Study ID | 08 |
Study title | (Un)covering Karadžić: a Case Study on Media (Re)production of National Ideologies through War Crimes Coverage in the Former Yugoslavia |
Study language | Bosnian |
Institution(s) | Mediacentar Sarajevo, Kolodvorska 3, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (a) |
Authors | Amer Džihana (PI) Sanela Hodžić Zala Volčič Karmen Erjavec Predrag J. Marković Katarina Subašić Helena Zdravković-Zonta Biljana Žikić |
Disciplines | Communication and media sciences |
Period | 1991-2009 |
Geographical space | Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia |
Abstract | The case of the former Yugoslav states provides a powerful example of an arena in which the mass media continue to play a crucial role in creating and representing (ethno) national identities. (Ethno) national identities retain important ideological functions in the region. When during the end of the 1980s and 1990s, the nationalisms of all the republics of the former Yugoslavia escalated, each community first re-activated or re-created its national media in order to reinforce and re-invent a sense of national identity and difference. This collection is an attempt to offer some explorations of the role played by nationalism in media coverage in three countries: Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Serbia. Broadly, we are interested in exploring how the traumatic past of the Yugoslav wars has been represented in the media and how media representations of contemporary political processes relate to the traumatic past. Specifically, we focus on media representations of the highly publicized war crime trials. For media outlets and political institutions alike, coverage of the trials of the crimes committed during the Yugoslav wars is an important way of demonstrating that, at least symbolically, there has been a break with the former regimes. The point is not only to judge the perpetrators of the crimes, but to transform the overall political paradigm. Thus, it is crucial to explore how the war trials are represented in the media, and how the trauma they represent has been incorporated into public memory. Are there historical consequences to how a society deals with the memories of war trauma? What is the role of the media in forming memories? What are the communication patterns of the media in covering the war trials? What can be done to address the dilemmas of memory that are likely to shape the future in the former Yugoslav region? The focus on the above questions is motivated by the broader goal of contributing to the study of changes in the structures and relations of media, journalism, nation, ethnicity, memory, power, and reconciliation after the Yugoslav wars. The project’s goal is to draw upon the work of scholarship in the region in order to reflect a range of perspectives and intellectual traditions in the former Yugoslavia. Each of the five chapters represents an original methodological approach to exploring the following questions: a) What are the patterns of representation of war crime trials which reveal ideological positioning of the media? b) Do media reproduce the ethno-national fragmentation of the audience? c) Are some media/some countries more inclined to reproduce national ideologies than others? d) Is it possible to establish whether different types of media ownership and regulation coincide with different patterns of nationalist discourse in the media? For example, do media owned by foreign corporations differ in this respect from domestically owned media organizations? e) What is the relationship between the ideology of ethno-national elites and media reporting? f) What is the role of the commodification of news and information in reporting on war crime trials? g) How do the forms of nationalist discourse presented in routine media coverage of domestic events differ from forms of nationalist discourse present in the media coverage of exceptional events such as major war crime trials? |
Results | Media reporting on national ideologies depends primaraly on ethno-national political elites Ownership of certain media outlets influences of their content (influences the representation of cases). Instead that the events be placed in context to show bigger picture, trends, causes…some media organizations drive the conflicts themselves, because profit pressures do remain the main reasons behind journalims performance. Without democrations and transformation on the political sphere, it is hardly expect significant professional shifts within the world of media and journalism |
Method description | Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social practice (analysis of macro propositions, representation of social actors, key words) Analysis of content is a method for summarizing any form of content by counting various aspects of the content (print media, other writings –web pages, advertisements..-, broadcasting..) Rhetorical analysis is the study of how writers and speakers use words to influence an audience with the goal to articulate how the author writes, rather than what they actually wrote Discourse analysis with elements of narrative analysis |
Publications | – |
Secondary analyses | None |
Study type | Mandated research |
Financed by | Mandating institution |
Mandating institution(s) | University of Fribourg, Interfaculty Institute for Central and Eastern Europe, Regional Research PromotionProgramme in the Western Balkans – RRPP, Bd de Pérolles 90, 1700 Fribourg |
Progress | Finished |
Start – end date | 01.09.2009 – 02.01.2011 |
Data type | Publications (final report, articles) |
Media | – |
Available document types | – |
Linked to | – |
Remarks | – |
Analysis unit | – |
Mode of data collection | – |
Data collection instruments | Other method instrument: Critical discourse analysis Analysis of content Other method instrument: Rhetorical Analysis Analysis of content – standardized Other method instrument: Discourse analysis |
Number of cases | – |
Sampling description | – |
Available versions | 1.0 |
Bibliographical citation | Amer Džihana, Sanela Hodžić, Zala Volčič, Karmen Erjavec, Predrag J. Marković, Katarina Subašić, Helena Zdravković-Zonta, Biljana Žikić, 2011. (publication). Mediacentar Sarajevo. Distributed by DASS-BIH, Sarajevo. |
Access category | Restricted |
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