International studies, Vol. IV No. 3-4, 2004.
Conference paper
Media Aspects of Political Representation of National Minorities in Croatia
Slobodan Bjelajac
; Faculty of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, University of Split, Croatia
Neven Duvnjak
; Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar - center in Split
Abstract
The elections for representatives of ethnic minorities in Parliament as well as for members of regional, city and communal self-management councils have been completed. But, the results dismal. On a Croatian level, as well as in Split and the Split-Dalmatian County the voter abstenation was very large (from 94,6% to 96%). Only 4% of voters participated in the first elections that occurred on May 18th 2003 (on a Croatian level the abstenation was little bit lower at 87%). The repeated elections occurred on February 18th, 2004 and didn't pass much better as only 5,4% of the electorate participated in them.
The main hypothesis of this article is that the elections would be more successful if the mass media gave more space for ethnic minorities and their elections.
The research, the results of whose are presented here, was made through the analysis of content of four crucial columns of the internet edition of the regional newspaper "Slobodna Dalmacija" about articles in pre election periods ("Topics of the day", "News", "Split" and "County"). The sample was made from two pre election periods (one month each).
The results of the analysis indicate that the newspaper in pre election periods didn't publish a satisfactory amount of articles dealing with ethnic minorities, nor about their approaching elections. Before the May elections in 2003 there were only 2,68% articles published on ethnic minorities issues, and only 46% out of them dealt with elections topics. The percentage was not better in 2004 (1,81 % of total number of articles was devoted to ethnic minorities and only 15% out of them were the on elections topics). There were, however, some small differences between columns, as well as between the observed periods. Although it is not the only reason for voter abstination (the others could be recognised as indifference, the saturation with elections, etc.), it is certainly a significant reason.
Keywords
national minorities; Croatia; media
Hrčak ID:
287226
URI
Publication date:
30.9.2004.
Visits: 230 *