Media monitoring tools allow you to track topics across print, online, and broadcast media output. In PR and Comms it is important to measure the success of your campaigns, deal with a crisis quickly, and listen out for negative publicity. All of this can be achieved by effective media monitoring.

Media monitoring is listening to who’s saying what about your brand, your competitors, your industry, and any other topic that’s important to you and your operations. In today’s world, media monitoring must include more than just print, extending to online, broadcast and social media.

Interest groups monitoring media content. Most recently expanded to include monitoring of individuals media usage and choices without their knowledge.

Companies, large and small alike, use Media Monitoring to track the true value of their PR efforts. Keep track of certain buzzwords to illustrate trends within the industry. Stay abreast of what the competition is doing by monitoring their media mentions and communications output.

The Media and its Function

• Information.
• Education. Media provides education and information.
• Entertainment. The other important function of media is the entertainment.
• Persuasion. It is another function of mass media.
• Surveillance. Surveillance denotes observation.
• Interpretation.
• Linkage.
• Socialization.

Modern media comes in many different formats, including print media (books, magazines, newspapers), television, movies, video games, music, cell phones, various kinds of software, and the Internet. Each type of media involves both content, and also a device or object through which that content is delivered.