ANC losing media coverage: survey
The African National Congress has lost a substantial portion of media coverage to opposition parties a year before the general elections, a survey revealed on Friday.
The emergence of new political party the Economic Freedom Fighters, and an improvement in the volume of coverage for the Democratic Alliance saw the ANC lose out in the share of media coverage in influential print and TV news, media research company Media Tenor said.
“By looking at this decline, it is not surprising that media reports suggest that the ruling party has lost some support in the polls while the DA has gained,” said researcher Stephano Radaelli.
“The concern remains for Agang SA, which at present remains fairly invisible in the media compared to other political parties.”
The results of the survey were based on an analysis of 119,005 statements on the country’s political parties in 47 opinion-leading print and TV news from January 1 to September 30, 2013.
According to the survey, the ANC received 76 percent of media coverage during the 2009 pre-election period. The DA received 13 percent.
The DA had seen an increase this year to 37 percent, while the ANC was at 52 percent. The EFF had three percent.
Both the ruling party and the DA had received constant negative media coverage during this year.
“This is likely to impact on their reputation and to influence registered voters who are undecided this early on during the ‘horse race’.”
Parties continued to receive a large portion of media coverage unrelated to key policy issues.
Less than one in five media statements for the ANC were based on policy issues, while the DA received just over two in five statements related to their policy issues.
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