FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

What is opinion leading media?

One of the methodologies in selecting opinion leading media is to use media that are most cited, have an impact on other media and  therefore have the biggest importance within a country.Note that the selection of media should represent all parts of the society. As the rest of the media tend to follow trends set by opinion leading media, there is no need to encode all media published in the country. Selecting media according to online availability rather then importance is not a good approach to reliable data.
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What are Agenda Setting, Agenda Cutting, Surfing?

Agenda Setting: The correlation between the rate at which media covers a story and the extent to which people think that this story is important. Research showed that people tend to behave in accordance  to media exposure. Examples of Agenda Setting Effects

Agenda Cutting: As the press is selective when reporting the news, most of the reality is not presented in the media, and as a result people do not regard omitted stories as important, or people do not realise that they exist. This is what we call Agenda Cutting. One example is the reporting on diseases such as Malaria or AIDS. Examples of Agenda Cutting Effects

Agenda Surfing: Media tend to follow trends and thus “surf” on the the wave of topics originally mentioned in opinion-leading media. Tracking all of the articles in opinion-leading media thus enables prediction of the stories that are going to be covered by the media in general in the near future, as well as prediction of the stories that are dying out. The Agenda Surfing effect can help you to place the right stories in the right media at the right time. Examples of Agenda Surfing Effects

How do you test your analysts?

Analysts are native speakers who hold degrees and who possess analytical experience. Because the quality of analysis data is extremely important, analyst remuneration is based on the results of inter-coder reliability, validity, and sample check tests. These tests are published in Media Tenor Research Journal.

How does Media Tenor guarantee the accuracy of its data?
Media Tenor’s inter-coder reliability (accuracy of data) is well above the industry norm, due to a system for coding information aimed at minimizing the potential effects of personal opinion on data. Drawing qualitative conclusions based on a scientific basis and quantitative information, Media Tenor’s research in the fields of agenda setting, agenda cutting and agenda surfing is internationally recognized for its transparency and reliability.

What is the Codebook?

The Codebook is the basic document for media content analysis. The Media Tenor codebook is not merely based on topics, protagonists, or sources that appear in the media, but rather reflects all of reality. The Media Tenor Codebook was developed by the scientific community to reflect all issues, topics, and protagonists that are implicated in politics, the economy, and society. The Codebook was developed in 1993 and, due to daily updates, has now reached the stage where it contains more than 115,000 codes, each organized in logical categories that reflect reality and media content.    

Any Codebook used for media analysis that is based only on topics or protagonists selected on the basis of media content alone can not answer the question of what is in the media and what is not. In such cases, agenda setting and agenda cutting effects can not be determined.

What media do you analyse?

Media Tenor analyses international print, TV, Radio, Online Media, Newsgroups and Blogs.
Local, national, and global media are collected overnight and prepared for coding. Media Tenor uses original print copy and broadcasting in order to ensure high data quality. Electronic papers are used only when they correspond 100 percent to their print versions—generally not the case, and the reason that electronic sources are not used very often. For each country we have defined a set of selected opinion-leading media in order to be able examine the impact of those media outlets on public perception. This is the Agenda Setting Approach. List of media analysed

What is the difference between human coding and computer aided content analysis (CATA)?
From its inception, Media Tenor has used professionally trained analysts for its media content analysis. Even though there has been a great deal of investment in the area of artificial human intelligence, no software has yet been developed that can compete with the human brain. Data generated by software analysis may saves costs but the accuracy of such data is not high enough to predict peoples’ behaviour or to research reputation risks. Read more, see references.

How can I apply for Phd research at Media Tenor?

Media Tenor supports young scientists and offers one to three years’ internship for Phd research. Young researchers are integrated in Media Tenor’s research team, have access to international data, opportunities to attend scientific conferences and a possibility to grow and develop. Many students are finding their place within the institute itself after completing their studies.  Accommodation is in most cases provided by Media Tenor. If interested please send us your motivation letter, including your research topic and CV.

Is Media Tenor a clipping agency?

No. Media Tenor scientifically analyses the content of various media outlets. Each report's overall content is then encoded: primary and secondary protagonists, primary and secondary topics, locations, explicit ratings, implicit valuations, sources' identities, genders, and nationalities, as well as other pertinent information are all coded into an internationally networked database. Some topical areas are coded in even greater detail, with each of these aspects fully documented on a per-statement basis, providing an extremely accurate depiction of the exact frequency with which certain topics, protagonists and locations are mentioned.

Are you a company or a non-for profit organization?

Originally started as a non-profit organization, Media Tenor soon found itself in the position of being dependent on the goodwill of individual donations - which has led the institute to believe that it can only really maintain its independence and finance its own research interests by generating its own income. Today, Media Tenor sells reports and research journals and operates as an independent institute. Approximately thirty percent of the research Media Tenor conducts is client work (organizations paying for monitoring and analysis) – thus financing the other seventy percent consisting of independent research.

How do you arrive at "positive" or "negative” ratings?

The overall ratings (positive, neutral, or negative) are determined by the content of the text and words used by the journalist in the article, according to very strict criteria that don't allow the analyst to infuse personal opinions or judgment into the analysis. The ratings are derived from the combination of context (when the content is embedded in positive or negative context) and explicit ratings (when the journalist uses or cites words of clearly positive or negative judgment).