OPFL as main political newsmaker in regional media: IMI research

35% of mentions of political forces in the news of regional online media spoke about the Opposition Platform - For Life political party. At the same time, OPFL is the leader in mentions in six of the nine monitored regions. These are the results of the IMI monitoring study conducted in May 2021 in nine regions of Ukraine *.

Also in the regional news there have been recorded: 12% mentions of the Servant of the People / Ze! Team, 11% mentions of the European Solidarity and regional (local) parties, 7% mentions of "Homeland", 6% mentions of the For the Future! party and 2% mention of the Holos party. Other parties, in particular Proposal, Udar, VO Svoboda, Vidrodzhennya, Vilkul’s block the Ukrainska Perspektiva, etc., had got 16% of mentions in regional online media news. There was no mention of the Shariy’s Party during the monitored period.

According to the study, OPFL is most frequently mentioned in the news of online media in Volyn (57% of the total number of mentions of political forces in the news of the region), the unoccupied part of Donetsk region (56%), Kharkiv (53%), Odessa (52%), Kherson 43%) and Rivne (21%). In Dnipro, the Proposytsia party (31%) took leading position in terms of frequency of mentions of political actors, in Kropyvnytskyi and Cherkasy this was the case of the European Solidarity party (67% and 21% respectively). In Rivne, the Servant of the people" and "For the future!" (21% each) have been proportionally mentioned.

At the same time, party forces were most often mentioned in Cherkasy (4% of the total number of news in the region), Volyn and Odesa (3% respectively) online media. The least news with mentions of political forces was online news from Dnipro and Kropyvnytskyi (1% of news each). It should be noted that during the monitoring period, in general, a low level of mentions of political forces in regional online news was recorded: only 2% of the total.

According to the monitoring results, 70% of mentions of political forces were related to politics / local politics, 14% were to social issues, 3% were to economics and business, and 1% was to health / coronavirus, human rights and international news. Other topics accounted for 11% of mentions of political forces in regional online media news.

In particular, mentions of OPFL in political subjects made 46%. The Servant of the people was mentioned in political issues by 12%, the EU was in 10%, regional parties was in 6%, "For the future!" and "Voice" figured in 3% of mentions. Other parties appeared in political news in 15%.

As to social issues stories, Batkivshchyna was in the lead (33% of mentions of political force in the chosen topic). OPFL, EU, "For the future!", Regional (local) parties had 14% of mentions respectively, the Servant of the people had 10%, other parties had 19% of mentions.

Also during the monitoring, a rather low level of materials with signs of political order and improperly marked political advertising was recorded. Thus, political jeansa in the region's news accounted for 0.4% of the total amount of news, counterpropaganda stories accounted for 0.07%, improperly labeled political advertising did 0.2% of the total amount of news in online media.

Most of political jeansa was seen in Dnipro news (1.1% of the total number of news in the region). Counter-propaganda stories were found only in two regions : Dnipro (0.3%) and Kharkiv (0.2% of the total number of materials). There were no materials with signs of order in the online media of the unoccupied part of Donetsk region. Improperly labeled political advertising was published in Dnipro (1.1% of the total number of news items in the region), Kropyvnytskyi (0.7%) and Cherkasy (0.2%).

* Within this study 6022 news have been analysed,, including 135 news with mentions of political forces and 178 mentions of political forces in 45 regional online media in nine regions of Ukraine (Volyn, Dnipro, Donetsk (Mariupol, Slavyansk), Kropyvnytskyi , Odessa, Rivne, Kharkiv, Kherson, Cherkasy) from 10 to 14 May 2021 inclusive. Only news from the online media news feed were accounted in the course of this monitoring study: no articles, journalistic investigations, analytics, blogs, author's columns, announcements, etc. were analyzed. 

The monitoring methodology included an analysis of the number of publications containing mentions of political forces (OPFL, the Servant of the People / Ze! Team, European Solidarity, regional (local) parties, "For the Future!", "Batkivshchyna", "Holos", Shariy’s Party, other parties), news items with mentions of political forces (local politics / politics, social issues, economics / business, health / coronavirus, human rights, international news, ecology, show business / entertainment (tabloid), other, as well as the number news with signs of order (political jeansa and counter-propaganda) and improperly labeled political advertising.

Monitoring was conducted in the following media:

VOLYN (Volynski Novyny, VolynPost, Volyn24, Rayon.in.ua, Pid Prytsilom), DNIPRO (Vidkrytyt, 056, Dniprovskaya Panorama, Informator, gorod.dp.ua), DONETSK (MARIUPOL) (0629, Novyny Donbasu, Karachun (Slovyansk), Avdeevka.city, MRPL.CITY), KROPIVNYTSKY ( Hrechka, Tochka Dostupu, CBN, Dozor, Bez Coupur), ODESSA (Dumska, 048, Odesskaya Zhyzn, USI.Odessa, Odessa online), RIVNE (Radio Track, Rivne vechrne, Rivnemedia, Rivne 1, OHO), KHARKIV (ATN, Status Quo, Horod X, KHARKIV Today, 057.ua), KHERSON (KhersonOnline, Miy Kherson, Lyubimy Kherson, Khersonshchyna za den, Khersontsi), CHERKASY (Vycherpno, 18000, Procherk, Zmi.ck.ua, Provse).

The writing of this material was made possible by the support of the American people, which was provided through the USAID Media Program in Ukraine project, implemented by the international organization Internews. The contents are the sole responsibility of the Institute of Mass Information and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the US Government or Internews.