinions about those issues (Asp, 2007). serted that some of the TV channels were actively The Venezuelan electoral council’s demands for involved in the coup (Klein, 2003). Since the coup, objectivity and balance are not an unreasonable relations between the President and the private TV operationalization of these demands for information channels have been strained. and the fair dissemination of views and opinion. The formulation is also similar to regulations relat- ing to public service broadcasting in Western Eu- Demands for Objectivity and Balance rope. At the same time, government demands on the As a consequence, the 2004 media monitoring content of news media can be problematic. The me- project took place in a strongly polarized society dia’s right to freely and independently decide over with an unstable democratic situation. The project their news services is one of the most basic qualifi- was part of a larger election observation led by The cations of a functioning democracy. Carter Center. Neither is reducing the polarization in media re- Growing insight into the significance of the porting necessarily positive. In societies with media during election campaigns has led to that strong traditions of consensus, polarization may be election observation in recent years has been in- a useful tool for presenting alternatives. However, creasingly supplemented with projects to monitor in societies with strong mistrust between different the media’s campaign reporting. Two examples are social groups, contributing to less polarization may the media monitoring of elections in Mexico be desirable, so that the media at least presents the (Valverde & Rosales, 1994) and Palestine (Palestin- different alternatives that exist, and treats the most ian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue important alternatives with reasonable equality. and Democracy, 2005). The Swedish international This contributes to voters forming their own opin- development agency, Sida, also planned to finance a ions, and improves the chances of realizing the Danish-led media monitoring project in the Middle opinions of the people through elections. East but plans were shelved when tension flared Finally, monitoring and reporting media coverage between Denmark and the Muslim world. does not restrict press freedom. And publishing the The growing interest in the monitoring of media results of media monitoring during an ongoing elec- during election campaigns warrants a discussion on tion campaign can increase opportunities for citi- the format and methodology of these projects. One zens to acquire information from balanced news question is whether they are at all effective; another media. is how they should be designed to achieve the de- sired effect. The very idea of trying to influence the media’s dissemination of news and opinion building The Media Project in Venezuela can also be discussed. The purpose of this report is to analyse the effects In Venezuela in 2004, it was not the interna- of the media monitoring during the last weeks of tional corps of observers that made demands on the campaign before the Venezuelan recall referendum in media, but the country’s own electoral council. Be- 2004. fore the referendum, the National Electoral Council The coded material consists of news items from (CNE) signed an agreement with radio and TV com- five major Venezuelan TV channels during the two panies where the media organisations committed election campaigns in 2004 and 2006. One of the themselves to an objective and balanced election re- channels – VTV – is owned by the Venezuelan porting. (Resolución no 040701-1069, CNE, Cara- Government, while the other four – Radio Caracas cas). Televisión (RCTV), Venevisión, Televen and This kind of demands is not unreasonable in a Globovisión – are privately owned. democratic society. Kent Asp summarizes the role The monitored period in 2004 was from the 16th of media in a representative democracy as follows: of July to the 15th of August. Every day on week- “In a democracy media should work for the realiza- days Monday to Friday, and on the final Saturday tion of the will of the people by facilitating the free and Sunday, the project analysed news reporting on exchange of ideas.” The media carry out this task by the election campaign in two newscasts on each of scrutinizing the government, and conveying infor- the TV channels. A total of 220 newscasts were ana- mation that enables citizens to freely and independ- lysed, which means 44 newscasts per channel. In 128 2006, the monitored period was from the 6th of No- political advertisements that were broadcast in di- vember to the 1st of December. On weekdays one rect connection with newscasts. This type of ad- newscast per day was analysed, totalling 100 vertisements was not included in the 2004 analysis. newscasts or 20 newscasts per channel. However, news dominated in both monitoring In 2004, the monitoring was carried out on loca- periods and most of the analysis is performed on tion in Caracas, and the results were presented pe- this material. The actual monitored material from riodically during the ongoing election campaign. In 2004 is therefore 1,973 news items, while the mate- 2006, the monitoring was carried out as discreetly rial from 2006 consists of 1,042 news items. as possible: no results were disclosed during the The local coding work in Venezuela during both election campaign and much of the work was carried periods was carried out by coders recruited from out from a distance. Only coding of the newscasts’ senior classes and newly graduated students in jour- content took place on location in Caracas. The nalism or communication science from leading uni- project was managed from Gothenburg and Miami.