Monthly Monitoring Highlights – problematic narratives all around the Western Balkans

Throughout the month of October, the RDN monitoring team has detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. This month, we have seen hatred based on gender, ethnicity as well as hatred aimed towards journalists and persons with disabilities. Trivialisation of rape and attacks on a journalist reporting on sexual abuse in Albania In the …

TROLL OF THE MONTH: Aktuelno.me

The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkans region.  Vanja Ćalović has recently been openly exposed and attacked by …

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH MEDIA 

What to read? What to watch? Who to listens to? Who to believe? Can I trust my own judgement?   Gaza. Haiti. Iran. Israel. Kosovo. Myanmar. Nagorno-Karabakh. Niger. Sudan. Ukraine. Wherever there is conflict there are conflicting narratives.   And if you are not in the midst of it you rely entirely on such media outlets as …

Monthly Monitoring Highlights – ethnic tensions, sexism and hate speech

Throughout September, the RDN monitoring team has detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. This month, we have seen gender-based violence, sexism, hate speech against journalists and a rise in ethnic tension. Gender Based Violence in North Macedonia During the month of September, a woman was stabbed to death by a person she was …

TROLL OF THE MONTH: Tabloid Alo

The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkans region. Alo! is a popular daily tabloid newspaper published in Serbia, …

GENDER INEQUALITY IN THE MEDIA

THE MEDIA MUST CHALLENGE SEXISM AND GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN ITS OWN RANKS. At the beginning of September, the news website Kallxo published an article titled “Radio Television of Men” that investigated the recruitment process at public broadcaster Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK) for the positions of deputy director, radio director and head of Shared Services — all …

RDN’s request for moderation of the comments under the Serbian portal N1 post

User-generated comments below articles of famous media outlets in the Western Balkans can become a way of spreading harmful narratives. Even when the media content is produced in line with all professional standards, the comment sections, when left unmoderated, can still disturb the general public. Simultaneously, the media have the power and the responsibility to …

Monthly Monitoring Highlights – discrimination and sensational reporting

Throughout the month of August, the RDN monitoring team has detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. This month we have seen hatred based on gender, disabilities, sexuality, and ethnicity; as well as sensationalism in the media. Gender discrimination in Serbia Ivana Parlić, a Member of Parliament coming from the People’s Party recently took …

TROLL OF THE MONTH: Kosovo MPs Rrahmani and Balje, and the head of Prizren’s Islamic Community Berisha

The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkans region. This month’s Troll are two members of Kosovo parliament Eman …