Abstract
"Balance in broadcasting" is the key outcome of the Balance in radio and television Broadcasting project funded by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic within its ETA Program. The focus of this report is on political balance in broadcasting and on key issues that need to be addressed when evaluating it.
The report deals with these issues in the context of international media research and legal framework in selected Western countries, but the focus is on the context of public service and commercial broadcasting in the Czech Republic. The report also provides a manual for measuring objectivity and balance in political coverage of the television and radio broadcasting.
The first chapter introduces theoretical and methodological framework within which it makes sense to discuss and measure objectivity and balance of radio and television broadcasting. On the theoretical level, objectivity and balance are contested concepts and the way they are used in actual research are results of choices on the part of the researcher.
The second chapter discusses these two key terms and evaluates their actual role in the analysis of broadcasting. Although objectivity and balance are often invoked, they are much less often meaningfully operationalized and used in actual research.
The third chapter deals with a specific concept of "one-side favoritism", a key term in the Czech media regulation that captures the negation of idea of the objective and balanced broadcasting. The fourth chapter discusses problem with different degrees of relevancy of political actors and a concept of power bonus that are usually regarded as two key factors influencing who gets how much coverage in the broadcasting.
The fifth chapter discusses "broadcasting whole", another concept used in Czech media regulation, and its operationalization in media research. The sixth chapter deals with various kinds of actors who are supposed to be represented in a balanced way in the broadcasting.
The final chapter provides a concrete manual for measuring objectivity and balance of radio and television broadcasting. It discusses selection of data, coding, analyzing, and the different levels on which it is possible to measure balance in the broadcasting.