The prevalent fear in the public of the long-term suspension of EU expansion, after Romania and Bulgaria are accepted into membership, has pushed to the foreground of Macedonian media space. The media, under the influence of the negative reviews by “The Economist” and “The Financial Times”, are uncertain and imprecise in their views and move back and forth between pessimism and optimism or, in the majority of cases, make their own bids about Macedonian perspectives in the process of European integrations.
With full respect for the importance of positions presented by EU institutions, the media create for EU the image of “the great arbiter” in processes and developments of Macedonian politics, both on national and international levels. There was almost no political event or process, concept or economic policy on which the EU’s positions were not presented first, usually fully supported and positively evaluated by the editorial offices. Such views are presented before the positions of the Macedonian Government and institutions, targets to much criticism over the slowness of reforms, are known. Although EU is treated as “the great arbiter”, the media still don’t put enough emphasis of the need for deregulation of the telecommunications market, quite opposed to the strong positions the EU holds on these issues. During this period, according to the media, the intertia of the necessary reforms is due to the political entities being preoccupied with the campaign activities, started long before the legal deadlines.
The elections are omnipresent in the media. Although the campaign hasn’t officially started, all media approach the topics that are subject to this analysis in the context of the coming Elections. This approach is present even when certain events are not related to the electoral process in any way of manner.
The monitoring registered differences in the selection of topics and the intensity of coverage between the Macedonian and Albanian language medie. The media in Albanian language present extremely limited interest in a number of topics intersting for the Macedonian language media, for example, the trials for Boskovski and Tarculovski in the Hague Tribunal; the dispute between SPC and MPC; the name dispute with Greece; or the Decade of Roma Inclusion. The scope of interests of the Albanian language media presents the dilemma whether the interests of their audiences are truly so narrow in scope and focused on a number of topics, or the media themselves decide which topics to follow and which to ignore, thus shaping the interests of their audience.
These are just some of the findings of the media quality monitoring report, covering the month of April 2006. The “Media Mirror” monitoring programme is implemented by the NGO Infocentre.
Media Mirror April 2006 Report (307KB)
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