What challenges does the media face? What is the role of the media in promoting European values and multiculturalism in our country?
Allow me to begin with a quote from the esteemed philosopher Muhic that “the role of cultural differences is vital to the process of social integration, on the successful implementation of which, in turn, depends the stability and even the survival of a country. Depending on how they are articulated and treated by the state, cultural differences can become a factor of integration, or grow into a factor of disintegration.” In this sense, the media, including new information and communication technology, provide fast and easy connecting people. And this undoubtedly leads to the media playing a very important role in the intercultural dialogue in all fields in every society, whether it is multicultural, bicultural or national. And they should use the available electronic resources to promote dialogue between different cultures in a multicultural society. But is that the case with us?
To get to the bottom of it, I want to present a few examples through which we would see if and to what extent hate speech was represented in the media as the number one, in my opinion, risk factor for multiculturalism in the country. Apart from Articles 10 and 11 of the Journalists’ Code, the responsibility of the media is clearly defined in several recommendations such as recommendation r-97/21 of the Committee of Ministers. Before moving on to specific examples of the challenges faced by the media, I will return to the data on the number of complaints for which CEMM assessed that the Code of Journalists was violated on the grounds of hate speech. And why I will explain hate speech below .. The data shows that last year, 2020, there were 6 decisions in which hate speech was detected, ie violation of Article 10 of the Code of Journalists. And this year, so far, there is 1 decision where hate speech has been detected. Quantitatively, it may not be an indicator, but in terms of content, hate speech is especially important. For example, the complaint that refers to the internet – the portal “ekran.mk” with the text entitled “(video) who do we send to the Eurovision song: Macedonian or Bulgarian? Vasil Garvanlieva publicly admitted that she also has a Bulgarian passport!”
