Media in Croatia: from freedom fighters to tabloid avengers
Marijana Grbeša unizg.academia.edu
Media in Croatia: from freedom fighters to tabloid avengers
This chapter provides brief overview of the transformations of the media system in Serbia after 1989. It is part of the broader goal to answer important questions: Where do the media in the socialist countries in the Balkans stand three decades after the upheavals? What is their contribution to democracy, how viable are they, what has been achieved after more than thirty years of struggle of the media to find their place in the post-socialist pluralistic societies. I have undertaken this endeavor with the authors from the countries under consideration in this edited book: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Moldova, North Macedonia and Romania. The book gives an overall overview of the changes in the media environment in South East Europe since 1989. As the process of media democratization in the region has been complex, the authors follow a standardized chapter format that includes sections on media market transformations, the relationship between media and politics, the state of public service media and the journalistic profession, and the development of digitalization and the online media environment, with aim to portray the uneven developments in comparatively similar perspective.

Media literacy, which has been rapidly developing in many European countries during the past decades, is still at its beginning in Croatia. It remains excluded from the formal education programmes. Meanwhile, there are various informal types of media education dedicated to information and media literacy, usually thanks to the efforts of non-governmental organisations (Labaš, 2015). What kind of impact did Croatian Internet news portals have on media literacy, and what is their position on it and its place in the education system during the debate about the curricular reform, and were they encouraging debate with the interested public in this period? This paper aims to answer these questions by investigating the news portals’ writings (Večernji list, Jutarnji list, Slobodna Dalmacija, Novi list, Glas Slavonije and 24 sata) in the time period between 1 January and 1 July 2016.

The normative expectation of the 'virtuous circle' (Norris &Inglehart, 2009), in which democracy is served by informed citizens via the media, motivates our examination of audience understandings of their news consumption in relation to its different possible public and personal uses. Audience research being the least developed area of communications study in Croatia (Peruško & Vozab, 2014), we have few insights into motivations of media users or the uses they make of any media genre, including news. This study, part of an ongoing comparative project conducted in 12 European countries and beyond, conducted at the Centre for Media and Communication Research, Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, is thus pioneering the insight into cross-media news repertoires of Croatian audiences and their possible democratic repercussions. 36 Q-methodological interviews were conducted in December 2014. The study shows that six news repertoires describe different types of cross-media news consumption habits of Croatian audiences, offering preliminary insights for understanding the news-democracy connection.

In this article, journalism is analysed within the theoretical framework of sociology of the professions. It focuses on four ‘internal attributes’ linked to the ‘professional project’ and the external relation to the profession of agents involved in the professionalisation process. Based on an analysis of the internal attributes and external agents and using the results of quantitative and qualitative studies on Croatian journalism, the article attempts to analyse these dimensions in a diachronic perspective, with the aim of understanding the current status of the journalist profession in Croatia, and the social, political and economic structures that shape it. It looks at the specificities of the region and the structural changes that occurred in the journalistic field with the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the introduction of a liberal market economy and draws on a survey and focus groups as well as an extensive review of the literature. The conclusion is that the ‘professional pr...

his text deals with the transformation of Croatia’s public service, Croatian Radio Television in the context of the integrated media and building a converged newsroom. I compare the newsroom workflow at HRT with the daily routines of its strongest commercial competitor – Nova TV and the good practices of selected public service companies. At the end of 2012 the public service media provider, Croatian Radio Television (HRT) published a new set of rules and regulations and announced its reorganisation. The new HRT is primarily looking for a new approach to the media and wishes to show that a public service is no longer just radio and television, but a joint effort which acts as new media. According to the new restructuring plan, the greatest challenge is to establish the convergent integrated newsroom and consequently the establishment of a single news media service. In view of its resources: technical, human and financial, but also in view of the modes of financing (TV licence fees and advertisements), it is naturally expected for Croatian Radio Television not only to become a role model media that provides accurate, authentic information in the public interest, but also to endorse innovation and the use of new technologies. An enormous effort has to be undertaken to prove that the convergence is not only about the quantity of journalistic content, but also could bring quality. HRT is at the beginning of the changing process, yet its goals and vision have not been communicated effectively. Most of the HRT staff has not embraced the new vision, nor the professional, economic, and logic argumentation that stands behind it. Most of them are sceptical and this can slow down the speed of integration. It seems that for HRT, it is not enough just to have a restructuring plan in place, but also a well thought out plan of how to break down the resistance of its employees and motivate them to abandon old habits. There is a lot to be done to create a working environment that could fulfil the proclaimed mission to produce high-quality, trusted and varied journalism (media content) that serves the society and democracy.