The Council of Europe office in Georgia, in cooperation with the Georgian National Communications Commission, organised series of trainings on pre-election media monitoring, as a follow-up to the similar trainings conducted in 2020.

The trainings were divided into two parts and aimed at increasing the knowledge and capacities of the Communications Commission representatives in the field of media monitoring.

Within the first part of the training, employees of the Communications Commission were trained as trainers and received guidance on the international standards and methodology of media monitoring. Namely, Council of Europe expert informed them about the peculiarities of quantitative and qualitative media monitoring during the pre-election period. As for the second part, it enabled the newly trained employees of the Communications Commission to conduct pilot training for the monitors. The latter worked on the topics such as international standards, Georgian legal framework for media coverage of elections, data management, analysis of collected data and reporting.

The pre-election media monitoring of the 2024 parliamentary elections will start on August 27 and will cover the quantitative monitoring of up to 55 TV broadcasters, in a 24-hour mode and qualitative one of 7 broadcasters, from 19:00 to 24:00, daily. Monitoring will focus on pre-election debates, news, public/political programs, pre-election campaigning and public opinion surveys. Media monitoring reports will be published at the website of the Communications Commission.

This activity was organised in the framework of the Project “Supporting Freedom of Expression and Media in Georgia (SFEM-GE)”, which is funded through the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia 2024-2027.