Academic literature on the topic 'Mass media policy – Kosovo (Serbia)'

The main cause of demonstrations was Vojvodina leadership's persistent refusal to accept changes to the Constitution that would confirm the sovereignty of Serbia in its autonomous provinces. After Slobodan Milosevic rose to power, the Serbian authorities developed two different policies regarding autonomous provinces. In case of Vojvodina, the main emphasis was on using the lack of democratic capacity and legitimacy of the leadership in Vojvodina, while leadership of Kosovo was the subject of party pressure through the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. Leadership of Vojvodina, which has been decisively and confidently rejecting any thought in which Vojvodina could be politically subordinated to the Republic, was confused by the July and August demonstrations. In absence of finding an adequate response to the new situation, leadership remained passive, which ultimately led to complete paralysis of Vojvodina government. The confusion and passiveness of the main Vojvodina communists during the summer and autumn of 1988. indicates that demonstrations hit their weakest point - democratic capacity. It turned out that the stern attitude of Vojvodina Communists towards Serbia was not supported by the population of Vojvodina, and that the province government policy was not legitimate.. Second key factor in the Anti-bureaucratic revolution in Vojvodina was the influence of media, which was controlled by the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. The anti-bureaucratic revolution in Vojvodina represents a historical phenomenon of a unique kind, which at the same time contains the elements of the Revolutions of 1989, in which Eastern European regimes were down due to the lack of their own legitimacy and under the burst of the popular rebellion, as well as elements of the "Cultural Revolution" in China, when the most powerful man of the party used and manipulated national dissatisfaction in order to remove political opponents and reduce the influence of competitive fractions in the party.

With the imposition of a 100% tax in November 2018 for products originating from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Government of the Republic of Kosovo, like never before, reacted to aggressive Serbian diplomatic politics. As a result of Serbian diplomacy, recognitions have been contested, causing Kosovo to fail in membership in international organizations. According to the current prime minister, the Government of Kosovo is determined until the Serbian state reflects, despite the international pressure until recognition of Kosovo, as an independent country in mutual recognition. The tax, at the same time, was the awareness that every citizen tried to avoid consuming products of Serbian origin. But, despite the economic effects, Kosovo is being asked to withdraw or suspend the tax based on the principles of CEFTA and SAA, at the same time asking Kosovo to give priority to dialogue and that pressure comes from Serbia with the lobbying that it does in countries that have an impact on Kosovo. As a result of pressure, Kosovo should reflect on its friends and strategic partners because a shrinking friendship is in favor of Serbia, despite the argument that Kosovo has. Through this paper, we will bring scientific analyzes from local and international media and we will bring statements from local and international statesmen, as well as analysis from economic case-tellers by bringing conclusions and recommendations on how to approach the Kosovo Government tax and exit from this international political pressure.When a country unilaterally raises a trade barrier, other countries usually follow the same example, ie raising their trade barriers, which escalate to a large-scale commercial war, or even worse, to a military war . During the 1930s, the United States decision to set up a trade barrier ended with the famed planetary depression, or - as others say - with the onset of the Second World War. Each country wants to have full access to international markets, but at the same time, many governments and states try to help local producers in competing with foreign producers. Although consumers and businesses have their benefits of unrestricted access to imports, often governments are unable to withstand the political pressure coming from inefficient industries. (Epping, 2007, p. 71). Although a trade war may not be as destructive as a war between the armies, in both cases we have people who suffer (often those people whose defense has started the war itself). The most common barriers to trade are quotas, fees and subsidies. By imposing a quote, a country limits the amount of foreign products that can be imported. The tariff is a tax - paid for goods crossing the country's customs points, which makes the price of manufactured goods abroad to rise. Governments, on the other hand, may use taxpayers' money to provide subsidies to domestic producers, which makes the local commodity price artificially lower than the price of imported goods. (Epping, 2007, p. 69.70). With the industrial revolution and the overcoming of mass production and distribution mass, in the 19th century, have come up the new challenges of the scientific approach to the market and the different approaches of knowledge gained in school trade. (Segetlija, 2009, p.24). The welfare economy represents a theory that gives us the basic arguments of government intervention in the economy. One of the main arguments discussed so far relates to "market failures", which appear to be impossible to regulate without the government intervening in the market by imposing taxes and making expenditures that also effect redistribution of income in a desirable way from a social point of view. On the other hand, other theories point to "government failures," which appear alongside market ones, and are the source of the overwhelming public discontent over the government's role. (Haderi, Milova, 2015, p. 143).

The international community has determined it carries the responsibility to protect civilians from atrocity crimes if a state is unable or unwilling to do so. These crimes are often perpetrated in authoritarian regimes where they are legitimized through an exclusionary ideology. A comparative case study of Pol Pot and Milosevic indicates that whether the leader truly believes in the ideology he puts forward or merely uses it instrumentally to manipulate the population, is an important variable, which affects the manner in which third parties can respond effectively to these crimes. While Pol Pot was motivated by his ideological zeal, Milosevic used ideology to create a climate in which mass atrocities could be perpetrated in order to garner further power and prestige. In Max Weber’s terminology, Milosevic was guided by instrumental rationality while Pol Pot acted on the basis of value rationality. This case study compares two crucial moments—Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia and NATO’s bombing of Serbia when the crisis in Kosovo escalated—to analyze the responsiveness of the two leaders. It is argued that ideological leaders are less responsive than non-ideological leaders to foreign policy measures targeted to stop or mitigate the occurrence of atrocities.

The most immediately striking aspect of the ICJ's recent ruling on Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence is the divergence between what the Court actually said and how its decision is being read in the media and by political actors. Typically the Court is said to have found secession by Kosovo to be “legal” or “lawful” under international law. According to Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu, “The decision finally removes all doubts that countries which still do not recognize the Republic of Kosovo could have.” The angry reaction to the decision by Serbian nationalists likewise supposed that the Court had endorsed a right to secession. In fact, what the Court did was to read literally—and some would say narrowly or pedantically—the question it was asked, and thus to avoid opining on the major legal (and related policy) issues raised by the act of secession, including whether there is a right to proceed with a unilateral act of secession, and to whom such a right may or may not belong. On the literal reading, the Court was not asked, and thus it did not rule on, whether international law requires that the final status of Kosovo protect the group and individual rights of minorities, whether Kosovar Serbs or Roma. Likewise, the Court did not rule on whether Serbia or, indeed, any other State in the world community is required to recognize Kosovo as an independent State. Nor did the Court's decision address the borders of an independent Kosovo, or whether and under what circumstances force could legally be used either to impose independence or to resist it.

Abstract Germany’s involvement in the Kosovo War marked its first active participation in combat operations since the Second World War. For many observers at the time, the intervention represented a fundamental policy shift in the West, and in Germany in particular. Mass atrocities, no longer to be observed from the sidelines, were now to be actively prevented. Twenty years later, this stance seems rather puzzling. Mass atrocities continued to be committed; Germany has neither championed efforts to prevent such acts, nor has it been proactive in this regard. In this article, the authors develop three proxies that serve to indicate whether mass atrocities were highly politicised: the existence of parliamentary debates, media coverage, and church statements. They show that Kosovo is an outlier within an otherwise clear continuity of German political silencing in the face of mass atrocities. To prove this claim, they turn to German domestic debates on twelve mass atrocity cases abroad since the country’s unification in 1990.

This article examines the emotion-based status-seeking logic in Russia’s foreign policy vis-à-vis the West, presenting the example of Russia’s reactions to NATO’s military campaign against Serbia in 1999. It is argued that Russian assertiveness in combination with expressive rhetoric must be understood as a result of the ruling elite’s need to have Russia’s identity and self-defined social status as an equal great power in world politics respected by its Western interaction partners. Russia’s reactions to NATO’s intervention, which was not authorized by the UN Security Council, must be read as a strategy coping with the emotion anger about the perceived humiliation and provocation of status denial and ignorance by the West. We find various elements of such a coping strategy, among them the verbalization of the feeling of anger among Russian political circles and the media; uttering retaliation threats, but no ‘real’ aggressive, retaliatory action; minor and temporary activities aimed at restoring Russia’s image and status as an influential an equal power. On the surface, the Kosovo episode did not result in any visible break or rift in the RussianeWestern relationship. However, emotionally it has lead to a significant loss of trust in the respective partner on both sides.

In modern information and IT society, creativity is elevated to a pedestal as a condition for market success, but also survival. In other words, in post-industrial production, or the entire economy, and certainly media companies, which of course operate according to market principles and are based on information, creativity is the most wanted commodity. In the modern knowledge society, there has been a strong affirmation of the phenomenon of cultural, that is, creative industries that have great importance for the economic, social, political and general development of society. At the same time, changes in the economic, technological and cultural spheres have strongly influenced changes in the media, as an important creative industry. This means that media products (information, videos, pics) and the media are industry, not only because of the rating criteria which dictate the direction of business but also because it is about mass production and consumers. Creativity is an important strategic resource for increasing competitiveness in a knowledge-based economy. However, media policy does not encourage the systematic promotion of creativity. Consumerist entertainment industry suppresses and marginalizes authentic, creative cultural practices, replacing them with pseudo-cultural contests. The integration of theoretical knowledge and education into the Serbian media sphere is practically at the zero points with recurrences that seriously undermine the overall development, application of knowledge, modern technological achievements, and the affirmation of democracy and freedom as the basic precondition for the overall prosperity of society.

Population fertility is a topic which arouses the most attention in the public when considering the demographic situation in Serbia. Through various institutions and mass media, there is more and more talk on the low level of births, its reasons and consequences as well as the need to solve this problem. However, the beginnings of forming a population climate are accompanied by a series of thoughts, standpoints and assertions among experts and politicians which demographers define as misjudgments. This paper tries to indicate to the six most common significant incorrect convictions which are relevant for defining and carrying out of a population policy. It is believed that highly emotional evaluation of the phenomenon of insufficient births provokes a lot of thought on this matter, reasons and solutions are sought, and the problem is even minimized due to a feeling of helplessness when facing it, even outside demographic circles, namely among highly educated people who do not have specific knowledge. Nevertheless, these misjudgements should be corrected, because the biggest problem facing the population policy is in fact connected to forming individual and social reproductive consciousness.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the most active western and pro-Russian non-governmental organizations working in Serbia. In the Mass Media and non-governmental sphere, the influence of Russia is rudimentary, and is often hampered by the supporters of the Euro-Atlantic ideas. The maintenance and development of a positive image in the face of information war led by Western countries against Russia, requires constant attention of Russia’s foreign policy agencies in their work with Serbian government and social structures. The active work of the government and civil society is needed for mutual promotion of cultural achievements in Russian and Serbian cultural space. The research methodology is based on the comparative approach. The author arrives at the conclusion that Western NGOs have huge financial capacities to influence the society of Serbia. They create, promote and develop their own NGOs through local contractors, whilst pro-Russian NGOs are authentic projects of pro-Russian Serbs which typically lack money and wide public action and whose projects don’t get wide information or financial support. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the fact that it is one of the first attempts to comprehensively analyze and assess the work of non-governmental organizations in modern Serbia.  

During the past decade, the valley of the West Morava in the central part of the Republic of Serbia experienced several natural hazards that have changed the life of the inhabitants. The aim of this paper is to show how people perceive natural hazards in the areas where they do not have catastrophic consequences for the entire population. The perceptions of natural hazards were examined according to similar studies and collected through surveys and interviews. The obtained stratified sample information was coded, and the results are expressed in the parameters of descriptive statistics, using T-test and ANOVA. The population is partially affected if inhabited locations are in the threatened part of the West Morava River valley and if their activities have direct consequences by natural disasters. They emphasize the importance of the political influences and mass media, but they show the need for additional information on prevention and protection. That is where they see geography as profession that sublimates all knowledge of natural disasters, unlike others that are more narrowly skilled. The results of the research are the starting point for further regional comparisons, which will complement the picture of the people’s attitude and resilience to natural hazards in Serbia and the Balkan Peninsula.

Defence date: 26 September 2005
Examining board: Prof. Peter Wagner, European University Institute (Supervisor) ; Prof. András Bozóki, Central European University ; Prof. László Bruszt, European University Institute ; Dr. Karol Jakubowicz, National Broadcasting Council of Poland and Council of Europe
First made available online 09 January 2019
Situated on the edge of mass communication studies and transition studies, this PhD thesis examines the process of media reform in countries undergoing post-communist transition. By performing three very different single country studies - a relative success story of transition (Hungary), a struggling post-Soviet society (Ukraine), and a post-conflict, international-administered province (Kosovo) - the work seeks to compile a thorough account of the problems that have plagued the region's media reform process in the last decade. The primary goal is to contribute to the discussion on media démocratisation through preparing comprehensive case studies on the basis of carefully selected empirical material. While focusing on the most important elements of the complex interaction between political and media systems, the thesis reviews the new structural and cultural organisation of the media systems. It focuses on the policy decisions that were adopted by political elites, and on the discussions which surrounded the theoretical grounding and/ or the implementation of these decisions. The work hypothesises that media systems undergoing transition can be fruitfully analysed according to four normative media models - the libertarian, social democratic, authoritarian and development assistant models. These theoretical models help to ascertain the fundamental organisational and structural principles which define a given media segment, and also help to identify the basic commonalities and differences between the various development paths. The work argues that the success of media reform ultimately depends on the political elites' commitment to implementing the above models in an appropriate balance. It concludes that a "transitional media model" might make sense for some of these countries, in which continued party political presence and political parallelism - particularly in the print segment - may be justified.

Defence date: 4 February 2008
Examining Board: Pier Paolo Giglioli (Univ. Bologna), Fritz Kratochwil (EUI) (Supervisor), Martin Shaw (Univ. Sussex), Pascal Vennesson (EUI/RSCAS)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
In the most classical way and a less than original strategy in International Relations, this research is about power, the sources of power, and power relations. However, the unit of analysis is all but classical; on the contrary, this is something which is still an unusual presence within the discipline: the mass media. This research, indeed, aims at understanding if, how, and why the news international television networks (and CNN in particular) had power over the political and military decision-making during NATO’s intervention in Kosovo and Operation Enduring Freedom. Having analysed the existing literature to clarify concepts and theories which explain media power during international conflicts, I advanced my criticisms and presented my hypotheses about media power, and its sources, in order to develop a theoretical framework on which I could ground the empirical part of the research. It has been clarified, therefore, that the international news networks have: a) Power over the political agenda; b) Power over the process (over timing of the decision making); c) Power over the selection of communication channels; d) Power over the choice of instruments. A complex set of different methods has been used, which leads to an essentially diagnostic case analysis. This is based on the examination of those processes which, through documentation and interpretation, would be considered as effects of media power. In particular, the presence of some different effects has been detected: Agenda Setting, Real Time Policy, Media Diplomacy, and what has been labelled Media War. Research methodology is a combination of qualitative methods of both data collection and analysis, varying for each supposed effect of media power. The most important data are transcripts from CNN, newspaper articles, press agency bulletins, memoirs, and texts of original interviews conducted with policy makers, journalists, and military officials. These texts have been considered both as sources of information and as text to be rigorously analysed through a particular method of text analysis, which is semiotics, in order show how meaning is constructed by different speakers.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in English.
Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [337-354]. Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ99192.