Science in the Croatian Media:

Blanka Jergović

WCSJ, Helsinki,

24-28 June

The "socialism darkness" and the bright future?

Comparison between 1990 and 2013

Present situation (preliminary results of the analysis of the media coverage of science between 2009 and 2012)

Economy, ideology ...

Ownership Ideology

1990 State ownership, private ownership from 1987

«Social responsibility» reporting about efforts and successes in «building the socialism»; in the Yugoslavian type of the socialism science and technology were an «organic part» of the socialist view of the world; educational, informative role

Present Big corporations: WAZ, EPH (60% of the media market), Styria, private owners

Profit; sensationalism, trivialization

«Independent newspapers thrived on the affairs, simply because nobody wrote about them. They thrived on the hidden political information, on the glamour of Croatia’s capitalism, on the social activities of our tycoons ... and so on. That for what they (the audiences, B.J.) waited a week, we’ll now try to give them in larger doses on a daily basis»

(T. Wruss, the Editor-in-Chief of The Morning Paper in Globus of 31 March 1998)

«12 million DEM had been invested in the Morning Paper, 200 people were employed: it is a project that must make money»

«...We gathered people from all over the place and it was necessary to coordinate them, convince them that they would be writing in the ‘same language’. It was a huge professional task. This was a big professional pressure»

(Globus of 31 March 1998)

Frequency of articles about science

2009 2010 2011 2012

The average number of articles pro day: all newspapers 6,62 5,78 6,58 8,6

The average number of articles pro day and pro newspaper 1,32 1,16 1,32 1,72

Where is it published?

(N=994)

Types of news report

Distribution in the newspaper

Prominence of news

5% 5% 6%4% 2% 1%

12% 10%2% 1% 1%

26%

66%

82%77%

2009. 2010. 2011.

Front page Double pages Last page Front page of the supplement None of the above

Prominence of science stories

2012 – the change of the style? More short news, rarely about the science made in

Croatia or by our scientists They rarely mention any source, and when they quote

they mention no names (mainly it is about «American researchers»)

There is more articles about social sciences and humanities

The art of writing and the pleasure of reading which was important during socialism have disappeared, and there is very little in-depth analysis or even less research-driven articles

Conclusion Substantial change within 4 analysed years: increase of

quantity, decrease of quality Ethical issues: translation, copy-paste, repeating same

articles in the same newspaper after several months Only 1 newspaper has a science correspondent, others

have journalists occasionally covering science and other fields, or they have no one covering science