Media Tenor
The Media Tenor International AG is an international content analysis organization founded in 1994 in Bonn, Germany. It conducts analysis of hundreds of print, broadcast and online news outlets in more than 20 languages.
International officies
Media Tenor has offices 1 in
- Remagen-Rolandseck, Germany
- London, United Kingdom
- New York Unites States of America
- Pretoria, South Africa
- Israel, Jerusalem
- Windhoek, Namibia
- Zürich, Switzerland
- Ostrava, Czech Republic
Projects
Media Tenor has analyzed the coverage of the presidential campaigns in leading media (TV networks, newspapers, weeklies and newsgroups) in Germany, the U.S., South Africa, UK, and other countries, with the goal of highlighting trends in political coverage and studying the influence of media on polls and voters' behavior.
Other projects the continuous monitoring of the coverage of AIDS/HIV in South Africa, the image of Middle Eastern countries in international media, anti-Americanism in European and Middle Eastern countries and media profiles. Media Tenor also issues monthly updates on the correlation between the media coverage of the economy and the consumer confidence index.and rankings of the most-mentioned politicians, companies and executives in international media.
Methodology
Media Tenor's research methodology was designed to minimize the effect of personal opinions.
Oriented by a pre-defined set of more than 250 criteria – established in cooperation with professors from Columbia University, University of Mainz, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Oxford University, University of Economics Prague, Emory University, Augsburg University and University of Stellenbosch, analysts uncover the breadth and complexity of news content.
Media Tenor’s approach begins with over 150 coders examining media. This is followed by identifying and categorizing each report according to a comprehensive topic index, which includes select companies, industries, and political events. Each report's content is then encoded into an internationally networked database. Coded content includes the primary and secondary protagonists, primary and secondary topics, locations, explicit valuations, implicit ratings, sources' identities, genders, nationalities as well as other pertinent information. Some topical areas are coded in even greater detail, with each of these aspects fully documented for each statement within the report.
Researchers then analyze the data for trends in terms of individual businesses, industry sectors, political events, countries' images, and special research areas, such as HIV/AIDS, Holocaust reparations, the Iraq war. Media Tenor places this research into the context of overall media content. Individual media outlets and types of media (print, broadcast, internet) are each analyzed for general content trends and then compared. Final data are used by journalists, publishers, NGOs, polticians, companies and academics.
- How a Subject is Rated as "Positive" or "Negative"
The overall ratings (positive/neutral/negative) are determined by both implicit context (when the content is embedded in positive or negative context) and explicit language (when the journalist uses or cites words of clearly positive or negative judgment).
- Accuracy
With an asserted value of 90% accuracy, Media Tenor’s claims an inter-coder reliability (accuracy of data) above the industry norm, minimizing the potential effect of personal opinion on the data. Drawing qualitative conclusions based on a scientific base of quantitative information, Media Tenor focuses on the fields of agenda setting, agenda [...] and agenda surfing.
The scientific reputation of Media Tenor was doubted by Germany's leading TV channels and newspaper publishing companies. German public TV officials called its research methods 'questionable." 2.
Publishing
Media Tenor publishes a quarterly journal, Media Tenor International, with information on the latest research in media content analysis and articles from Media Tenor's researchers as well as from professors, politicians, executives and journalists. The publication highlights trends in the coverage of current issues and provides a unique point of view for understanding the media and further research of the effects of media coverage on business, politics, society and economy. The Media Tenor International is distributed worldwide.
International Media Tenor Award for Media Diversity
Every year during the Agenda Setting Conference, Media Tenor announces the media and organizations which presented the best performance in categories such as Media Diversity, Global Corporate Communication, Financial Analyst Communication, International Online Media, Global TV and Business Media.
The main criteria applied to evaluate the quality of the nominated media and select the winners are diversity, objectivity, style, sources, number of quotes in other media, opinion leadership, analyst quotes and others.
de:Media Tenor