[ Media and blogs ]

I just came back from Vienna where Beni and I attended the third workshop of the Emergenzen/Emergence seminar series of Kakanien revisited: Media in Central and South East Europe since 1945. I very much enjoyed the discussions hovering around questions like: are media in SEE/CE victims of a Western colonisation/domination? what does professionalism in the media sector mean concretely in SEE/CE? what is our definition of media and how does it apply to media in SEE/CE? Click on "more" to read the abstract of our presentation on Developments in the media landscape in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova/o. Besides the programme of the workshop, you can find abstracts of several presentations on the Kakanien website: internet in Bulgaria, Vienna on Film, media as a propaganda tool in Bulgaria.

Here is our abstract. The full article with a comprehensive bibliography will be available soon on the Kakanien website!

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Arben Hajrullahu and Julia Nietsch: Developments in the media landscape in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova/o

The economic well-being of a country, its legislative framework, and its political culture strongly influence the quality of its media. In these three fields, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova/o still have far to go. Quality media are rare, and the few existing ones cannot develop properly – although they would have an important role to play in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova/o, supporting the building of rule of law and of an active civil society and acting as "watchdog" controlling the state powers. Functioning democratic institutions, rule of law, and an active civil society are also the preconditions to achieve a successful integration into the EU.

The media landscape in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova/o shows many similarities: In both Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova/o donor funding lead to a boom in the creation of media outlets – but not necessarily to a diversified media landscape. Media in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova/o struggle with the same difficulties: although both Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosova/o have an exemplary legislative framework regulating media functioning and stipulating free access to public information and public documents, the situation on the ground is unsatisfactory. Media are subjects to political and economic pressure, as the media lack local investments and are often victims of incompetent management, and thus poor sales. There are only few journalism training centres in the region, and specialised journalists are rare (e.g. journalists on EU issues). Most media operate on a very local range and are divided along ethnic lines.

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Photo: (c) Julia Nietsch, February 2006