SOCIAL MEDIA IN UPCOMING ELECTIONS IN EUROPE: HOW TO MONITOR THEM

MEMO 98, in cooperation with Democracy Reporting International (DRI), organized a workshop “Social media in upcoming elections in Europe: How to monitor them?” which was held on 19 – 20 September 2019 in Bratislava, Slovakia.

The event was organized by DRI and MEMO 98 in the framework of their joint project funded by Civitates. The project seeks to significantly step up a real-time understanding of social media dynamics by providing a toolkit for social media monitoring in elections which is to be offered to observer organizations across the EU and beyond. The project builds on the methodology that DRI, MEMO98 and other experts have been developing in the context of Supporting Democracy, an EU project. The toolkit will be based on the methodology and will provide tools and up-to-date information to help observers monitor the influence of social media during elections, providing the basis for responsive advocacy (such as intervention with firms) and long-term advocacy for better regulation.

The workshop aimed at discussing the elements of the toolkit and its application in the upcoming elections in Austria, Portugal, Croatia, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. At the beginning of the workshop, the social media monitoring methodology was introduced, and participants discussed how to turn it into a user-friendly toolkit for CSOs willing to monitor social media during elections.

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