Women and the media : methods, tools and good practices : monitoring

Monitoring is 'an instrument or device used for observing, checking, or keeping a continuous record of a process or quantity'. Monitoring is also defined as the ongoing analysis of progress towards achieving planned results with the purpose of improving management decision-making. Monitoring methods and tools are the most widespread. They account for 40% of all the 111 methods and tools collected in the survey. Methods and tools monitoring participation and access of women to expression in and through the media include: databases of women experts in various fields for the use of media professionals when specific expertise is needed; surveys or other similar quantitative tools; checklists and other qualitative tools to analyse media content; monitoring by user groups evaluating the degree of equal representation of men and women by regularly watching, listening to, or reading media outputs.