Media monitoring is the most effective way to implement media social responsibility. The Novi Sad School of Journalism has many years of experience in covering all types of media, both in Serbian and in the languages of national minorities. Using qualitative-quantitative content analysis, NNSJ is the only organization in the region that has a clear scientific approach to the media.
The monitoring conducted by the NNSJ is completely different from the simple press clipping done by many agencies, which focuses only on the collection and classification of media content by topic and personality. Monitoring done by NNSJ is much more complicated than this: we do a thorough analysis of media content.
The NNSJ has worked for years to train its monitoring team, which is now comprised of four PhDs, two masters, and twelve journalists. Our monitors have trained thanks to projects supported by the Council of Europe. One of these projects, Media Awareness, concerned the training of NNSJ associates in the field of media monitoring.
It was the team of qualified monitors that enabled the Novi Sad School of Journalism to implement numerous projects, based on scientific methods and techniques of external evaluation (quantitative and qualitative analysis of media content). All of these projects were aimed at improving professional standards in the media. Monitoring is certainly the best way to see to what extent the media gives accurate, reliable, comprehensive and balanced images of relevant events, but also how transparent public institutions are.
The methodologically developed research procedure includes a package containing various methods and techniques of external evaluation of media and media contents:
-Monitoring (quantitative and qualitative content analysis)
-Focus group (in-depth group discussion of media content)
-Public presentation of results
-Publication of results with expert reports and guidelines for better practice.
So far, we have followed the work of numerous media in this way. Most monitoring results are published in print or electronic publications, presented in scientific and professional conferences, public meetings and forums. It is important to emphasize that the results are the basis for the development of a curriculum for the education of journalists and other professional staff involved in the projects.
