Media Coverage

This indicator shows what media coverage the advocacy campaign managed to achieve. It is useful for campaigns where a higher presence in the media is an important part of the advocacy strategy.

There are multiple ways to measure how often the media, such as printed newspapers, online news, television, and radio, communicated a story related to your advocacy efforts. The most common approaches include the following:

1) Use of media monitoring software

Media monitoring software scans different media content and reports the content you are interested in. It allows you to use different keywords to find content relevant to your advocacy campaign. Many types of software can also send automatic (daily, weekly) reports to your email, making it easier to track your advocacy efforts in the media. The software tends to be relatively easy to use, though it is advisable to check reviews carefully before you decide which one to use.

Different types of software cover different countries, so if you are interested in using such software, you must find out whether it is available in the country where you work. The cost varies – while the most basic software (with limited functionality) costs about 50 USD per month, more advanced software costs over 500 USD per month (early 2023). If your organisation is not already using such software, consider whether the cost of using the software for your advocacy campaign is justifiable.

2) Use an online search engine

The second solution is to use any existing online search engines to find articles that communicate a story related to your advocacy efforts. You can use a combination of keywords, such as the name of the organisation and a few keywords that characterise the topics communicated to the media. Some search engines also allow you to limit the search to a specific timeframe or language – take advantage of it.

The main advantage of using this solution is that it is free. On the other hand, compared to using media monitoring software, the search is likely to be incomplete and might take more time.

3) Manual count

If you operate in an area where there are very few media outlets operating, it might be possible to keep a manual record of how often a story relating to the project’s advocacy work was communicated. The staff working for the media outlet you collaborate with might also provide such data. In such a case, ensure that whenever a new story is published, it is recorded, including the media source where it was mentioned.

Consider disaggregating the data by the media type and whether the news was negative, positive, or neutral (as a high number of negative media outputs would not constitute a good result). Some media monitoring software can do such a disaggregation though it needs to be verified manually. 

1) If you decide to use media monitoring software, explore whether it offers a function that tells you how many people were reached by the news, as that would show the campaign's reach. One big story in a major publication that is read / viewed by the key decision-makers can be more impactful than many small stories in small publications that are not widely used by the decision-makers.

2) A detailed tracking of media coverage over time is ‘gold dust’ - providing valuable insights on how the subject has been discussed over time, such as changes in rhetoric, attitudes, language and arguments.

3) Investigate if any attribution can be made to media skills training undertaken as part of the advocacy strategy.