Main buyers of political jeansa in online media on March – IMI survey

Photo credits: gameranx.com During presidential election on March, main buyers of political paid-for stories were the party “Opposition plateform – For life” and the candidate for the presidency Yuriy Boyko and his rival Yulia Tymoshenko. Such is conclusion based on the survey held by the experts of the Institute of Mass Information during the period between March 4th and 22nd 2019 at13 popular web-based editions. The complete sample was around 50 thousands of news.* According to this monitoring, approximatedly one third of (31%) of political articles with attributes of paid-for stories on March covered activity of the party n”Opposition platform – For life” and its candidate Yuriy Boyko who is its co-leader. The most of stories with attributes of being paid-for were revealed on web-sitesof 112th channel (112.ua), NewsOne (newsone.ua) and Znay.ua (znaj.ua). The second position was taken by Yulia Tymoshenko, to the benefit of whom the experts identified 15,5% stories with attributes of being paid-for. In particular, Tymoshenko was promoted by “Obozrevatel” (obozrevatel.com), RBK-Ukraine (rbc.ua) and the 24th channel (24tv.ua). In favour of Volodymyr Zelensky and Petro Poroshenko within this monitoring period were published 10% for each of political stories which would be paid-for. The most of stories in favour of Volodymyr Zelensky were revealed at the website of Znay.ua (znaj.ua), in favour of Petro Poroshenko there were the most ofwould-be paid-for stories at “Segodnya”, the 112th channel (112.ua) and “Obozrevatel” (obozrevatel.com) and at the 24th channel (24tv.ua). In favour of Anatoliy Grytsenko there were revealed 9% of would-be paid-for stories, the mostly at Obozrevatel (obozrevatel.com) and the24th channel (24tv.ua). In total, the most of paid-for political materials came out in”Obozrevatel”: 189 stories for three monitored periods on March and at web-site of the 112th channel (112.ua) : 184 stories and at Znay.ua (znaj.ua) : 120 stories. No would-be political article was found at “Ukrayinska Pravda” (pravda.com.ua) and at ‘Novoe Vremya” (nv.ua). At web-site of “Liga” (liga.net) (1 story) and TSN news program web-site (tsn.ua) (9 stories) our experts revealed only improperly marked stories. In a whole, during three weeks that the survey was held in 13 web-based media our exerts revealed 916 political stories with attributes of being paid-for. Among them only 5% were marked as advertisement stories, but its marking was bot corresponding to the Law “On advertisement” (headings “Of current interest”, “News from the companies”, “Election”). *The survey was held during the following periods: March 4th – 8th, March 11th – 15th , March 18th -22nd 2019 in the mass media outlets: “Obozrevatel” (obozrevatel.com), “Znay.ua” (znaj.ua), the 24th channel (24tv.ua), “Gordon”(gordonua.com) , “Ukrayinaks Pravda” (Pravda.com.ua), “Novoe Vremya” (nv.ua), UNIAN (unian.net), “Segodnya” (segodnya.ua), TSN (tsn.ua), 112.ua, NewsOne (newsone.ua), RBK-Ukraine (rbc.ua), “Liga” (liga.net). The sample covered all news published during the monitored periods (approximatedly 50 thousands). This research was made with support of USAID “Media program in Ukraine”, fulfilled by the international organization Internews. The content of research is exclusively under responsibility of the NGO “Institute of Mass Information” and not necessarily reflects the points of view of USAID, US government and Internews.