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