ANALYSIS OF CONTENT OF THE TERM NATIONAL MINORITIES IN THE CROATIAN DAILY 'SLOBODNA DALMACIJA': MINORITIES IN THE MARGINS OF COVERAGE

by Slobodan Bjelajac

It is needless to speak of the significance of national minorities in the development of democracy and equality of different social groups. This issue has been written about in many local and international community documents, papers submitted at various gatherings, even in four gatherings held as part of the ‘national minorities and local self-rule’ program. This article in modified form was one of the main reports of this program (hotel ‘Terme,’ Ilidza, November 2-4, 2001). The main goal of this paper is to establish to what degree and in what way national minorities are treated in Croatian daily press. The previous gatherings (in Neum, Split and Subotica) showed how they were treated in different documents and other forms of practical life in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and FR Yugoslavia.

• Reduced Minorities

Croatian society, as any other, is multinational. According to the 1991 census, 78% percent of Croatia’s population was of Croatian nationality and 22% of the population was from other ethnic groups. Although it is unknown why the results of the ethnic structure from the 2001 census have not been published yet, one can assume that the participation of national minorities is even smaller today than in the previous census as the total size of Croatia’s population between the two censuses was reduced by around 406,000 people, with the reduction mostly affecting minorities, primarily the Serb minority.

Unequal distribution of ethnic groups in the territory of the republic is another characteristic of the relationship amongst them. In some Croatian counties which constitute regional wholes, more than 40% of residents are from national minorities (Istria County, former Zadar-Knin County and Sisak-Moslovina County). It is particularly significant that in some parts of certain counties, minorities make up the majority of the population (for example Knin, part of Lika, etc.). On the other hand, according to the 1991 census, in certain counties national minorities did not make up more than 10% of the population (for example, Split-Dalmatia County).

• The Word ‘Minority’ Makes Up 0.003 Percent of All Published Words

‘Slobodna Dalmacija’ is one of the most read dailies in Croatia. With a circulation of approximately 70,000 copies, it is read not only in Dalmatia, but throughout Croatia and part of Bosnia-Herzegovina as well. It is read more than even ‘Vjesnik’ and some other dailies published in Zagreb that cover the whole territory of Croatia.

In view of the ethnic composition of the region where ‘Slobodna ‘Dalmacija’ is most read, especially in some of its parts, as well as the constitutional rights of national minorities, it would be logical to assume that national minorities often appear in the paper’s content. This would particularly be expected on some of its pages (for example cultural pages and even more pages where the ethnic makeup of the population is pronouncedly mixed such as the pages on Zadar, Dalmacija, etc.).

Analysis of ‘Slobodna Dalmacija’ content, however, shows the exact opposite. The appearance of the term ‘national minority’ in this newspaper is so rare that it can be disregarded. Does this not speak enough about the social position of national minorities in Croatia? Does this not indicate the rift between the adopted principles of minority equality and the current social practice?

Analysis of content was carried out from the web site on samples from two time periods of ‘Slobodna Dalmacija’ (from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, 1999 and 2001) by using the ‘find’ command to look for the term ‘minority’ on all of the paper’s pages. The two one-month samples were used in order to compare the present period with the time when the HDZ party was in power in Croatia to see if any progress has been made in the treatment of national minorities in view of the fact that the authorities have changed, as well as the paper’s editorial board.

The frequency of appearance of the term ‘minority’ in different forms (minority, minorities, all adjective forms, etc.) was analyzed together with epithets such as national, ethnic, etc. (sentences in which this word has another meaning, such as minority group of voters, women as a minority in politics, etc., were not included in the analysis).

One issue of ‘Slobodna Dalmacija’ contains approximately 44,000 words, with considerable differences in the different pages. The sports pages are the biggest (around 19,000 words), followed by ‘News’ (around 4,000 words) and ‘Issue of the Day’ (around 3,000 words), while the smallest page is ‘Life’ (around 800 words). All paragraphs in which the term ‘minority’ appears, together with the headline, issue number, name of author and name of page were copied and processed.

Analysis showed that the term ‘minority’ in both time periods appeared at very low frequency, although there are considerable differences between the two samples. In the year 2001 the term appeared in 42 cases (0.003% of words in the newspaper), while in the 1999 sample it appeared only eight times (0.0006% of words in the newspaper). In other words, the term ‘national minority’ appeared once in every 165,000 words in 1999, and once in every 31,429 words in 2000. (5.25 times more in 2000. than in 1999).

Analysis also showed that the number of articles on national minorities considerably differs by page, topic and author. In the 2001 sample, the term appeared most often in the ‘Short Essay’ pages (six times), with the most frequent author being Jadranka Polovic writing about issues on the state and violation of minority rights and on non-governmental organizations (other issues that appeared in this period are: religious upbringing and minorities, reactions to a proposal in Labin on Bosniaks, Helsinki rules, verbal excesses at Alka, Italian minority and visit by Italian president, national minorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, all written by different authors). In the 2001 sample minority issues also appeared on the pages ‘Issue of the Day’ (twice) and once each in the ‘Column’ and ‘News’ pages. It is indicative that ‘Slobodna Dalmacija’ is practically more concerned about the position of national minorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Italians (in the latter case as a result of a visit by the Italian president to Croatia) than about the minority that makes up a considerable part of the population of Dalmatia.

Be it as it may, the term national minority does not appear at all on the Zadar or Sibenik pages in either of the two researched time samples. It is paradoxical, but true, that this term appeared only once (in the 1999 sample) on cultural pages, although a large number of minority associations operate in Split (two Macedonian associations, associations of Slovenes, Montenegrins, Serbs, Hungarians, etc.).

• Bosniaks Have the Biggest Presence

It is also indicative that the term minorities appears most often in its abstract form. Even when specific minorities are mentioned, the participation of their name is not proportionate to their participation in the size of the population. In the 2001 sample, the Serbs for example, although they are the largest minority group in Croatia, appear in only 12% of cases, while Bosniaks appear in 48%, Italians in 31%, Gypsies in 5%, and Albanians and Slovenes in 2% of cases each. In this regard progress was made in relation to 1999 because in 2001 the minority names are more concrete (in the 1999 sample only Moluski Croats are mentioned in 63% of the cases and Italians in 37%).

One can conclude from all this that minorities are still a marginal issue in the ‘Slobodna Dalmacija’ newspaper but that some progress has been made in comparison to 1999. This, however, does not mean that coverage of minorities is satisfactory today in light of the need to democratize society and implement minority rights, and the role that minorities should have in Croatia’s international relations (the arrival of the Italian president, for example, inspired the editors to publish an article on minorities – the Italian minority in Croatia and the Croatian minority in Italy). Finally, minority issues are usually grouped on certain pages in the paper, but they do not appear on some pages where it is logical to expect them (pages on Zadar, Sibenik, culture, etc.).

Ph.D. Slobodan Bjelajac is a lecturer at the Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics in Split. Translated by: K. H. ©Media Online 2001. All rights reserved.

source: MHxJU
published by: Roland Brunner rbr@medienhilfe.ch date of release on this site: 3-12-2001

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