THE DEPENDENCE ON GLOBAL MEDIA OF FOREIGN POLICY REPORTING OF THE YUGOSLAV DAILY NEWSPAPERS (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 1983)

Abstract

This paper aims to discover the dependence on global media of foreign policy reporting of the Yugoslav daily newspapers in the period when Yugoslavia was a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and gave support to the attempt to reduce the influence of international news agencies around the world. The research is founded on the assumption that the reporting of international events by the Macedonian newspaper Nova Makedonija, the Slovenian newspaper Delo, and the Serbian newspaper Politika in the 1983 print editions, is insignificantly influenced by the global media. Empirical results were obtained using the method of quantitative content analysis. The data were gathered over a four-month period, using the issues printed from the year of 1983. Research results show that global media had insignificant direct influence on international reporting of all Yugoslav newspapers. At the same time, heavy, but indirect influence of global media is present in the newspapers Nova Makedonija and Politika. Media representation of international actualities in all newspapers was mostly geared toward information about actual events that had happened on the northern continents and regions of the earth. Military and political conflicts were the main topics of interest for covering the southern parts of the world. However, empirical results also revealed some surprising contrasts on these issues among the Yugoslav daily newspapers in 1983.