Media Miss the Opportunity to Fix the World

Our biggest competition is Twitter.’ With these words, the editor of the European edition of the iconic magazine Time, Matt McAllester, clearly described the situation in today’s media market at last year’s Web Summit in Dublin.

Other participants nodded in agreement, concurring with the thesis that the phrase ‘citizen journalist’ has become something quite common, media ‘mainstream’, and that social networks are completely equal competitors to traditional media both in terms of reporting and influence on public opinion. However, not so long ago, traditional media served as a kind of filter. What was discussed during the first few minutes of television news or what was published on the front page was considered important, and this was mostly reported by serious, experienced journalists. Today, anyone can report, without any restrictions or anyone’s permission, from their colorful profiles on social media. The role of social media in creating reality is growing; a small passionate group of people, armed with ‘hashtags’, can truly mobilize the masses and sometimes provoke tectonic changes. Due to this undeniable importance of social media, the question arises: what is the role of traditional media then? Who has more power to change the world and, of course, can it even be done? The answer to that question is not straightforward; it depends on the context, audience, and type of content being consumed. For example, social media can easily be blamed for glorifying narcissism (the flood of selfies) or false role models (their size and values are measured by the number of fans on social media), but on the other hand, they have proven to be a great medium for opening some socio-political issues. The recent refugee crisis has somewhat revealed the domestic media environment, in which, among other things, media masks were torn down, and the flaws and virtues of both traditional and social media were shown in the first few days.

Political Bias As noted by the head of Ring production and long-time marketing expert Dario Vince, traditional media have shown how terribly tied they are to party politics.
– The fact that we are approaching elections has, of course, intensified this, but it is still astonishing how persistently certain journalists, and even entire media houses, have given space and time to fan commentary dedicated to our politicians and parties at a time when a crisis affecting at least half the world was already unfolding around them, with rivers of wretchedness, literally endangered lives, passing before their eyes. Very few traditional media can claim that instead of establishing a solid flow of reliable information in the resulting chaos and providing the average person with as objective and comprehensive an understanding of the situation as possible, they did not add fuel to the fire of our classic internal divisions, occasionally resorting to misinformation or highly selective information – explains Vince.
He also claims that the critical tones had justification, but in doing so, especially in the early days, the opportunity to offer citizens objective and reliable information was missed, which is the only priority of any traditional media in every crisis situation. The truth is that the government has made their job harder with its non-transparent moves, but it has also revealed the weaknesses of most media that, without the guidance of official spokespersons, lost their compass.

Advantages of Networks Furthermore, the refugee crisis highlighted another weakness of domestic media, which is that they report from social media.
– I was pleasantly surprised by 24 sata and N1 during that early period, as they were the most active and best adapted to the extraordinary situation, while Nova TV seemed to have more journalists than HTV – says Vince, adding that social media displayed its usual flaws but also fully demonstrated its advantages.
Although they readily took over the fan pre-election frenzy from traditional media, even serving the attempt to spread misinformation (which fortunately was noticed and stopped in time by Index.hr on several occasions), they largely compensated for what traditional media missed. According to his opinion, although there was everything from low-quality information, biased viewpoints, an awful lot of self-promotion, and futile emotional escapades on the networks, the overall effect is positive.
– Initially, xenophobic hysteria was exposed and largely halted, a prevailing humane stance towards people in distress was formed, and numerous good deeds were certainly done along the way – concludes Vince.

Yellow Journalism Syndrome In any case, the refugee crisis only underscored the shortcomings of the domestic media market; primarily the chronic lack of viewpoints, and even resources that could scratch current problems deeper than the surface, and ultimately confirmed once again that traditional media are still lost in the digital age. As the editor of Time emphasized at the beginning of the story, authority has been replaced by authenticity. In other words, the times when traditional media could position themselves as authorities in reporting and raising public awareness on certain issues are over. The audience no longer needs that. The authenticity of content (regardless of whether it comes from a casual witness of events or an experienced reporter) or viewpoints (regardless of politics and advertisers) is the new currency of the modern media environment, of which domestic media, with honorable exceptions, seem to have no idea. Besides the aforementioned, media in the context of positive influence on public opinion also suffer from the syndrome of yellow journalism, or as long-time journalist and editor Nada Mirković puts it, journalistic content has taken a back seat in traditional media, and media based on true journalism have a secondary influence on public opinion. Those that dominate are primarily those that follow the entertainment industry, sports, and the ‘scene’.
– Nevertheless, television news programs still have surprisingly high viewership, perhaps the highest. Do they really influence public opinion? Rarely, I would say. The news programs of our national televisions provide a connection to reality, but they very rarely analyze it deeper, they do not provide real insight into what is happening around us. The economy is hardly followed, for example, or very superficially. Is that a problem of the media or of the people who work in the media today? It is hard to say; it is like the question of what comes first, the chicken or the egg? – says Mirković, who agrees with Vince that the media are a reflection of politics, marked by it.
– Politics here is extremely populist, focused on short-term goals; it first trims reality, which the media then take over so trimmed. Spin on spin. There is no deeper insight. The journalistic process has indeed been substituted by interactive media – the analysis of society has turned into one big chat of the uninformed or barely informed. Conspiracy theories are slowly replacing real insight, and the internet is becoming the ‘teacher’ – explains Mirković, adding that socially influential politicians in the West closely monitor traditional media, while journalism in Croatia and in politics has a secondary role because leaders turn to other and various PR means: primarily using government institutions to promote their interests.

Media Swamp Co-owner of Jabuka TV, editor, and columnist Romano Bolković believes that today’s media are drastically different from those of a few decades ago. Formerly, they were text-based media, while today’s media are image-based. Even television once described and interpreted things, rather than just presenting them, just as today even newspapers prefer to present things tabloid-style instead of interpreting them.
– Once, media were less free but more learned. Today, it is possible to say anything, no matter how inarticulate the speech may be. Croatian media is a swamp that takes thousands of lives, and it is not worthy of any of them. There is an incredible disproportion between Croatian media and Croatian journalists: I know dozens and dozens of outstanding journalists, but I barely know two or three honest media – says Bolković.
He believes that media are not just a description of reality, but they are a kind of description that changes reality.
– So said, it sounds pompous, but let’s say – pre-election polls; do they express the mood of the electorate or suggest it? The nature of media is a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, that is, they are a prophecy that is fulfilled by their very utterance. Do you remember the lesson from ‘Citizen Kane’: people will think what he tells them to think. Media are the software with which we process reality or at least its regular ‘update’. They are the place where society produces ideas about itself, the stage for social reflection. The question of whether media can positively influence is as naive as it is benevolent: of course they can, only, media do not have a simple role of enlightenment. It is more a matter of interest than of the common good and welfare – concludes Bolković.

Hope for ‘Traditionalists’ The good thing is that there is still hope for domestic traditional media. Or, the situation has not yet gone so far into ‘papar’ that they are superfluous to the audience (an audience that is hungry for content that is not just entertaining). Communication expert and partner at agency 404, Martina Pintarić, believes that social networks and traditional media complement each other and that it is important to consider both in managing communications:
– Content still most often comes from traditional media, and is later discussed on social networks. Although the influence of social networks is growing, the coverage that traditional media have is still greater – she says.
Vince also believes that, given that the situation that triggered the refugee crisis is nowhere near its end, the limits of social networks will quickly become apparent. Every day, he says, the need for fast and truly credible information will grow, and that is something that traditional media still need to provide at the local level.