An Event-Based Comparative Analysis of the 2024 Parliamentary Election and the Subsequent Political Crisis

Abstract

This article examines the dynamics of political media polarization in Georgia during the 2024 parliamentary election and the political crisis that followed. The study combines an event-based comparative framing analysis of major Georgian media outlets with existing quantitative and qualitative media-monitoring evidence. The empirical sample includes Georgian Public Broadcaster (First Channel), Imedi, Rustavi 2, TV Pirveli, Mtavari Arkhi, Formula, the Georgian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Netgazeti. The observation period is divided into four stages: the pre-election campaign; the post-election dispute over electoral legitimacy; the 17–25 November period of opposition protest and the first sitting of the newly elected parliament; and the political escalation following the 28 November announcement concerning the postponement of EU accession negotiations. The analysis identifies four principal frames—institutional legitimacy, electoral legitimacy, conflict, and European integration/sovereignty—and examines how their relative salience changed across events and outlets. OSCE/ODIHR monitoring provides a quantitative baseline demonstrating substantial asymmetries in the amount and tone of campaign coverage, while the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics provides independent qualitative evidence of a highly polarized television environment. Event-level analysis shows that polarization intensified as the political conflict moved from electoral competition to a dispute over institutional legitimacy and subsequently to a broader confrontation over Georgia’s European trajectory. The findings suggest that media polarization in Georgia is better understood as a dynamic process of competing political meaning-making than as a static division between pro-government and opposition media. The article also emphasizes that the communicative construction of the crisis cannot be reduced to a single political narrative: government institutions, opposition actors, protesters, police and media organizations all became competing and sometimes conflicting sources of political meaning.