Baseline report on Ugandan media coverage of road safety

This study examined Ugandan news media coverage of road safety, focusing on the country’s three main daily newspapers, three television stations, and two online platforms. The study explores the attention and the nature of coverage these newspapers, television stations, and online platforms paid to road safety (including road traffic crashes and measures to mitigate them) from 1 January to 30 April 2021. The publications studied were Bukedde (a Luganda-language daily), Daily Monitor, and New Vision(the only two English-language dailies). The television stations were NBS, NTV, and UBC, while the online platforms were Chimp Reports and TND News (The Northern Daily).

Relying mainly on quantitative content analysis, the study explores the number of stories on road safety, the types of articles published (news, analysis, opinion, features, etc.), the reporting formats employed, the topics covered, and the sourcing. The analysis also covers the use of background and context in the coverage and the attention paid to the key road safety risk factors, including drink-driving, speeding, seat-belts, helmets, and operation of vehicles in “dangerous mechanical condition.” 

Download the Baseline report on Ugandan media coverage of road safety