Survey of media scene in Serbia
In December and January 2006, as part of the project "Citizens Can Do It! - Public Advocacy Initiative", SMart Kolektiv conducted a survey intended to identify departments, newsrooms, editors and journalists following the work of civil society organisations and various issues they deal with (environmental protection, human rights, poverty reduction, gender equality, corporate social responsibility, etc.) so that a strategic and systematic cooperation with them could be established in order to improve the level of information on crucial issues of public interest and raise awareness of the public about major problems in our society.
This survey encompassed media companies classified in five categories: daily newspapers, weeklies, television stations, radio stations and news agencies. The survey was conducted through a series of visits to media companies, establishment of personal contacts and interviews of editors and journalists.
Analysis of media content - NGOs in Press 2003 - 2006
In collaboration with Ebart Media Documentation, for 2003 and 2006 , SMart Kolektiv made quantitative and qualitative analyses of the media coverage content pertaining to civil society organisations and various social issues they were dealing with.
These are some of the results of the media content analyses:
- There have been some changes in media treatment of the entire field of work of the civil society sector, although, when comparing 2003 and 2006, the difference is small in terms of numbers and type of discourse in articles on civil society organisations.
- The total number of texts on civil society organisations decreased from 1,624 in 2003 to 1,591 in 2006.
- Over the course of 2003 and 2006, a rather small number of articles was published where civil society organisations are spoken of in either very positive or very negative terms.
- Coverage of civil society organisations' activities by tabloids and so-called yellow press is poor and far from traditional newspapers' coverage. So-called serious papers have shown greater interest in various issues that civil society organisations deal with.
- As a consequence of overall social-political developments, in 2003, the number of articles on civil society organisations as well as international organisations skyrocketed.
- In 2006, changes occurred, which were not so much the consequence of a sudden ‘enlightenment' among the majority of media outlets as the result of change in their perspective and the agenda in which general public is interested in. For instance, stories related to crime significantly dropped in numbers, but those dealing with war crimes increased considerably as well as the number of articles on the relation between civil society organisations and religion. Given the high incidence of environmental protection-related ‘affairs', especially in Pancevo, the polluted industrial town near Belgrade, the interesting thing was that no significant changes took place in the field of environmental protection as an extremely important area for civil society organisations' engagement.
Survey results are very important for designing and conducting a national communications campaign intended to reposition civil society organisations in Serbia as well as to help develop and implement specific activities focused on the media.
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