Launch of media coverage indices

1 May 2008

Local companies will soon be the first in the world to benefit from an innovation that will put a scientific and objective measure to what is arguably a company's greatest asset - its reputation. Statistical and content media analysis company, Monitoring South Africa, announced the patenting of the Media Perception Index (MPI), part of the first-ever family of indices tracking media coverage of issues and organisations at a media expo in Cape Town yesterday, Wednesday, 7 May 2008.

Also known as MediaPlus, the indices were developed from a two-year research initiative, and allegedly break new ground in the often grey area of corporate reputation measurement by providing organisations and other media users with an objective measure of media coverage.

The inventor, Nixon Kariithi, a Professor of Media Studies at the University of Witswatersrand who is also MSA's director of research and development, says the MediaPlus heralds new and exciting ways of understanding media coverage of issues and organisations. “Media coverage will never be the same; the product will help us objectively collate an organisation's media coverage into an index, which will allow for the measurement and benchmarking of the organisation's media reputation,” he says.

The indices collate raw media coverage data from more than 1500 print, broadcast and online media sources. The data is analysed for publishing placement and organisational reputation factors, resulting in a new database that forms the basis for the new indices. Kariithi added that the new indices comprise individual indices of most major corporate organisations in South Africa and are useful to individuals and institutions that continually monitor and evaluate media coverage.

“MediaPlus may be used to assist organisations in selecting proper communication and marketing strategies,” adds Kariithi. “They also offer, for the first time, objective quantitative data that can be integrated with existing economic and social data to develop more nuanced insights in an organisation's performance.”

According to Kariithi the indices are easy to use; however, the methodology is as rigorous as those employed in creating stock market and price indices globally.

The first Mediaplus corporate users will begin receiving weekly index releases from early next month. The users will have access to individual organisational media coverage indices as well as sector-wide indices in industries such as banking, retail business and telecommunications.

Kariithi has little doubt that the new invention will revolutionalise use of media content.

“Once you see it, you will not believe how we could do without it,” he says.