In an effort to serve researchers, interested parties, and media professionals, both “Alam Al-Arra Opinion Polling Center” and “Gulf Opinions Center” have recently made available the full report on the strength of Kuwaiti daily print newspapers on their websites through the following link:
The report, which was prepared under the supervision of Dr. Samir Abu Rumman, presented strengths and weaknesses of each daily newspaper according to criteria for publishing exclusive materials and exclusivity in publishing. Monitoring was conducted on ten Kuwaiti print newspapers, namely: Al-Anba, Al-Qabas, Al-Rai, Al-Seyassah, Al-Jarida, Al-Nahar, Al-Shahid, Al-Wasat, Al-Sabah, and Al-Kuwaiti. The report is the first of its kind with the following features:
– Monitoring of more than 3,200 local news items, 1,700 economic news items, and 850 interviews or investigations published by Kuwaiti newspapers during selected months of 2017.
– Establishes a decimal scale for the strength of Kuwaiti newspapers based on the criterion of exclusivity in publishing and exclusive materials.
– Presents the main topics and issues covered by Kuwaiti newspapers in the local and economic news sectors.
– Provides statistical and thematic analysis of the superiority or decline of Kuwaiti newspapers and their prominence or absence in the media scene.
– Highlights key investigations and interviews published by Kuwaiti newspapers.
– Offers insights on what some Kuwaiti newspapers need to compete with others and be strongly present in the media scene.
– Highlights the spirit of competition and exchange of power positions among Kuwaiti newspapers.
– Draws attention to the weaknesses and strengths of some Kuwaiti newspapers.
The methodology of the index was based on a statistical measure of the criteria for exclusivity in publishing and exclusive materials published in these newspapers in two sectors: local news and economic news, along with a third sector which is investigations and interviews. The report included monitoring exclusives in the mentioned sectors during the months of January, February, May, June, November, and December of 2017.
The monitoring relied on considering each of the mentioned months as an independent unit, and then applying a methodology that includes several stages starting with investigating the materials published in the newspapers under monitoring during the month in the sectors of local news, economic news, investigations, and interviews, considering the material that preceded this newspaper or that to publish it on a certain date in the local and economic news sectors as exclusive to it, even if it was repeated in later dates in one or more newspapers. Then, these materials were collected – under the mentioned condition – throughout the month, followed by data analysis to determine each newspaper’s share of exclusives in this sector or that, and its percentage to the total number of exclusives of all newspapers under monitoring in the same sector and month. Then, the newspapers occupying the first positions and those in the last positions in each sector were identified, with this information presented in tables and charts. Then, information about each newspaper’s exclusives in the three sectors during the month was used within a specific formula to calculate the newspaper’s strength for a given month. The previously explained methodology was applied to all the months covered by the monitoring, followed by extracting the arithmetic mean for the strength scores of the newspapers.
The results of the newspapers’ strength according to the decimal scale were as follows:
- – Al-Anba ranked first in both the local and economic news sectors throughout the monitoring period, while it ranked first in the investigations and interviews sector in all months covered by the report except December, where it fell to second place.
- – Al-Qabas ranked second in the local news sector during the months of May, June, and December, while Al-Rai ranked in the same position and sector during the months of January, February, and November. Al-Qabas ranked third in the same sector during the months of January, February, and November, while Al-Rai ranked in May and June, and Al-Jarida in December.
- – Al-Rai ranked second in the economic news sector during the months of January, February, May, and June, while Al-Qabas ranked in November and Al-Nahar in December. As for the third place in the same sector, it was occupied by Al-Qabas during the months of January, February, May, and June, Al-Nahar in November, and shared by Al-Qabas and Al-Rai in December.
- – Al-Qabas ranked first in the investigations and interviews sector only in December, while it monopolized the second position in the same sector during the other months. As for the third place in the same sector, it was occupied by Al-Rai during the months of January, February, May, and June, while Al-Shahid took it in November and December. See Table 1.
Weak continuity and scarcity of exclusives in various sectors led to the retreat of Al-Wasat, Al-Sabah, and Al-Kuwaiti newspapers to the last positions throughout the monitoring period. The field of investigations and interviews was the least dealt with by the newspapers, which is natural given its high cost and limited occurrence. When calculating the arithmetic mean of the newspapers’ strength scores throughout the monitoring period, the results were as shown in Table 2.
The process of extracting the newspapers’ strength results according to exclusive materials out of ten was based on the following method (the number of local news for the newspaper divided by the total local news × 100% + the number of economic news for the newspaper divided by the total economic news × 100% + the number of investigations and interviews for the newspaper divided by the total investigations and interviews × 100%) / 10 = the newspaper’s strength out of 10.
For free download of the report, visit the following link:
https://gulfopinions.com/ar/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Kuwaiti-Daily-Newspapers-Power-Report.pdf
