How a Media Company Ensured Fair Media Coverage During a General Election

Client TV2

PoliticsFacial RecognitionBroadcast Media

TV2 Funen sought to ensure fair and balanced coverage during the 2022 general election, aiming to provide all political parties and politicians with an equal opportunity to be heard. Committed to transparency and equality, the network faced the complex challenge of accurately measuring and displaying the speaking time allotted to various politicians. While acknowledging that larger parties naturally garner more attention, TV2 Funen endeavoured to maintain a balanced platform, striving to ensure that voices from smaller parties were also adequately represented. This required a meticulous approach to monitoring and adjusting coverage to uphold their principles of equitable media representation.

To achieve their objective, TV2 Funen partnered with MediaCatch, leveraging advanced facial recognition technology to meticulously track on-screen appearances of politicians. This process was executed through three critical steps:

1. Facial Recognition: Utilising world-class facial recognition technology to accurately identify politicians on screen, ensuring precise tracking of individual appearances.
2. Data Analysis: Systematically condensing the on-screen appearances into a quantifiable metric, specifically measuring the seconds of speaking time for each politician. This provided a clear and objective basis for comparing the visibility and voice of different political figures.
3. Visualisation: Developing a custom dashboard to display these metrics, facilitating easy public understanding and scrutiny. This transparent presentation allowed viewers to see a real-time, unbiased representation of speaking time distribution.

Furthermore, the data analysis incorporated additional insights into the average age of speakers and the distribution of speaking time between genders. These supplementary metrics provided a deeper understanding of the demographic and gender dynamics at play, ensuring a comprehensive evaluation of media representation during the election coverage.

The analysis revealed several critical insights that underscored the challenges in achieving balanced media representation:

• Gender Disparity: Speaking time was disproportionately skewed towards men, highlighting a significant gender imbalance in media coverage.
• Party Dominance: The Social Democrats, Denmark's largest party, dominated on-screen time, indicating a bias towards larger political entities.

Media Fairness and Representation: These findings sparked substantial debate and discussions about media fairness and representation, as highlighted in journalisten.dk, raising important questions about the role of media in democratic processes.

MediaCatch provided TV2 Funen with a flexible and scalable platform tailored to their specific needs. This collaboration yielded hyper-specific data that enabled TV2 Funen to adjust and balance their election campaign journalism effectively. Additionally, the project explored the broader potential of media technology for future initiatives.

The custom dashboard, although no longer live, marked the culmination of the 2022 general election project. TV2 Funen continues to leverage the insights gained from this experience for ongoing and future initiatives, reinforcing their commitment to balanced and transparent media coverage. By integrating these learnings, TV2 Funen aims to maintain a fair and equitable platform, ensuring that all political voices are heard and represented accurately in their broadcasts.