Throughout this trip, I’ve wondered how the average Croatian’s independent media use varies from us in the U.S. They all have phones and for the most part use social media the same way we do, but there is often more to media use beneath the surface. What type of censorship do they experience? Do they have unfiltered access to the internet? How did the 1991 fall of Yugoslavia affect their media use?
Though I had tried to casually bring it up in conversation with some locals, they either didn’t understand what I meant when I said “media use” or they just had no desire to talk to me about the subject (I didn’t take it personally, I just figured they thought the topic was too boring). While I would have preferred to learn about their media from locals who live with it everyday, I had to turn to researching for a bulk of the information on Croatia’s media use. There is also a lot of information regarding the media in Croatia, so this will be an overview of the basics of their media use.
According to freedomhouse.org, Croatia’s press is only considered "partly-free" (it should be noted that this is only their press freedom- their overall freedom in the world is reported as being a "free" state). Any press coverage that can be deemed “humiliating” to the state has been criminalized, and governmental pressures have been put on some public media outlets, including one of Croatia’s leading public tv broadcasting networks, HRT; due to these pressures, political reporting can become skewed from an unbiased truth. The press freedom situation has improved in recent years, with the police beginning to crack down on violence against journalists, but physical and cyber-violence against the press in Croatia is still an issue.
Like the rest of the world, most people in Croatia receive most of their news from social media and other online sources first, and from television second. With an internet penetration rate of 69.8%, this does not come as much of a surprise. What does surprise me though, is the lack of a Twitter and/or Instagram presence. It is reported that Croatians get up to 57% of their news from Facebook, but Twitter did not even make the rankings (I acknowledge that Twitter is not a formally recognized source of news, but due to the large amounts of traffic twitter sees and the official news outlets that have accounts, it is at a minimum a popular starting point for American citizens to learn of breaking news and current events). It has also been reported that only about 40% of people in Croatia trust their news broadcasters, and Croatia also ranks in the bottom third for both overall trust in news and freedom from political influence. I find it interesting that there is also a reported positive correlation between regular TV use and increased trust in the government. With a political influence from the government affecting TV broadcasting, it is both interesting and a little disturbing to notice government-skewed news changing the opinions of it's viewers.
Remnants of ethnic tensions resulting from the fall of Yugoslavia can also sometimes be evident, as seen with the burning of a local serbian-run newspaper. The fall of Yugoslavia was obviously an important time in Croatia’s history and it’s impacts are still felt across the country. Due to the impact of the war in the 90’s, I will write up a separate post in regards to its media impact at the time of the war and in the following years.
Croatia is a strong and complex country still recovering from a war-torn past. While they do not have a clean slate of their press coverage, they are slowly making progress in minimizing corruption and violence against journalists. In some ways Croatia's media use is not so different from ours here in the U.S., they use social media more than any other media outlet like we do, but the accuracy and reliability of their other media outlets is flawed. I am excited to see the growth Croatia can make in coming years, and hopefully will see their press freedom status be raised from "partly-free" to "free".
https://rsf.org/en/croatia
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2017/croatia
http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2017/croatia-2017/
https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2018/croatia