Coverage of elections 2004 -- Part I

BY cfar| IN Books | 13/08/2004

Monitoring Television Content

General Elections 2004: Citizen¿s Response

Study conducted by Viewers Forum and Centre for Advocacy and Research

Rationale      

The 2004 General Elections began with the NDA Government releasing ads with the slogans  `India Shining` and speaking of the `feel good factor `. It asked the public for a renewed mandate on its positive economic/development record. It also fought this election on a personality plank: Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee against Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Congress President. These became the focus of the 2004 election campaign for both the Government and the main Opposition parties. 

For the first time, a general election campaign was covered in such an extensive manner by multiple 24-hour TV news channels. Given this extensive TV coverage, Election 2004 has been termed the first `live¿ TV election in the country. Some have gone so far as to say these elections were contested on TV rather than on the ground. Also, for the first time, political parties such as the BJP and Congress set up TV news monitoring cells to track the coverage. 

Scope of Present study

In view of the number of 24-hour news channels and the importance given to the electronic media¿s coverage, Viewers` Forum and CFAR felt it important to monitor TV news coverage of Election 2004. The aim was to examine:

• The parameters within which TV channels framed the issues thrown up during the campaign
• The coverage of issues directly concerning voters 
• The focus of the coverage: was it on human development issues or was it more about personalities?
• How far the TV channels were balanced in their coverage of issues, parties, personalities, etc.

Viewers Forum

The Viewers` Forum is an audience collective and community-centred initiative. The objectives of Viewers¿ Forum are to create a forum where consumers, media advocates, policy makers, media planners, sponsors, broadcasters and TV producers can meet and exchange viewpoints; to inform and improve the quality of consumer participation in the on-going public discourse on the media, especially television and to empower viewers so that they can play a role in helping to shape the media they consume. 

This media monitoring study of Election 2004 was conducted on a daily and week-to-week basis. A dozen women representing a cross-section of voters  - middle class housewives, basti-dwellers, physically challenged - have helped conduct the study.  

SAMPLE

The monitoring study covers a two-month period from 8^th March to 7^th May, 2004. This report summarises findings based on data processed for the above period over a total of 9 weeks).

Period:

Channels:

DD News and the top private, satellite 24-hour news channels in the North, namely, Aaj Tak, NDTV 24X7 (only English channel), NDTV INDIA, Star News, Zee News. 

Bulletins monitored:
A total of 871 news bulletins across 9 weeks.

Spread of Bulletins:

Weekdays:  4 major bulletins on each channel, Mon-Fri.

Timing:       Between 11.00 and 21.30

(Bulletins were monitored for 30 minutes, beginning on the hour. With the election coverage attracting considerable advertising, actual period of news bulletins varied. Commercial breaks per half-hour were between 6-9 minutes. Aaj Tak registered the longest commercial breaks- sometimes at 10 minutes per half-hour.)

Coverage of National and Development Stories

Though election coverage was as high as 60 per cent across the news channels, major national and development issues received poor coverage. A mere 4.3 per cent of the election-related news was based on national (1.6 per cent ) and development issues (2.7 per cent).  

Coverage of Development Story as Main Subject

The J&K Permanent Resident [Disqualification] Bill, 2004 is not  included in this table.

In general, development was mentioned in passing during campaigns speeches and manifestos, etc. For example, the period 5^th April to16^th April registered an increase in development coverage because `vikas¿ featured as an election promise in the NDA, Samajwadi Party manifestos and the Congress Vision Document.  

In the last three weeks of the election- 19^th April to 7^th May- development issues were spoken of in campaign speeches, interviews or when voters questioned the lack of development in their constituencies and threatened to boycott the elections. 

Local self-governance received relatively more coverage, finding mention in campaign speeches. Unemployment/employment received some coverage in week one (8^th March to 12^th March) and week six (12^th April to 16^th April). In week one it featured as part of the `India Shining¿ ad campaign controversy. In week six it recurred in campaign speeches (especially Vajpayee¿s). 

In National Issues, Bofors and Sonia Gandhi surfaced in week five (5^th April to9^th April) after a newspaper revived the controversy. 

Religion/communalism/secularism were largely ignored with only one per cent of the coverage. Ayodhya only surfaced as a major issue in week five when it was included in the NDA manifesto, released that week. It is interesting that though L.K.Advani and Sonia Gandhi campaigned in Gujarat, the communal riots of 2002 were ignored as an election issue by them - and the media.     

Women¿s issues received negligible coverage. When they did, it was in a specific   context: the J&K Permanent Resident [Disqualification] Bill, 2004 (week one) which received 1.4% of the election coverage; the sari stampede in Lucknow (week six) and in week nine (3^rd May to 7^th May) Mehbooba Mufti`s lifting the `Burkha` of an NC worker during her campaign, created a controversy.  

Across channels, the coverage of development and national issues was uniformly poor. Star News and the NDTV channels had more coverage of them while the national, public broadcaster, DD News had the lowest.