Joint project by the IMI and Suspilne Chernihiv involves over 100 thousand people in the oblast

The project “What's Going On?” by the Institute of Mass Information (IMI) and Suspilne Chernihiv involved over 100 thousand people from Chernihiv oblast in discussing topical issues, reports Pavlo Pushchenko, the IMI representative in Chernihiv oblast and Mediabaza Chernihiv coordinator.

The project lasted from May to December 2024 and was implemented by the regional IMI hub Mediabaza Chernihiv in partnership with the TV channel Suspilne Chernihiv and the NGO Chernihiv Educational Center “Initiative”.

Over the eight months, the team released 14 episodes of the socio-political talk show, covering the following topics:

• the mobilization efforts;
• energy security;
• the political crisis in Chernihiv;
• government reforms;
• environmental challenges, etc.

The talk show's backstage. Photo by Anastasia Loza

The program's total views count on YouTube and the Suspilne website exceeded 93 thousand.

Host Iryna Melnyk says that YouTube livestreams enabled them to establish deeper audience engagement and involve viewers in a dialogue on the region's urgent issues. For instance, viewers left more than 470 messages the livestream chats and more than 115 thousand people voted in the Telegram polls preceeding each stream.

“'What's Going On?' is the only live project on Suspilne Chernihiv and in the entire oblast. This allowed our team to quickly respond to events in the region. For example, we urgently arranged a livestream about the Seym River pollution to warn people about the environmental risk. An important aspect of the project was to give viewers opportunity to talk with the livestreams' guests directly. During the discussion of the Chernihiv oblast recostruction, the audience actively asked questions, which indicates a high level of involvement,” says host Iryna Melnyk.

The discussions as part of the project involved over 40 local experts. According to Chernihiv-based political commentator Andriy Podverbnyi, this became the basis for the development of an expert community in Chernihiv.

“We have long needed an open media platform to raise the most pressing issues of political, social, socio-economic life of our region, to look for solutions together with representatives of the expert community. I believe that this project is a good, confident step in this direction. I hope that the project will continue, perhaps in a new format, as a platform for the expert community of Chernihiv oblast,” says Andriy Podverbnyi.

The project proved that the public demand for high-quality analytics and open discussions of key issues in Chernihiv oblast remains high. Active interaction with viewers and the involvement of experts enabled the project not just to cover important topics, but to contribute to the shaping of an expert community in the region as well. This indicates the need for further development of such initiatives.

By Anastasia Loza, "What's Going On?" communications manager