Media, Social Media, and NGOs: Key Players in Shaping Parliamentary Agendas on Post-Conflict Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract

In recent years, parliaments have gained great prominence as discussion forums for international con!icts. Hence, there is interest in examining how Members of Parliament utilize information from traditional and social media, as well as NGOs —key actors in armed conflicts— within the frame-work of agenda-building studies. This paper analyses the presence of these organizations in the debates of five European parliaments on two of the most alarming post-conflict situations of the 21st century on the African continent: those of Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This study has been carried out through an automated quantitative Big Data analysis of the minutes of parliamentary debates that dealt with the situation in the region over a period of five years. Unlike previous studies, this research reveals that it is not international media that play a greater role in parliamentary agendas, but rather African media and NGOs that are most decisive in the configuration of parliamentary agendas.