engleski

Changing Media Ecologies: Croatia Approaching the EU

In the year 2005, the Republic of Croatia became a European Union candidate country. This development came after a fifteen-year period of political instability, which included a war following the breakup of Yugoslavia (1991-1995), political authoritarianism that followed it (1995-2000), and an uneasy period of transition to a EU-integration ready democracy (2000-2005). The role of the media was of high importance in the political, social and cultural processes that took place in the mentioned fifteen-year period. However, the central issues concerning the role of the media differed significantly in the last decade of the twentieth and the first decade of the twenty-first century. In the war and the immediate postwar period, the attempts of the state and the ruling party to control the publicly owned media were of central importance. At the same time, critical resistance to the authoritarian rule found expression in the independent, privately owned media, frequently co-funded by the international NGOs (primarily by George Soros's Open Society Fund). What's more, the central internal political conflicts were distilled from and revolved around the issues of free media expression (Feral Tribune weekly) and media ownership (Slobodna Dalmacija daily, Radio 101). In the late 1990s, with the entry of the German WAZ publishing group and the privatization of the national telecommunications system, a new period began, bringing to the fore the issues of corporate vs. public interest. The entry of international corporations continued at the beginning of the 20th century, with the expansion of ownership of the Austrian Styria publishing group, concessions for the first foreign-owned nationally operating commercial television (CME's Nova TV), and privatization of one of the three national television channels (now operated by the German-owned RTL group). The presentation focuses on the current developments in the field, describing the changed media ecology of the country awaiting EU integration. Issues of commercialization and spectacularization of the media are discussed, and discussed in relation to the local identity issues, with an emphasis on the differences between the local situation and that of the old EU member countries. Of particular centrality to this disscusion is the issue of the frail civil society in Croatia, which is seen as the aftermath of the war and political authoritarianism of the 1990s, but also of the preceding socialist period. Topics addressed include a peculiar twist of fate by which the formerly tightly controlled national television became one of the rare representatives of the public interest, and is currently the European national channel with highest viewer ratings. Sensationalism of the foreign-owned print media and their purposeful neglect of the locally important issues are also discussed, as well as monopoly tendencies of the print media owners, and the specificities of the new media substitution in the current circumstances.

media ecology; new media; old media; media substitution; Croatia; media ownership; EU integration

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