Deadline: 16-Aug-20
ALDA – The European Association for Local Democracy within Media Dialogue project implemented with the financial support of the European Union is launching a grants programme for supporting media organisations in Kyrgyzstan.
The Media Dialogue project is funded by the European Union through the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace and runs until late spring 2021 to cover the period around the parliamentary election in October 2020. Its objective is to harness the power of the media in safeguarding conflict-free elections.
The Media Dialogue project runs a grant programme that will help improve the media environment in Kyrgyzstan, engender public service value content and support high-quality journalism. It will also encourage grantees to promote media policy reform. Sub-grants will enable media institutions to deliver better advocacy campaigns to raise public awareness of the need to maintain and promote freedom of expression, high-quality journalism, access to information and other constituents of a free and democratic media environment.
The project is implemented by a consortium of five organisations: European Partnership for Democracy (project lead), European Association for Local Democracy (ALDA Europe), Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Media Policy Institute.
The social media channels to be monitored must include those a) owned and/or operated by political parties and candidates competing in the October 2020 parliamentary election and b) those owned or operated by the country’s main public and independent media outlets. Social media channels of other stakeholders in the electoral race may be monitored as well. Applications should include provisions for the changing context caused by COVID-19 with attention paid to how the pandemic may be exploited as a platform for hate speech and inflammatory narratives.
Objective
- The overall objective of the Media Dialogue grant programme is to support media organizations and CSOs advocating freedom of speech in performing the role of watchdog, offering an open forum for debate and being a public educator, thereby contributing to ensuring a democratic electoral process.
The specific objective of this call for applications is to support social media monitoring initiatives on the upcoming parliamentary election campaign with a focus on monitoring:
- instances of hate speech and divisive, inflammatory narratives by main electoral stakeholders (mandatory);
- adherence to formal and legal rules of political parties’ and candidates’ campaigns on social media (optional);
- balanced representation of candidates in the social media channels of main media outlets (optional).
Funding Information
- The maximum budget requested under this call of proposals shall not exceed 30,000 euro. Allocations for salaries should be of maximum 35% out of the total requested amount, while overall institutional costs (office rent, salaries, office maintenance costs etc.) should not be more than 50% of the budget.
- Equipment purchase or rent under this call should not exceed 30% of the budget and might be subject to special provisions in the grant contract and procurement proceedings.
Purpose
- instances of hate speech and inflammatory narratives with clear commentary explaining their offensive nature;
- adherence to formal and legal rules of political parties’ and candidates’ campaigns on social media;
- candidates’ representation in the social media channels of main media outlets;
- This record should be available to the public and the media with the aim of raising awareness of the threat hate speech constitutes in the election context.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible entities under this call for proposals are professional associations of journalists or editors, unions and CSOs officially registered in Kyrgyzstan.
For more information, visit https://mediadialogue.kg/en/call-for-applications-to-support-social-media-monitoring-initiatives/