MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS MEASUREMENT ACROSS PLATFORMS Issue 03

ANALYSIS REPORT OF A STUDY ON:

Media Coverage and Communication of Gender Based Violence Issues in Uganda

BY

December 2018

Edited by Gerald Businge

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ACRONYMS	3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS	4

DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS	5

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY	6

CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH	11

1.0 Introduction to the Study	11

1.2 Theoretical foundation of the study	14

1.3 Background to the study	14

1.4 Justification for Studies	15

1.5 Expected outcomes of the researches	15

1.6 Specific objectives	16

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY	17

2.0 Study Methodological Focus	17

2.2 Study Design	18

2.3 Particular methods for specific issues	19

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS	22

3.0 Overall media coverage and communication across platforms	22

3.1 Coverage by newspapers	22

3.2 Coverage by online publications	30

3.3 How GBV stories were posted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube	34

3.3.1 Posting on Facebook	35

3.3.2 Coverage of GBV issues in Uganda on Twitter	40

3.3.3 How GBV issues were posted about on YouTube	46

4.0 Issues and Recommendations	51

4.1 Findings Vs Research issues	51

4.2 Other Lessons from the study	52

4.4 Recommendations on better framing and reporting GBV issues	53

References	55

LIST OF ACRONYMS

CEDOVIP:	Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention.

CSO:	Civil Society Organisation

FAWE:	Forum for African Women Educationalists

FIDA:	The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers

FOWODE;	Forum for Women in Democracy

GBV:	Gender Based Violence

IRC:	International Rescue Committee

MGLSD:	Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development

UMC:	Ultimate Multimedia Consult

UN:	United Nations

UNICEF:	United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund

UWONET:	Uganda Women’s Network

UNAIDS:	United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

UNDP:	United Nations Development Programme

UNFPA:	United Nations Population Fund

UNHCR:	United Nations High Commission for Refugees

UNICEF:	United Nations International Children’s Fund

UNOPS:	United Nations Office for Project Services

UN Women:	United Nations Women

USAID:	United States Agency for International Development

UWESO:	Uganda Women's Efforts to Save Orphans

WHO:	World Health Organisation

Cover photo: A child and her mother- photo from ISIS-WICCE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Philimon Badagawa participated in data collection for newspapers and headed the data analysis especially with the visuals/graphics. Derrick Senyonga coordinated the entire research actively participating in data collection and data analysis process. I would like to thank the research team coordinators and the research assistants, as well as the data entry and analysis team for their diligent work in producing this research.

Edward Tumwine greatly participated in data collection from Facebook and Twitter Enid Nabumati led the collection of data from online websites as well as in data analysis of social media.

Agnes Tumuheire also participated in collecting data from online sites and newspapers as well as data analysis and sorting

Zziwa Geoffrey collected data from the Twitter mentions of GBV issues in Uganda

Herman Nnyanzi collected data from the Twitter mentioning GBV issues in Uganda, as well as data sorting. Brian Kisembo assisted in the collection of data from the Facebook mentioning GBV issues in Uganda

Amidst all difficulties, the team remained steadfast in collecting, sorting and analyzing the data. Our Team Leader as usual provided guidance throughout all the stages, editing and making sure we produce this report. Thank you all. Senyonga Derrick, Research and Training Manager Jane Ndibarekera Bukenya provided the necessary logistics needed to execute the project

DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS

Gender Based Violence is an umbrella term used to describe any harmful act that is perpetrated against a person’s will on the basis of unequal relations between women and men, as well as through abuse of power. According to the Uganda Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, GBV in particular, sexual and physical violence is widespread in Uganda and is mainly committed against women and girls.

Gender is a social and cultural construct. The concept of gender includes the expectations held about the roles and behaviors of women and men (femininity and masculinity). These expectations are learned. Gender-based roles and other attributes change over time and vary with different cultural contexts.

Gender analysis is a critical examination of how differences in gender roles, activities, needs, opportunities and rights/entitlements affect men, women, girls and boys in certain situation or contexts. Gender analysis examines the relationships between females and males and their access to and control of resources and the constraints they face relative to each other.

Gender equality refers to the situation where individuals of both sexes are free to develop their personal abilities and make choices without the limitations imposed by strict gender roles. It implies that females and males have equal rights, freedoms, conditions, and opportunities for realizing their full potential and for contributing to and benefiting from economic, social, cultural, and political development.

Gender issues are issues that affect one gender more the other. Gender statistics are defined as statistics that adequately reflect differences and inequalities in the situation of women and men in all areas of life.

Gender statistics have to reflect gender issues, questions, problems and concerns related to all aspects of women’s and men’s lives, including their specific needs, opportunities or contribution to society.

Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in any area and at all levels. It is a strategy for making the concerns and experiences of women as well as of men an integral part of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres, so that women and men benefit equally, and inequality is not perpetuated.

Sex refers to the biological differences between men and women. These differences are universal and do not change between cultures.

Sex- disaggregated data is data that is cross-classified by sex, presenting information separately for men and women, boys and girls.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The study has found considerable media coverage and communication about GBV issues in Uganda newspapers, online publications and social media platforms. Most of the media coverage is about cases of GBV reported to police.

We studied the posts/articles made on in the different media platforms (Online publications, Newspapers, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) on issues related to Gender Based Violence (GBV) in Uganda during the period May 1st – 31st October 2018 and months of November and December 2017 (when the 16 days of activism against GBV campaign is held).

There was no major difference in media coverage and communication about GBV issues in Uganda during the campaign months of the 16 Days of activism against GBV and other months.

The study shows that a total of 3,370 posts/articles were made over the period under review.

Twitter had the highest number of conversations/ posts (37.54%) followed by Facebook with 36.91% while YouTube had the least (2.20%) as the table below shows:

Media Platform	Posts
1	YouTube	74
2	Newspapers	546
3	Online Publications	241
4	Twitter	1,265
5	Facebook	1,244

Source category: Stories from online publications mostly used the police as sources followed by civil society activists. Government and politicians followed. This is different from the trend in newspapers as they used community members as sources followed by police and politicians. Just like it was with online publications government was among the least quoted source.

Source gender: Data analyzed from newspapers showed that journalists used more sources from males. This however was not the case on online publications as female sources were used more.

Prominence and size: Done only to newspapers, we found the majority (91.94%) of stories were in non-prominent pages of newspapers. Story size: We noted that majority (38.64%) of the stories published by newspapers covered a quota of a newspaper page and below while 38.10% covered half of the newspaper pages. Only 8.06% of the total stories covered more than half a newspaper page.

Sentiment: The sentiment across the platforms was mixed. Newspapers and online publications were dominated by negative sentiment. However, Twitter and Facebook had more posts with positive sentiment while YouTube videos had a tie on positive and neutral sentiment with negative sentiment coming lowest.

Gender of authors: Both online and newspapers, there were many stories by male authors than female authors. From newspapers specifically, 25.49% did not specify the authors while 23.54% were by females. Online, those who did not specify were 21.25% and females 24.8%.

Issues: Issues relating to sexual violence (rape, defilement and sexual harassment) were the most widely covered across all the platforms. In newspapers and on Twitter, domestic violence followed whereas on Facebook early marriages followed and YouTube Human trafficking. Verbal abuse, FGM and beating were the least covered issues across all platforms.

Type of violence: On YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, physical violence was covered widely as compared to emotional violence. In newspapers and online publications the majority of the stories were on emotional violence as compared to physical violence.

Community affected: Apart from Facebook where issues pertaining children had the most conversations, Women were mentioned most across all the other platforms in articles and posts about GBV issues. On all platforms, men were the least mentioned.

Causes of GBV: Money and relationships were the leading causes of GBV as mentioned in articles and posts in the various platforms. Property and children followed. However, further analysis shows that majority of the stories/posts did not specify or identify a cause of the GBV.

Impact: Results show that majority of the GBV stories published resulted into arrest, death -across all platforms. Other issues like injuries, separation, maiming were least mentioned.

Organizations mentioned most across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube: We sampled a number of six organizations that deal with/in GBV issues in Uganda to see which ones were mentioned most in articles and social media conversations about GBV (not how they post using their own accounts.) These included; Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development (MGLSD), Uganda Women’s Network (UWONET), Action Aid Uganda,	Uganda Police, The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA) and Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP).

The Uganda Police was the most mentioned institution across all platforms followed by MGLSD (on Facebook), FIDA on Twitter. CEDOVIP was the least mentioned across all platforms followed by Action Aid. UWONET averaged 3rd position on both Facebook and Twitter. The Uganda Police was the only mentioned institution on YouTube.

We further analyzed other organizations that were mentioned and results show that some of these other organizations (not the six sampled) generated more coverage than the 6 as detailed in the main report.

Social Media positing and engagement

The study found that a total of 1,244 posts on issues related to Gender Based Violence in Uganda were made on Facebook. The videos (52) had generated an impressive 11,761,570 views as of December 7, 2018. We also noted that the posts generated slightly more shares than comments. There were 3,026 shares compared to 2,950 comments.

Reactions: We captured how Facebook users reacted to the posts made on issues related to GBV in Uganda. Findings show that users reacted more through likes, followed by love, cry, wow, angry and laugh as shown below.

25,984	1,711	67	175	140	301

The analysis shows that a total of 74 videos were posted on YouTube by media houses, organizations/institutions and individuals on issues related to GBV in Uganda. These videos had generated 37,412 views as of 1st December 2018.

We noted that 50% of the videos on issues related to GBVs in Uganda were posted by NTV Uganda. NBSTV Uganda followed with 22%.

The table below shows the number of tweets made during the different months under review.

Engagement
MONTH	TOTAL	Reply	Retweet	Favorite
MAY 18	275	66	782	1,638
JUNE 18	143	45	809	1,104
JULY 18	98	35	231	454
AUGUST 18	147	43	442	696
SEPTEMBER 18	148	37	353	684
OCTOBER 18	126	20	182	289
NOVEMBER 17	146	92	907	1,284
DECEMBER 17	181	72	308	514
TOTAL	1,265	410	4,014	6,663

16 Days of GBV activism: We analyzed the conversations that took place across all platforms during the months of November and December 2017 in which the 16 days of GBV activism takes place vis-à-vis those reported during the period May 1st to October 31st 2018.

We noted significant coverage happened in September (14.90%). May (14.60%) came 2nd followed by October (14.24%). Overall November had the least conversations. July, August and December were the other 3 months with low coverage measured across all platforms analyzed.

MAY	JUNE	JULY	AUG	SEPT	OCT	NOV	DEC	TOTAL
News Papers	86	58	52	48	62	79	103	58	546
Online	50	12	11	20	66	45	16	21	241
Facebook	63	203	185	155	220	223	81	114	1244
Twitter	275	143	98	147	148	126	147	181	1265
YouTube	18	9	7	5	5	7	6	17	74
TOTAL	492	425	353	375	501	480	353	391	3370

Observations/Lessons learned

Videos, although few generated the most engagement on Facebook and YouTube

Civil societies are using social media (Facebook and Twitter) to do advocacy work about GBV issues. There are hardly any stories regarding GBV incidents, most of the posts are about GBV activities and lobbying.

Almost all stories related to sexual violence are negative in nature whereas there is positive sentiment in regards to child marriage. This could be due to the numerous efforts to stop child marriage especially as covered in online publications.

Children are more pronounced when it comes to defilement whereas women when the search term is GBV in general on Facebook and Twitter.

The government is majorly mentioned when conversations are about GBV as a whole, not when addressing specific GBV issues.

There seems to be more activities in May and June relating to the International Girl Child Day than it is in November and December during the 16 days of activism against GBV.

Sexual violence, early marriages and domestic violence are the most mentioned issues, police is the most mentioned institution.

Organisations dealing in GBV issues in Uganda didn’t do much in utilizing YouTube to for example post explainer videos, case stories, running image or beneficiary profiles (e.g. services to help or rehabilitate victims) related to GBV issues etc.

Recommendations

More focus should be given to other forms of GBV just as it is done on sexual violence.

Empower journalists to undertake detailed solution driven reporting other than reporting of occurrences of GBV incidents.

More stories on lives of victims of GBV as people could go a long way in humanizing the problems of GBV and placing it in relevant context.

More reporting that empowers and encourages GBV victims for a better livelihood

Continue and support current good reporting and conversations on GBV issues in Uganda

Award good reporting on GBV issues to drive more and better media coverage.

During days of GBV activism, focus should not only be put on newspapers and TVs but also utilize other media platforms especially radio and social media. #

CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH

1.0 Introduction to the Study

As the world marked 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence starting November 26th 2018, we at Ultimate Multimedia Consult decided to undertake a study to establish the level of media coverage of GBV issues in Uganda. The study focused on how GBV issues are reported in the four leading newspapers in Uganda: The New Vision, Daily Monitor, The Observer and Bukedde, as well as in online publications across the World Wide Web. We also tracked conversations about GBV issues in Uganda on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The Uganda Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD) together with different partners launched the 2018 Advocacy Campaign to among others raise awareness about Gender-Based Violence as a human right, public health, economic and social issue at the family, community, national, regional and international levels. Similar campaigns are held during the 16 days of activism against GBV every year.

This study also sought to understand the quantity and quality of media coverage and conversations about GBV and whether there is more and better coverage of and conversations about GBV issues during the November and December when this campaign is held, compared to other months. We thus captured media coverage and conversations of November and December 2017, and May 1st to October 31st 2018.

We did not track coverage from the broadcast stations on air but did capture those that publish or post online (their websites and social media). Other than resource considerations, we wanted to capture coverage and mentions from media of record (that can easily be referenced).

The study also sought to understand the organisations most mentioned in media coverage of GBV issues as well as conversations about GBV on social media. This was based on the understanding (by UMC) that desirable media coverage of GBV issues should result from or inform communication and conversations on GBV issues.

The study specifically set out to establish the following:

The quantity and quality of media coverage of GBV issues in newspapers and online

The organisations mentioned in media coverage of GBV issues in newspapers and online

The number and type of posts made about GBV issues in Uganda on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The level and type of engagement of posts about GBV in Uganda on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The study was aimed at understanding how GBV issues in Uganda are covered by and communicated in mainstream media in order to generate lessons on how to improve media coverage and communication practices on GBV issues in Uganda. We also hope good communication and media coverage of GBV issues can greatly inform appropriate response to GBV concerns in the country especially helping the victims cope and perpetrators to stop.

Overview of GBV in and Uganda and Media reporting on the issues

GBV is wide spread in Uganda and it affects all people irrespective of their social, economic and political status. It occurs in families, communities, workplaces and institutions. For example, the proportion of ever-partnered women aged 15-49 years experiencing intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime is reported at 50%. The Physical and/or Sexual Intimate Partner Violence is reported to be at 30 % while 40% of women aged 20 to 24 years reported having been first married or in union before the age of 18. (Source: Uganda Bureau of Statistics - UBOS and ICF. 2018) . Even in Refugee settlements, there are reported high cases of sexual violence with 4054 cases reported between January and August 2018.

The presence of high instances of GBV has been highlighted as one of the key indicators of gender inequalities in Uganda. GBV continues to be an issue of concern given the country’s recognized strong legislative and policy framework that supports gender equality and women’s empowerment, based on commitments under the Constitution well as other international obligations on gender equality.

There are different forms of GBV that have been identified; these include:
i. Physical Violence (includes battering, sexual assault, at home or in the workplace)
ii. Psychological / emotional Violence (includes deprivation of liberty, forced marriage, sexual harassment, at home or in the workplace).
iii. Treatment of women as commodities (includes trafficking women and girls for Sexual exploitation)
iv. Economic Violence (includes denial of rights to property)
v. Harmful Traditional Practices (include widow inheritance, Female Genital Mutilation/cutting, early or forced marriages, denial of education for girl child
vi. Sexual Gender Based Violence (sexual harassment, rape and defilement)

It is expected that the media would report on GBV with the critical aim of eliminating it and the negative impacts of GBV i.e devastating effects and high prevalence of social problems such as social exclusion, psychological distress mental and anxiety disorders, spread of HIV and STD infections, unwanted pregnancies and the trauma experienced by victims, it has a direct negative impact on the dignity of victims and productivity in general.

Uganda Police Force officers in 2017 joined the rest of the world to commemorate 16 days of activism. Source: Uganda Police Website GBV is a problem of the entire society, it is considered a global pandemic, and the role of the media is to address this problem in a responsible way to promote public discussion. It is against this background that we undertook this study to establish the level and type of media coverage of GBV issues in Uganda as well as conversations about GBV issues in Uganda within social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Some previous studies have found that GBV is covered by the media in insensitive ways, with questionable headlines that trivialise the experiences of women, contributing to stereotypes and victim blaming. One such study found that many women often suffer secondary victimization from the media through the news reportage that emanates from some journalists. The results of this study show that while women constituted a higher proportion (58%) of sources than men (42%) in coverage of GBV, most stories arise from court reporting, lacking analysis of figures, hence missing the opportunities for in-depth, broad and analytical reporting on the topic.

There have been long held concerns that the media also often misses the opportunity to give GBV stories a human face by denying survivors the chance to speak about their experiences. Very few record the first-hand accounts of women, men or children facing violence. Although it may be difficult to interview survivors of GBV because of the sensitivity of the issue, it is of interest to understand the efforts made by journalists and media houses in this regard (Elvira Mujkić Jukić 2016).

1.2 Theoretical foundation of the study

Reporting on GBV issues in Uganda has been debated as negative or mostly undesirable if looked at based on media framing theory. Frames have included ideas of ‘it is according to African cultures’ to women being responsible for the violence they face, as well as GBV being a women’s only problem (affecting women), among others. More balanced coverage would be expected to include expert opinions and personal stories, and editorials on the need to end GBV.

The general public tends to rely on news media for information about GBV. The media’s framing of these issues, by selecting specific cases, events, opinions, facts, images and information, shapes audience responses, encouraging ‘particular interpretations or understanding of issues’ and reflecting, increasing and influencing prejudicial attitudes (Hodgetts and Chamberlain, 2013; McHugh-Dillon, 2015; Rane and Hersi, 2011: 138).

Through shaping and amplifying public attitudes, the media has an impact on policy outcomes by influencing government considerations and communication of issues (Branton and Dunaway, 2008; Hericourt and Spielvogel, 2012).

In line with the propaganda model of media, where media reporting is heavily influenced by the state, government bodies are ‘highly and arguably disproportionately influential’ in public refugee debates with ‘habitual, privileged [media] access’ (Romano, 2004: 49).

Despite significant research into media and framing of GBV issues, there is need for a focus on studying Uganda media reporting of GBV issues in Uganda.

The issue of gender-based violence is covered by the media on a daily basis, which is a positive indicator that there is a recognition of the problem but it is also a reason to analyze the manner in which the media report on this issue and their responsibility in the process of starting a discussion on GBV as a social problem. There have been concerns over the flaws in the work of media when it comes to reporting on violence against women and domestic violence, such as the insufficient attention paid to this issue in the society and prevention thereof or even unethical reporting on sensitive cases.

1.3 Background to the study

Ultimate Multimedia Consult (UMC) started an initiative in 2018 to research and produce reports titled Media and Communications Measurement across the Platforms: We are researching on different brands and public issues like this on GBV with a focus on how organizations communicate and are covered in the media; and measuring engagement and impact or outcomes of messages in print media and online media (including social media).

UMC is a leading multimedia journalism and communications firm providing value added news, information and knowledge products and services, communications, research, media monitoring, evaluation, video recording and documentation, multimedia editorial services, website design and hosting as well as multimedia training and optimization services. UMC is designed and intends to provide efficient, effective and quality media communication & research services that best meet the need to communicate and achieve results in traditional & new media platforms.

The Studies: We intend to study comparative communications efforts by different organizations, media coverage and engagement across all media platforms so as to better inform theory and practice of communications and media engagement (build on the body of knowledge). We also intend to study the media coverage and online conversations on public interest issues like health, education, agriculture, good governance, economic empowerment, refugees, GBV etc.

1.4 Justification for Studies

Many organisations are finding their feet undertaking communications online, in traditional media and especially engaging targets to achieve results (outcomes) or impact. Though there are many suggested tactics, strategies and practices for communication in both traditional and new media platforms, there is limited concrete research on how organizations are communicating today, what is working well today for whom and in what circumstances. Media houses on the other hand say they are committed to covering public interest issues and players fairly.

UMC has since 2010 developed and undertaken media monitoring and impact assessment of several projects and media campaigns. We have realized both the public and organizations lack comprehensive data and figures regarding how organizations communicate, key issues to attend to and how the media portrays or covers the different sectors/organizations in the country as well as how to engage on social media platforms effectively and measure outcomes or impact.

1.5 Expected outcomes of the researches

This communications monitoring research effort is expected to lead to the availability of knowledge which will help in better decision making and formulation of policies relating to communications and influencing people. We plan to study and produce reports at least quarterly.

In addition to presenting the comparative metrics, the research reports will provide tips/recommendations on how organisations can improve on their media presence, engagement and communications impact or outcomes in line with current best practices. It will also help the industry access facts and information on how issues/organizations are being covered in the media. This analysis will also help media houses to understand which issues they cover and how they are covered and whether they are in-tune with ongoing conversations on the different issues.

1.6 Specific objectives

We believe it is crucial to carry out media monitoring and evaluation for comparative organizational communications efforts per sector/issue and media coverage in order to:

To help organisations understand the outcomes, impact, reach of their communications efforts as well as frequency of their media coverage and mentions.

To listen to and measure conversations people are having about particular organizations, brands, or issues of public interest e.g. education, agriculture, health, democracy, gbv, etc

Through analyzing these conversations, help companies/organizations identify issues, serve customers, handle crises, identify comparators and potential partnerships

Understand more about public/ consumer sentiments on specific messages and generally

Present the current best practices and tactics for communicating and engaging within tradition and new media platforms in order to generate better communication outcomes.

Generate a report to be discussed in a Communicating Effectively Today workshop

To inform UMC multimedia journalism and communication training and UMC services with current industry practices and gaps in media and communication.

Media coverage in this report is used to mean articles or brand mentioning appearing in newspapers, online publications about a particular organization or issue of study.

We are hoping that you as an organization, journalist, trainer or communications practitioner, you will find this report and others to come in future series useful guides and reality checks for you message development, planning, communication strategies and measurement/ assessment.

Note that while this study is intended to contribute to knowledge generation and sharing in the academic sense, we have taken deliberate efforts to vary research methodologies and presentation of findings in a reporting format we think best suited for your quick reading and comprehension. Your feedback and advice on how to improve future studies is most welcome.

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY

2.0 Study Methodological Focus

In deciding the media monitoring and measurement methodologies, UMC usually considers the overall goals of the monitoring, the target audience for the results, what media are to be measured, which parts of the media output are to be monitored, what content will be monitored and for what purpose as well what detail of media output or content will be measured/ analysed.

For this particular study, we reviewed media coverage of GBV issues in the four newspapers and online publications, mention of orgnisations supporting GBV issues, posts conversations and engagement on GBV related issues within Twitter, Facebook and YouTube between May 1st to October 31st 2018 and those of November and December 2017 (the 16 days campaign period).

The newspapers selected for media monitoring analysis of covering GBV issues (The New Vision, Daily Monitor, The Observer and Bukedde) were picked based on industry considerations of the four leading journalistic newspapers in Uganda.

The online media coverage targeted the whole World Wide Web because it is easy to mine for stories or mentions. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were chosen as social media to analyse for conversations related to GBV issues in Uganda because they are the leading social media platforms. We captured organisations most mentioned in GBV related stories and conversations.

The time period of six months was arrived at as adequate to measure performance in message communications by selected GBV support agencies and on GBV issues. Such a study needed to analyse content over a long period of time where adequate coverage has been generated but not too long given the enormity of publications online and offline as well as social media networks being considered for analysis. We also studied two months of November and December 2017 so as to compare coverage and conversations during the 16days of activism against GBV and other months far off from the campaign days.

The issues the study aimed to establish and the research questions are specified in this table.

No.	Issue studied	Key research questions/considerations
1	The quantity and quality of media coverage of GBV issues in newspapers and online	What is the amount of mentions and coverage of GBV related issues? Which newspaper or online publication published or mentioned GBV? How many times were GBV issues mentioned or covered in newspapers and online publications? What type of mention or coverage was it i.e. news story, feature story, opinion, letter to editor, advertisement/supplement? How much space did the GBV issues have in the coverage? How well did the stories meet basic journalistic standards/ principles? Gender of reporters, sources? Any voices of victims? What GBV issues most covered?
2	The organisations mentioned in media coverage of GBV issues in newspapers and online	What organisations were mentioned in newspaper and online articles about GBV issues? How many times were such organisations mentioned? In what type of articles were the mentioned it i.e. news story, feature story, opinion, letter to editor, advertisement/supplement?
3	The number and type of posts made about GBV issues in Uganda on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.	How many posts were made about GBV issues in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube? What type of posts were they i.e text, photos (images), video, links, questions, quizzes?
4	The level and type of engagement of posts about GBV issues in Uganda on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.	What was the level of engagement generated by posts on gbv issues within Facebook, Twitter and YouTube? What type of engagement was generated in each social media platform i.e. likes, comments, shares, retweets?

Table 1: The issues that were measured and analysed by this study

These issues were handled using different quantitative and qualitative methods and based on different indicators as specified further below.

2.2 Study Design

This being a multi-faceted study, we utilized different methods to measure different aspects. The study employed Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a theoretical framework to inform our methodology. CDA aims to understand and address social issues by critically examining what is included or excluded in texts, and what is ‘perspectivised’ through linguistic processes (KhosraviNik, 2010). To identify the issues and voices included and excluded in newspaper and online coverage of GBV issues, we employed quantitative content analysis to generate standardised data on coverage across newspapers and online publications.

The study though employed quantitative and qualitative components. The quantitative component focused on the number of times and or space allocated to the GBV issues, the organizations mentioned in the coverage on GBV, the type of GBV and the tone of coverage or social media metricts. Components of the qualitative monitoring included message fidelity, sentiment, quoting, verification, completeness, among others as details below.

We deployed three teams, one to study newspaper coverage and mentions, another handled online coverage and mentions, while the third reviewed social media conversations (Twitter, YouTube and Facebook). All assistants who participated in this study are multimedia journalists and communication practitioners with additional training in research and media monitoring. The teams held several meetings to review and refine the tools and indicators.

The types of GBV captured and compared in this study included:

We developed research tools (guides) for each of the elements (newspaper, online, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) with codes and measures for the different indicators. The team members discussed extensively the tools, indicators and cross referenced with each other and the study leader throughout the assignment period. The tools and indicators together with data captured are available for members or those interested at www.yaaka.cc/umc-research/ .

2.3 Particular methods for specific issues

The study was mainly based on content analysis to measure elements of media output that can be measured and counted. This helped us to bring out how issues on GBV were reported about or mentioned in selected newspapers, online publications, how they were posted on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, as well as the engagement they generated.

We came up with a media log -a primary tool to capture the media coverage and or mentions. It contains Date; Media Outlet; type of coverage; Headline; Quality of Coverage (low, medium, high) link (where applicable), among others. We deployed enough media monitors to be able to monitor and capture all aspects and fill results accordingly on the code sheets.

We qualified content analysis by assessing whether the coverage or mentions were/are favourable or unfavourable to those facing GBV, space allocated and placement. Although these measures may also be quantified, they are essentially qualitative judgments.

Aware of limitations of this methodology to bring out important aspects of coverage like fulfillment of journalistic reporting standards, tone/sentiment among others, we applied the following other methods of media monitoring and communication measurement.

Using our many years of experience as a firm that aggregates information gathered by traditional and social media content providers, we used different software and tools to compile and analyze that information – and refine it by human analysts. The resulting media and communication intelligence was synthesized further to establish the following:

Prominence: The attention a story on GBV issues got in the media (newspaper or online). We measured using a number of factors that measure the quantity and quality of media coverage, including type of media, extent (of coverage), share of voice, story size or length, placement, story treatment, use of visuals, type of coverage, etc.

Media type – We had to specify which of the four newspapers or website has produced the story or carried a mention about GBV issues.

Share of voice –We analysed the share of media attention in the total coverage that GBV issues got. This information contributes to competitive intelligence analysis, and ultimately justification of the message packaging (for messages originating from organisations).

Use of visuals – We captured information on the content and placement of such visuals as photographs, images, graphics both in newspapers and online.

Type of coverage or Mention– We captured the context in which an item is presented in the media i.e. news, opinion/commentary, feature story, letter to the editor, advert, advertorial.

Tone or sentiment We measured how the GBV issues are portrayed in the media. Tone is normally categorized as positive, neutral or negative (filtered by human analysts for newspapers and online publications).

Message fidelity was used to derive information on how well the message conveyed by the newspapers or online publication matched the message or messages the source(s) wanted to communicate or support victims of GBV.

Content and nature of quotes – an amalgamation of what was said/printed in the media, who was quoted in the story, including the quotes themselves as well as the source – media, police or government spokesperson, experts, victims and/or third party, direct or paraphrase.

Outcomes/Impact We measured how prominence is amplified by tone and/or message fidelity. For example, a positive front page story – with an accompanying large flattering photo and multiple spokesperson and third-party quotes delivering the desired messages – in a daily newspaper reaching an audience that the can change or end GBV could be judged to have a high impact. While impact evaluation processes for social media are ever-evolving, one such measurement revolves around engagement (how engaging the story is).

Engagement – We measured the nature and extent of audience engagement through two-way conversations, the sharing of information, and other interactions such as subscribership. Included in this measurement were such considerations as reach and tone delivered by online posts and comments, linkbacks, tweets, and retweets, Facebook shares, comments, likes etc.

We also additionally looked at:

Number of sources as an indicator of journalistic professionalism. We were looking for distribution and balance of sources to explore potential of bias.

Gender of sources to establish potential differences in reporting on a particular GBV issue based on gender and whether official sources or the affected.

Geographical distribution of stories to identify any significant variations especially in terms of the particular regions in the GBV issue(s) being reported about.

Some methods were applied together to reach at the particular findings and interpretations as presented and discussed in the findings.

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS

3.0 Overall media coverage and communication across platforms

The first section presents findings on how GBV issues in Uganda were covered in newspapers and online publications. In the second section we present how GBV issues in Uganda were communicated about in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the leading social media networks. The second section also shows the level of engagement of posts within respective social networks.

While we have commented on some of the findings on particular aspects, we expect that you can make your own interpretations about the statistics of media coverage in newspapers and online, posts on social media as best relates to the specific issue(s) of your interest.

3.1 Coverage by newspapers

The New Vision, Daily Monitor, The Observer and Bukedde newspapers published a total of 546 stories on Gender Based Violence issues in Uganda from 1st May to 31st October 2018 and during the months of November and December 2017.

We noted that majority (40.48%) of the stories were published by The New Vision newspaper. Daily Monitor was second with 30.22%, Bukedde had 27.47% while The Observer published the least number of stories (1.83%) as shown in the graph below.

A. Story placement: We studied the placement of stories reported on issues on Gender Based Violence in Uganda and the study shows that majority (91.94%) of the stories on GBV issues in Uganda where published on the inside pages (from page 4 to the 2nd last page) of the newspapers as shown in the table below.

Publication	Prominent Pages	Inside Pages	Total
The New Vision	10	211	221
Daily Monitor	23	142	165
The Observer	1	9	10
Bukedde	10	140	150
TOTAL	44	502	546

Only 8.06% were placed on prominent pages (pages 1, 2, 3 and back page). Stories placed on prominent pages are considered more important and also tend to attract the attention of readers more than those placed on the inside pages.

B. Story size: The majority (38.64%) of the stories published by newspapers covered a quota of a newspaper page and below while 38.10% covered half of the newspaper pages. Only 23.26% of the total stories covered full pages as the table below shows.

Publication	Full page	Half	Quota page & below
The New Vision	60	91	70
Daily Monitor	40	38	87
The Observer	6	3	1
Bukedde	21	76	53
Total	127	208	211

C. Sentiment: We also studied whether the stories published on issues related to GBV in Uganda were favorable to the affected people and advocated for their wellbeing. The analysis shows that majority (64.65%) of the stories had negative sentiment followed by those with positive at 19.41% while 15.93% had neutral sentiment.

The high number of stories with negative sentiment means most of what newspapers report is the bad actions of violence happening and not much on corrective measures (if at all such actions are availed to journalists).

D. Gender of author: The majority (50.97%) of the stories published by newspapers were written by males. 25.49% did not specify the authors while 23.54% were by females. There is need to encourage more female journalist/ authors to report more stories just as men.

The table below shows the gender of author of the stories published by newspapers on issues related to GBV in Uganda from May 1st to October 31st 2018 and months of November and December 2017.

E. Source Gender: We noted that majority of the stories published by newspapers about GBV in Uganda used male sources compared to female sources as seen below.

282 Female 339 Male 86 Others

The graph below shows the source gender used in the stories published by newspapers on issues related to GBV in Uganda from May 1st to October 31st 2018 and during the months of November and December 2017.

F. Source category: We also tallied the categories of people quoted in the stories published by newspapers during the period under review. We categorized them basing on politicians, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), community members, religious leaders, MGLSD, Police, Other government agencies and others.

We noted that majority (24.20%) of the sources used were from community members, Police sources followed with 20.03%. 15.56% were sources from politicians while CSOs accounted for 10%. MGLSD sources contributed 1.39% of the total sources used.

Below is a graph showing the details of the categories of sources used.

The table below shows the category of sources used in the stories published by newspapers on issues related to GBV in Uganda from May 1st to October 31st 2018 and during the months of November and December 2017.

Publication	Politicians	CSOs	Community Members	Religious Leaders	MGLSD	Police	Other Govt agencies	Others
The New Vision	78	66	68	11	6	40	3	47
Daily Monitor	25	21	34	3	4	52	18	53
The Observer	1	6	5	0	0	6	3	1
Bukedde	8	6	67	11	0	46	1	29
TOTAL	112	99	174	25	10	144	25	130

G. Community type affected: We noted women were the most affected among the issues published about on GBV by newspapers as seen below:

325 stories affected women 192 stories affected Children 138 Stories affected men

H. Issues covered: The majority of the stories on GBV issues in Uganda published by newspapers were on sexual violence followed by domestic violence, early marriages. Beating was fourth as shown in the table below:

Publication	Sexual violence	Early Marriages	Domestic Violence	FGM	Beating	Verbal abuse	Trafficking	Others
The New Vision	108	54	45	13	25	5	9	1
Daily Monitor	90	24	37	0	10	4	3	3
The Observer	7	3	1	1	1	1	0	0
Bukedde	61	1	37	0	10	2	1	1
TOTAL	266	82	120	14	46	12	13	5

I. Type of violence: We also studied the type of violence in the stories reported on issues related to GBV in Uganda. We categorized these as either physical or emotional. The findings show that majority (59.23%) of the stories published by newspapers had emotional impact to the victims of GBV while 40.77% were physical as the graph below shows;

J. Causes: We also studied the causes of Gender Based Violence as reported by the four leading newspapers in Uganda. These were categorized as property, money, relationships, children and others.

The study findings show that money is the leading cause of GBV followed by issues related to relationships as shown in the table below:

Publication	Property	Money	Relationships	Children	Others
The New Vision	12	42	12	6	137
Daily Monitor	6	16	28	2	114
The Observer	0	0	6	2	4
Bukedde	8	13	23	17	84
Total	26	71	69	27	339

K. Impact: We further studied the impact of Gender Based Violence as reflected in the stories reported. We segmented the impact as separation, injury, maiming, arrest, death and others. Results show that majority of the GBV stories published resulted into arrest followed by death as shown below:

Publication	Death	Separation	Injury	Maiming	Arrest	Other
The New Vision	31	5	15	7	34	149
Daily Monitor	21	10	8	5	52	95
The Observer	1	4	2	2	1	4
Bukedde	22	18	10	5	58	55
Total	75	37	35	19	145	303

L. Share of voice: The majority (65.20%) of the stories published on issues related to GBV in Uganda had a high share of voice, 22.71% were medium while 12.09% had low as shown in the graph on right.

M. Message fidelity: The majority of stories had medium message fidelity, closely followed by high message fidelity which indicates that the majority of the GBV stories in newspapers had clear messages that were easy to understand.

Publication	High	Medium	Low
The New Vision	86	84	51
Daily Monitor	61	68	37
The Observer	9	0	1
Bukedde	50	61	38
Total	206	213	127

N. Type of Coverage: The majority of stories published by newspapers were news stories followed by features, commentaries, editorial, advertorials and news analysis. Letters and press releases were the least as shown in the table below

Publication	Press release	Advertorial	Editorial	News	News analysis	Commentary	Feature	Letter
The New Vision	3	19	14	144	1	17	23	0
Daily Monitor	0	3	10	111	4	10	27	0
The Observer	2	0	0	4	0	0	3	1
Bukedde	0	0	1	119	6	18	4	2
Total	5	22	25	378	11	45	57	3

O. Nature of quotes: The majority (302) of the stories published online about GBV issues in Uganda had direct quotes. One hundred thirty one stories had indirect quotes while 109 had no quotes.

Publication	Direct	Indirect	None
The New Vision	160	21	40
Daily Monitor	91	53	21
The Observer	9	0	1
Bukedde	42	61	47
Total	302	135	109

P. Use of visuals: We noted that majority (355) of the stories had photos. Fourteen had graphics. One hundred eighty three stories were not accompanied by any visuals as shown below.

16 Days of GBV activism: We analyzed the stories reported during the months of November and December 2017 in which the 16 days of GBV activism takes place vis-à-vis those reported during the period May 1st to October 31st 2018.

We noted that stories published by newspapers in the month of November 2017 were the majority (18.86%) while the month of May 2018 which had no GBV activities was second with 15.75% as the table below shows.

MAY	JUNE	JULY	AUG	SEPT	OCT	NOV	DEC	TOTAL
The New Vision	34	26	25	20	31	20	44	21	221
Daily Monitor	32	12	16	9	13	37	31	15	165
Bukedde	19	19	10	17	17	21	26	21	150
The Observer	1	1	1	2	1	1	2	1	10
TOTAL	86	58	52	48	62	79	103	58	546

3.2 Coverage by online publications

Using different industry standard tools, we studied how issues on Gender Based Violence in Uganda were reported about and the organizations mentioned in stories by online publications (all websites excluding social networks).

The analysis shows that a total of 241 stories were published by online publications on GBV issues in Uganda and issues related to GBV in Uganda from 1st May – 31st October 2018 and during the months of November & December 2017.

A. Sentiment: We studied whether the issues reported about were favorable to women and girls in Uganda. The majority (57.26%) of the stories by online publications had negative sentiment as the graph below shows;

The high number of stories with Negative sentiment shows that civil society organizations and government departments responsible on GBV issues need to do more advocacy against gender based violence in Uganda, provide for and report solutions to GBV. We noted this was the same trend for newspapers.

B. Gender of author: We noted that majority (44.17%) of the stories were reported by male authors/journalists while 24.58% were by female authors. However, 31.25% of the stories published by online publications did not specify sex of the authors.

C. Gender of source: The majority of the stories published online on GBV issues in Uganda had female sources. We noted that there were 118 female sources compared to 99 male sources.

45.91% Female s 38.52%Male 29.87% Others

D. Source category: We studied the categories of sources used by authors/journalists in the stories published online. For this study, we categorized sources as politicians, CSOs, community members, religious leaders, MGLSD, Police, other government agencies and others.

We noted that majority (34.38%) of the sources used were from Police, sources from Civil Society Organisations followed with 27.32%. 22.61% were government sources while politicians accounted for 3.77% as the graph below shows.

Since there are a number of government agencies/departments and CSOs involved in handling issues related to GBV in the country, we further analysed how often such agencies were mentioned in the stories published by online publications. The details of mentions is shown later in this chapter.

E. Community type affected: Women were the most affected in the stories reported on issues related to GBV in Uganda by online publications during the period under review.

We noted that issues covered in the stories reported by online publications affected women mostly (55.19%), those that affected children were 35.68% while men were the least affected (10.37%).

133 stories affected women 86 stories affected Children 25 stories affected men

F. Issues covered: We noted that majority of the stories report on sexual violence (rape, defilement, sexual harassment) followed by domestic violence, trafficking, and early marriages as the graph below shows;

G. Causes: We also studied the causes of GBV in Uganda as reported by online publications. We segmented the causes as property, money, relationships, children and others. Findings show that 15.77% were caused by relationships followed by money at 6.64%. Other causes accounted for 74.69% as shown in the graph below:

H. Type of violence: We looked at the type of violence as either physical or emotional. We noted that emotional violence had the majority (50.81%) while physical violence was at 49.19% of the total stories reviewed.

I. Impact: We further anlysed the impact as reflected in the stories reported by online publications on issues related to GBV in Uganda. The study shows that majority (20.75%) of stories reported resulted into arrest, 20.33% death, 18.67% injuries while others accounted for 40.25% as the graph below shows.

K. Message fidelity	High	Medium	Low
160	59	22
J. Share of voice:

High	Medium	Low
143	49	45

L. Nature of quotes: We noted that 68.05% of the stories reported had direct quotes while 18.67% had indirect quotes. 13.27% had none as the chart below shows.

M. Use of visuals: The majority (78.84%) of the stories had photos, 5.39% had videos while 2.90% had graphics. Only 10.79% had neither of the three.

N. ISSUE: The study shows that sexual violence was the highly reported about issue over the two periods analysed as the table below shows.

ISSUES	Sexual Violence	Early marriages	Domestic violence	FGM	Beating	Verbal abuse	Trafficking	Others
May - Oct 2018	121	23	25	22	7	35	37	9
Nov - Dec 2017	22	9	13	4	5	2	1	1

O. 16 Days of GBV activism: We analyzed the stories reported during the months of November and December 2017 in which the 16 days of GBV activism takes place vis-à-vis those reported during the period May 1st to October 31st 2018.

We noted that online publications published more stories during the months of September 2018 (27.39%), May followed with 20.75%, October had 18.67% while the months in which the 16 days of GBV activism are conducted had less stories reported (November 2017 and December 2017 had 6.64% and 8.71% respectively).

3.3 How GBV stories were posted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

As many Ugandan media outlets and individuals are active in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it was important to track conversations in these social media networks so as to gauge the type of posts and the outcomes of such posts in order to further understand how Ugandans understand or appreciate GBV issues.

In addition to how GBV issues in Uganda were communicated on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we have captured the level of engagement of the respective posts made on issues related to GBVs from 1st May to 31st October 2018 as well as 1st November to 31st Dec 2017.

Engagement measures the connections built by a brand or issue and its audience. A quick glance at an organization’s engagement rate gives an insight as to whether communication efforts are successful or not. A high engagement rate on an issue also indicates good successful communication about the issue.

There are different engagements received by posts and these carry different meaning. For example whereas a like is great, a retweet or comment shows a lot more commitment from audience members. While likes are a sign that the followers appreciate what you have to say, a retweet or share shows that your followers really value your input and willing to spread it.

3.3.1 Posting on Facebook

The study found that a total of 1,244 posts on issues related to Gender Based Violence in Uganda were made on Facebook over a period of eight months (May 1st to October 31st 2018 as well as November and December 2017). The videos (52) had generated an impressive 11,761,570 views as of December 7, 2018.

We also noted that the posts generated slightly more shares than comments. There were 3,026 shares compared to 2,950 comments.

The two months of November and December 2017 had been analyzed to ascertain, since that period is made up of activities – both pre and post – marking the 16 days of GBV.

We were interested in knowing if posting and engagement during this period could be any different from that during the other periods of the year. We found that on Facebook, there was no noticeable difference. We will thus analyze the data collected during the period (May 1st to October 31st 2018 as well as November and December 2017) as one.

Reactions: We captured how Facebook users reacted to the posts made on issues related to GBV in Uganda. Findings show that users reacted more through likes, followed by love, cry, wow, angry and laugh as shown below.

25,984	1,711	67	175	140	301

Post Type: We tallied the post type used while posting messages on issues related to GBV in Uganda. We categorized post type as text, photo, video, link, graphic, event or question.

It was found out that majority of the posts were text (1,246) type followed by photo (827), link (288), graphic (168) while video (52), events (36) and questions (18) type were the least used as shown in the graph below.

Although there were only 52 videos posted during this period, they received an impressive reach, generating 11,761,570 views. This was far more than all the other engagement and reactions combined. This could be attributed to the nature of videos (mostly emotional) posted by international aid agencies thus encouraging users to share, tag friends to view.

Sentiment: The majority (60%) of the posts on Facebook had positive sentiment as the following graph shows.

The high number of stories with positive sentiment shows that the humanitarian agencies and government departments dealing with GBV issues are working hand to see that victims are helped and the general public aware of best practices to undertake in Uganda.

Community type: We also studied the community type mentioned in the posts made on Facebook about issues related to GBV in Uganda. These were categorized as women, children and men. Study results indicate that children were mentioned most (321) followed by women (199). Men were the least mentioned (31).

Organizations mentioned: We sampled a number of six organizations that deal with/in GBV issues in Uganda to see which ones were mentioned most (not how they post using their own accounts.) These included; Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development (MGLSD), Uganda Women’s Network (UWONET), Action Aid Uganda,	Uganda Police,	The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA) and Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP) among others.

Uganda Police was the most mentioned institution with 82 (48.23%) stories. Most of such stories were about arrests and trainings which involved. The other five institutions performed as below;

MGLSD	UWONET	Action Aid	Police	FIDA	CEDOVIP
26	26	19	82	20	9

We also tracked to ascertain how other organizations fared. We picked out, apart from the 6 analyzed the top 10 organizations with the most mentions during the time of review. The results are in the table below.

TOP 10 OTHER ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED ON FACEBOOK
No.	ORGANTIZATION	NUMBER OF MENTIONS
1	UN AGENCIES	83
2	Joy for Children	23
3	Plan Uganda	17
4	Refugee Law Project	16
5	US Embassy and agencies	16
6	Girls not Brides	15
7	Government of Uganda and other government agencies	15
8	World Vision	11
9	World Bank	10
10	Up Accelerate	9

Causes of GBV: We went further to analyze the underlying cause for every particular GBV issue – this was especially for posts that were newsworthy.

Since most of the posts weren’t newsworthy, or since the posts are short in nature, not as long as an article, there wasn’t significant coverage of the causes for GBV issues. (see following graphic).

Type of violence: Of newsworthy posts, 68% were about physical violence with 32% talking about emotional violence. This is because most of such stories talked more about sexual violence which is majorly physical in nature.

Issue: Issues relating to sexual violence (rape, defilement and sexual harassment) were the most posted about on Facebook during the period under review with 322 posts, followed by early marriages 205 and human trafficking 166. Posts about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) 39, Beating 28 and verbal abuse 10 had the least posts.

Posts in Facebook about GBV as a whole majorly focused on issues such as trainings, funding, advocacy and awareness.

The graph below shows the number of times issues relating to GBV were posted about on Facebook by different users during the six months (May to October 2018 as well as November and December 2017).

Other GBV issues mentioned on Facebook showed in the pie chart below;

Impact: We also looked at what impact the stories mentioned about generated on those involved in the GBV as shown in the graph below:

As can be seen above, impact from others accounted for the biggest share. Under this category came effects such as sentencing, rehabilitation among others. However, arrests came in second place and death in third spot which is no coincidence given that police – which is primarily responsible for such acts - was the most mentioned organization.

3.3.2 Coverage of GBV issues in Uganda on Twitter

We searched Twitter to get the conversations, level of discussions and mentions of GBV issues during the period 1st May 2018 – 31st October 2018 as well as 1st November to 31st December 2017. Just like it was on Facebook, having different time periods analyzed was for comparative purposes. Since the two months of 2017 have a beehive of activities related to 16 days of GBV – the biggest event about GBV in a year (bigger than the Day of African Child which takes place every June), we wanted to find out if the levels of discussion are any different from the 6 months analyzed in 2018.

The table below shows the number of tweets made during the different months under review.

Engagement
MONTH	TOTAL	Reply	Retweet	Favorite
MAY 18	275	66	782	1,638
JUNE 18	143	45	809	1,104
JULY 18	98	35	231	454
AUGUST 18	147	43	442	696
SEPTEMBER 18	148	37	353	684
OCTOBER 18	126	20	182	289
NOVEMBER 17	146	92	907	1,284
DECEMBER 17	181	72	308	514
TOTAL	1,265	410	4,014	6,663

Surprisingly, May, (which has no GBV activities like say June, November and December) had the highest number of tweets/mentions (275) regarding GBV issues in Uganda.

December 2017 comes second with 181. This could be attributed to engagement and publicity received during the winding up of the 16 days of GBV that year.

The other months of June, August, September and November 2017 all averaged 140 tweets. July had the least at 98.

The chart below illustrates how the different months performed on Twitter in relation to engagement from the period 1st May 2018 – 31st October 2018 as well as from 1st November to 31st December 2017.

Post type: The table below shows type of media used by different users who posted about GBV issues in Uganda on Twitter during the period 1st May 2018 – 31st October 2018 as well as from 1st November to 31st December 2017.

Post type
Month	Text	Photo	Graphic	video	Questions	Events	link
May 2018	273	95	15	8	12	4
June 2018	142	44	17	6	4
July 2018	95	34	19	15
August 2018	136	45	7	1	35
September 2018	143	38	5	3	4	11	64
October 2018	30	50	15	5	7	8
November 2017	146	47	18	1	5	3	56
December 2017	180	67	9	5	4	3	108
TOTAL	1,145	420	105	24	30	24	294

Most tweets were accompanied with text (1,145). The least used post type were events (24) and video (24). Sentiment: We studied whether the issues posted on Twitter were favorable to GBV campaigns in Uganda. The majority (58.10%) of the posts had positive sentiment.

Just like it was on Facebook, the high number of stories with positive sentiment shows that the humanitarian agencies and government departments dealing with GBV issues are working hand to see that victims are helped and the general public aware of best practices to undertake in Uganda

Community type: Unlike Facebook were issues pertaining children had the most conversations, on Twitter women were the most affected group with 50.14% followed by children 29.60% and lastly Men 20.26% as shown below.

397 stories affected children 673 stories affected women 272 stories affected men

Organizations mentioned: We sampled a number of six organizations that deal with/in GBV issues in Uganda to see which ones were mentioned most (not how they post using their own accounts.) These included; Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development (MGLSD), Uganda Women’s Network (UWONET), Action Aid Uganda,	Uganda Police,	The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA) and Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP) among others.

Uganda Police and FIDA tied up as institutions with the most mentions with 91 posts each. Since most stories were about arrests, the law and death, this could be the reason for such a performance. The other five institutions performed as below;

MGLSD	UWONET	Action Aid	Police	FIDA	CEDOVIP
6	12	4	91	91	1

We also tracked to ascertain how other organizations fared. We picked out, apart from the 6 analyzed the top 10 organizations with the most mentions during the time of review. The results are in the table below.

TOP 10 ORGANIZATION MENTIONED ON TWITTER
Organization	Number of mentions
UN AGENCIES	55
Church of Uganda	18
WORLD BANK	15
FOWODE	14
MISTRY OF EDUCATION, SPORTS SCIENCE & TECHNLOGY	11
PLAN UGANDA	10
IRC	6
CARE	6
FAWE	5
GBVNET	5

Causes of GBV: We went further to analyze the underlying cause for every particular GBV issue and below were the findings. Since most of the posts weren’t newsworthy, or are short in nature and not as long as an article just like it was on Facebook, there wasn’t significant coverage of the causes for GBV issues as shown below.

Type of violence: Of newsworthy posts, 79.41% were about physical violence with 20.59% talking about emotional violence. This is because most of the tweets were more about sexual and domestic violence which are majorly physical in nature.

Issue posted about: Issues were categorized as sexual violence (rape, defilement, sexual harassment), early marriages, domestic violence, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), beating, verbal abuse and human trafficking among others. Issues on sexual violence just like it was on Facebook led with 663 tweets as seen below.

However, unlike Facebook where early marriages followed, domestic violence followed with 375 while early marriages came third with 312 tweets. Issues about FGM had the least mentions with only 53 posts on Twitter.

Impact: We also looked at what impact the stories mentioned about generated as shown in the graph on the left:

Uganda Police and FIDA tied up as institutions with the most mentions with 91 posts each. Since most stories were about arrests, the law and death, this could be the reason for such a performance.

3.3.3 How GBV issues were posted about on YouTube

We tracked GBV issues in Uganda as posted by different channels and users on YouTube. We captured the level of reach and engagement of the respective videos posted on GBV issues between 1st May to 31st October 2018 as well as 1st November to 31st December 2017. We also captured the channels used to publish these GBV issues as well as organizations mentioned.

The analysis shows that a total of 74 videos were posted on YouTube by media houses, organizations/institutions and individuals on issues related to GBVs in Uganda from May 1st to October 31st 2018 as well as 1st November to 31st December 2017. These videos had generated 37,412 views as of 1st December 2018.

We noted the issues generated limited engagement. The posts generated more likes than comments and dislikes. This means there was minimal discussion about the issues highlighted but viewers showed interest in the videos thus the likes.

We noted that 50% of the videos on issues related to GBVs in Uganda were posted by NTV Uganda. NBSTV Uganda followed with 22%.

The word cloud below shows how often the different YouTube channels posted about GBV issues in Uganda during the period under review. (The bigger the word, the more number of times the channel posted).

Sentiment: We studied whether the videos published on YouTube were favorable to GBV campaigns in Uganda. We had 29 stories each for positive and neutral sentiment as the following graph shows.

Organizations mentioned: We sampled a number of six organizations that deal with/in GBV issues in Uganda to see which ones were mentioned most (not how they post using their own accounts.) These included; Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development (MGLSD), Uganda Women’s Network (UWONET), Action Aid Uganda, Uganda Police,	The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA) and Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP) among others.

The Uganda Police was the only mentioned institution on YouTube 16times on the videos analyzed from May 1st to October 31st 2018 as well as 1st November to 31st December 2017.

The word cloud below shows how other organizations were mentioned on the YouTube videos about GBV issues in Uganda during the period under review. (The bigger the word, the more number of times the channel posted).

Community type: We also studied the community type mentioned in the videos published on YouTube about issues related to GBV in Uganda. These were categorized as women, children and men. Study results indicate that women were mentioned most (34) followed by children (2). Men were the least mentioned (1).

Causes of GBV: We went further to analyze the underlying cause for every particular GBV issue – this was especially for videos that were newsworthy. We found out that most of the videos had no underlying cause mentioned. Only children and relationships were mentioned during the period under review.

Type of violence: Of newsworthy posts, only 6 stories were about physical violence with 1 talking about emotional violence.

Issue: Issues relating to sexual violence (rape, defilement and sexual harassment) were the most posted about on YouTube (same as on Facebook and Twitter) with 28 posts, followed by human trafficking 12 and early marriage plus domestic violence getting 5 each.

Stories about Beating 3, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) 1, had the least posts. Verbal abuse had no video published about it on YouTube.

The graph below shows the number of times videos with issues relating to GBV were published by different users during the six months (May to October 2018 as well as November and December 2017) on YouTube.

Impact: We also looked at what impact the GBV issues mentioned about generated. Impacts such as death and separation had no mention at all whereas the others performed as shown below.

4.0 Issues and Recommendations

The study was aimed at finding out how often GBV issues are covered or reported about or mentioned in newspapers and online publications, how well they are reported about in journalistic content, how often GBV issues were posted or communicated about in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as the level of engagement generated by posts on GBV issues in Uganda. The study also sought to find out the organisations most mentioned in media coverage and communications about GBV issues in Uganda across the platforms.

It can be generally said that the framing of GBV narrative in Uganda is on a fair level, as further supported by the high communication and engagement on Facebook and Twitter about GBV issues in Uganda. We noted good sourcing and quoting practices, considerably quoting police, civil society, ministry officials government and GBV victims themselves, including balancing quoting males and females.

4.1 Findings Vs Research issues

These are our observations from the analysis of the study findings.

The quantity and quality of media coverage of GBV issues in newspapers and online: The study found considerable quantity of reporting on GBV issues in newspapers and online. We did not find any significant difference of media coverage both online and in newspapers of GBV issues during November and December when the 16Days of activism against GBV are held and other months. This calls for careful attention and analysis of the 16 Days campaign and how effectively it targets better and effective media coverage. The quality of media coverage as has been presented in the different parameters is noted as being above average. Most of the stories both in newspapers and online were of good quality. The recommended practices like good diverse sourcing from even the affected, interviewing females and authorities, use of visuals; high message fidelity, positive framing etc should be encouraged and improved for adoption by as many reporters and media houses. Doing more people stories on victims beyond cases at police and more reporting on solutions to GBV is recommended.

The organisations mentioned in media coverage of GBV issues in newspapers and online: There has been concern that the narratives on GBV may be dominated by a few organizations in civil society and government. The research finds that many organizations are mentioned in coverage of GBV issues in Uganda.

We sampled a number of six organizations that deal with/in GBV issues in Uganda to see which ones were mentioned most in articles and social media conversations about GBV (not how they post using their own accounts.) These included; Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development (MGLSD), Uganda Women’s Network (UWONET), Action Aid Uganda, Uganda Police, The Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA) and Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP).

The Uganda Police was the most mentioned institution across all platforms followed by MGLSD (on Facebook), FIDA on Twitter. CEDOVIP was the least mentioned across all platforms followed by Action Aid. UWONET averaged 3rd position on both Facebook and Twitter. The Uganda Police was the only mentioned institution on YouTube.

The other organizations mentioned most were: UN agencies, Church of Uganda, World Bank, FOWODE, Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology, Plan Uganda, IRC, Care, FAWE, GBVNET as specified in findings.

The number and type of posts made about GBV issues in Uganda on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube: We found a high level of posting in Facebook and Twitter as shown in the results. The posts in these two platforms were also of varied post types, utilizing text, video, images (photo) or graphics, questions and events. We however noted limited video posts in both Twitter and Facebook. Also there were few posts in YouTube about GBV issues. Most of the posts were from NTV Uganda and NBS TV. There is need to encourage increased video posts in Facebook and Twitter as well as post more videos on YouTube by both online publications and organisations involved in GBV related issues.

The level and type of engagement of posts about GBV in Uganda on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube: We noted a high level of engagement in Twitter, followed by Facebook. It is not clear whether this was organic engagement (not resulting from paid promotions in Facebook and Twitter) but it does show that conversations on GBV issues were widely shared, commented on and attracted likes and favourites. We however didn’t see much engagement in Youtube, the most popular social network. Organisations dealing in GBV issues need to scrutinize this further and take advantage of the best practices that led to such high engagement especially Twitter and Facebook respectively.

4.2 Other Lessons from the study

The study found that the higher the number of Facebook posts or tweets, the higher the engagement. The main goal of any communication activity should be to drive engagement (interaction with your content beyond just viewing your content).

Videos, although few generated the most engagement on Facebook and YouTube

Organisations working against GBV need to publish more on their website-including engaging content that users can access or media houses can copy for publication, as well as link posts on their social media accounts back to relevant sections of their website(s).

Civil societies are using social media (Facebook and Twitter) to do advocacy work about GBV issues. There are hardly any stories regarding GBV incidents, most of the posts are about GBV activities and lobbying.

Almost all stories related to sexual violence are negative in nature whereas there is positive sentiment in regards to child marriage. This could be due to the numerous efforts to stop child marriage especially as covered in online publications.

Children are more pronounced when it comes to defilement whereas women when the search term is GBV in general on Facebook and Twitter.

The government is majorly mentioned when conversations are about GBV as a whole, not when addressing specific GBV issues.

There seems to be more activities in May and June relating to the International Girl Child Day than it is in November and December during the 16 days of activism against GBV.

Sexual violence, early marriages and domestic violence are the most mentioned issues, police is the most mentioned institution.

Organisations dealing in GBV issues in Uganda didn’t do much in utilizing YouTube to for example post explainer videos, case stories, running image or beneficiary profiles (e.g. services to help or rehabilitate victims) related to GBV issues etc.

Orgnaisations dealing in GBV issues in Uganda didn’t do much in utilizing YouTube to for example post explainer videos, case stories, running image or beneficiary profiles related to GBV support issues etc.

We noted that journalism practices were slightly better exhibited in online publications than in newspapers be it in professional reporting or amount of public interest coverage.

There is need for better use of keywords by online publications to ensure all organisations, people, titles and issues involved in stories are included in titles, tags and within content. This will aid better search for such content when research and tracking on related issues, people or organisations is being undertaken.

4.4 Recommendations on better framing and reporting GBV issues

Given the main focus of the study on better reporting of GBV issues in Uganda we further recommend:

Media houses and journalists in general need to undertake more detailed reporting on GBV issues so we see more feature and detailed stories, as well as run good stories on prominent pages of newspapers. More stories on lives of victims of GBV as people could go a long way in humanizing the problems of GBV and placing it in relevant context as well as more reporting that empowers and encourages GBV victims towards a better livelihood are needed.

Efforts are needed to empower journalists to undertake detailed solution driven reporting other than reporting of occurrences of GBV incidents.

Organizations dealing in GBV issues can expose human stories of those affected by GBV and drive for more coverage of initiatives to prevent or circumvent GBV

Continue and support current good reporting and conversations on GBV issues in Uganda

We also recommend for the introduction of Awards for good reporting on GBV issues to drive more and better coverage

More focus should be given to other forms of GBV just as it is done on sexual violence.

During days of GBV activism, focus should not only be put on newspapers and TVs but also utilize other media platforms especially radio and social media.

Conclusion

It is well acknowledged that the media has a ‘privileged’ social–cultural position, able to legitimise particular truths and shape public attitudes on issues like these of GBV. This study has confirmed commendable efforts by media houses in framing good narratives about GBV issues in Uganda. However, the media can improve in presenting broader opinions about GBV and its cost on communities as well as the solution within the means of community members.

The study has outlined in the findings the need more media accountability in combating GBV (what organisations are communicating), continuous cooperation between the media and NGOs to raise awareness about GBV issues, and ethical reporting based on the existing Media Code and the Law.

We welcome your own observations and learning from this and related studies so we continue to build on knowledge necessary to improve journalism and communication practice. We also welcome those interested in partnering with us to jointly undertake similar studies. ###

Access to research tools with data for the respective issues in this research (and other researches) is available to subscribers and members of UMC. You can apply or get details at:

Ultimate Multimedia Training Services

Plot 189, Ggaba Road Kampala, Uganda	www.ultimatemultimediatraining.net/research

Tel. +256772627676/+256785438132/+256751627676 info@ultimatemultimediaconsult.com

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These included UNICEF Uganda, UNDP, UNFPA, Care Uganda, US Mission, Cedovip among others.

Newspapers, online publications and social media are all considered mainstream media today.

Uganda Demographic and Health Survey 2016. Kampala, Uganda and Rockville, Maryland, USA: UBOS and ICF.

UNHCR Uganda: Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) Thematic Report (August 2018) https://reliefweb.int/report/uganda/unhcr-uganda-sexual-and-gender-based-violence-sgbv-thematic-report-august-2018

Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, https://www.facebook.com/mglsd/posts/gender-based-violence-in-uganda-and-its-impact-on-socio-economic-background-ugan/433961286747123/

Swedish International Development Agency (2012) Media reporting on gender-based violence against women in Bosnia and Herzegovina, UN Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The basis of framing theory is that the media focuses attention on certain events and then places them within a field of meaning. The concept of framing is related to the agenda-setting tradition but expands the research by focusing on the essence of the issues at hand rather than on a particular topic.

In establishing what communication impact is – and what it isn’t – it is important to distinguish between outcomes and impacts. From an assessment standpoint, outcomes are typically defined in terms of the shorter-term effects that a message or campaign can have (such as reaching, informing, engaging, and mobilizing target audiences), whereas impacts can be seen as the longer-term, more far-reaching changes (such as changes in individuals’ behaviors, acquisition of clients and continued use of service/product, or changes in public policy) (see Knight Foundation, 2011ii https://www.knightfoundation.org/media/uploads/publication_pdfs/Impact-a-guide-to-Evaluating_Community_Info_Projects.pdf ). Since behavior of people changes over a long period of time, it is feasible for most communication measurement efforts to capture outcomes than impact of messages, medium (media) and communication activities generally.

Meaning they engage in activities of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information following a set of principles that ensure public interest is being served. The principles or elements of journalism including truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, fairness, balance, facts and verification among others are what separate journalism from other forms of communication and make journalism indispensable in democratic societies.

We made sure indicators fulfil the principles of reliability and validity. Reliability means that the indicators had to be consistently identified by any trained monitor. As such, assigning each code would always produce the same result regardless of who is doing the monitoring. This was achieved first by selecting indicators that are objectively verifiable with pre-determined lists of codes that identify issues and level of measurement. Validity means that the selected indicators actually show what they are intended to show. We made sure indicators are selected for a clear purpose and not interpreted to show more than they actually indicate. For example, counting the number of times a telecom company was reported about does not necessarily indicate the company sent out the most or best messages.

Content analysis also doesn’t capture target audience comprehension and application of messages. This particular aspect though was not a focus of this study given the scope and resource implications.

Video is the most popular medium as it appeals to both sight, hearing and feeling senses with added power of motion.