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Monitoring Media Pluralism in the Digital Era. Country report: Croatia

Croatia scores a medium risk in Fundamental Protection (41 percent), Social Inclusiveness (61 percent) and Political Independence (61 percent). However, it scores high risk in the Market Plurality area (71 percent). The Fundamental Protection area reflects poor performance in the following indicators: Journalistic profession, standards and protection, Protection of right to information, and Protection of freedom of expression. The legal framework for journalists’ protection is insufficient, and journalists are often targets of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) and defamation charges. Too much power is left to the parliamentary majority for nominating and appointing members of the Council for Electronic Media. The Social Inclusiveness area includes two high-risk indicators: Access to media for women and Media literacy. The PSM does not have a comprehensive gender equality policy. Women are underrepresented at the executive level of the PSM and private TV companies and are often represented in a stereotypical way in news and current affairs programming. There is no comprehensive media literacy strategy at the national level. Existing measures in the field are fragmented. The Political Independence area contains high-risk indicators, such as Editorial autonomy and the Independence of PSM governance and funding. The high risk for the Editorial autonomy indicator reflects the ineffectiveness of self-regulatory measures, such as media statutes and ethics codes. PSM management appointment procedures are too dependent on the parliament. Finally, the Market Plurality area includes the following high-risk indicators: Online platforms concentration and competition enforcement, Commercial and owner influence over editorial content, Media viability, and News media concentration. Media transparency has improved, and most data is accessible. However, ultimate beneficial owners can still be hidden. There is a lack of legislation for regulating and monitoring the online advertising market. No taxation of digital services has been introduced yet. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, total advertising investments declined by 15 percent between 2020 and 2019. The internet advertising market has seen a 4 percent decline in the same time period (HURA, 2021). The Croatian Association of Newspaper Publishers reported that their sales were down by 25 percent and advertising by 50 percent in March and April 2020 at the start of the lockdown (HUP, 2020). The president of the Croatian Journalists' Association (HND) stated that, at the beginning of April 2020, 85 percent of all freelancers lost their contracts in commercial and public media (HND, 2020b).

Media pluralism, media freedom, media regulation

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