National Media Observatory (Observatorio Nacional de Medios - ONADEM)

ONADEM's work focuses on four areas:

1. The mass media structure and its relations
2. The conditions and characteristics of news making
3. Media representations of social reality
4. Social perceptions about mass media and journalists

and on five main activities:

• monitoring, analysing and evaluating technical and professional work in the mass media;
• researching public perceptions, values, habits and expectations about mass media and journalists;
• providing information about ONADEM research results;
• developing information and discussion venues for the convergence of journalists and civil society in order to inform news makers of how their work is viewed; and
• promoting training spaces for journalists.

ONADEM monitors news and coverage about facts and details of democratic life in Bolivia through systematic procedures developed by the journalism and communication professors who are members of the ABOCCS coalition. These processes are designed to monitor and analyse what is being reported in the news and assess public opinion about these reports. Communication professors and students from ABOCCS-member universities, journalists' organisations and journalists all participate in the monitoring and analysis performed by ONADEM.

For example, in 2006 the organisation monitored press coverage of: the nationalisation of hydrocarbons, the Government Land Policy, and the Constituent Assembly. ONADEM also assessed the structure of: 2 "sensationalist" newspapers (Extra and Gente), the contents of 16 newspapers, the contents of 8 weekly newspapers and magazines, and the contents of daily news on 5 national television netwoks in La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. Similar activities are planned for 2007, and include: studies/surveys (e.g., of academic course offerings at Bolivia’s universities, of the labour demand of mass media owners and headmasters, and of journalist labour conditions, nationally) and monitoring/content analysis (e.g., an assessment of the discourse strategy in television interviews as conducted on 6 channels in La Paz, and research of TV and printed press media in an effort to understand how best to improve journalism). At times, personal contact is used in these activities; the organisation has conducted several rounds of interviews with local social leaders from communities such as La Paz, El Alto, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, Beni, Potosí, and Oruro about their mass media preferences and opinions.

The reports are disseminated to journalists, media owners, communication faculties, journalists' organisations and interested members of various communities. Specifically, ONADEM holds press meetings with journalists, professors and students of communication faculties from areas such as La Paz, Oruro, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, El Alto and Sucre. The reports are also shared through the UNIR Foundation website.