Last week, ECES, through its Nigeria project (EU Funded Programme “Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria” (EU-SDGN) ) conducted an online Media Monitoring Training for the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Publicity Divisions Staff.

The two-day workshop comes as the Commission is gearing towards the Edo and Ondo States Governorship elections. To this end, the EU SDGN project has been supporting INEC in the field of media monitoring, through the set up of a media monitoring unit and various training. The present activity sought to strengthen the staff’s capacities for effective monitoring of media content in light of increasing coverage of political activities.

The training focused on:

  •  The general principles and purposes of media monitoring;
  • Techniques for monitoring electoral contents of online newspapers and other media platforms including some major blogs and;
  • How to generate and analyse reports from the Media Monitoring Unit.

 

The training aimed to

  1. Equip the participants with the necessary knowledge and skills to monitor the media and electoral activities;
  2. Produce a report on monitoring exercises which will enable the Commission to manage information and deliver informed policies on the electoral process.   

 

Some 20 participants were involved, drawn from various Publicity divisions of INEC in Edo and Ondo states, including the Publicity Division, the Voter Education and Publicity, Gender, PWD and CSO Department, Media and Publicity, Public Affairs, among others