Original scientific paper

Mass Media and Collective Violence

Josip Županov ; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

Like other landmark historic events, the war on the territory of the former Yugoslavia has been explained by three types of theories: mythological, scientific and common-sensical, the later making use of certain pseudoscientific arguments. The author blaims that the theory blaming the media in all six republics of the former Yugoslavia for the outbreak of the war belongs to to latter type. The empirical data gathered on the eve of the war show that ethnic tolerance was highest in the republics which were later struck by the war: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. The author provides an alternative explanation of the role of the media in paving the way for the war. Only in Serbia did mass media, in the circumstances of the prevailing authoritarian orientation of the population before the war, serve to the aggresive nationalist leadership for political mobilization, which aroused in the Serbian people a feeling of imperilment and a sense of omnipotence. After the outbreak of the War in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the media have been only one of the elements in an ever-expanding spiral of hatred and violence.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

110788

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/110788

Publication date:

2.5.1995.

Article data in other languages: croatian

Visits: 2.314 *