Mixed-method Evaluation of the Regional and Online Media Support Program

The project is being conducted in the course of the US Embassy’s Georgian Regional and Online Media Support Program, which aims to empower regional and online media through content development and the production of a series of investigative articles. Under this program, PMC Research is responsible for the evaluation of five projects for five media organizations. In particular, the research team is combining two evaluation approaches: performance-based and summative.

The performance-based evaluation examines:

• The implementation process;
• The achievement of intended outputs and outcomes; and
• Unintended outcomes (positive and negative) for each implementing organization.

Meanwhile,the summative evaluation addresses the extent to which, collectively, each of the five separate projects contribute to achieving the US Embassy’s goal of empowering regional and online media through content development and the production of investigative stories.

The performance-based and summative evaluations entail mainly qualitative data, along with a relatively small amount of quantitative data.

In particular, the following activities are being implemented: 

• Desk review of project-related documents;
• Initial debriefing meetings with each implementor;
• Key informant interviews (KIIs) with each implementor’s key staff;
• Ripple effects mapping (REM) workshop with each implementor; and
• Quantitative data collection from social media engagement tools and a survey.