Irreconcilable Differences?: Explaining Czechoslovakia's Dissolution by Kraus Michael Stanger Allison & Allison Stanger

Author:Kraus, Michael,Stanger, Allison & Allison Stanger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2000-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

REPORTING CZECHS AND SLOVAKS

Jan Jirák and Otakar Šoltýs, in their examination of the portrayal of Czech–Slovak relations in the Czech mass media from November 1989 to December 1991, point out that in the absence of a visible justification for the existence of a Czech–Slovak state, media reporting and discussion employed language in which the idea and conception of national feeling was “coded.” Further, they argue that the Czech mass media were very slow to pay attention to the Slovak independence movement. In part this represented the fact that open discussion on the subject had been taboo for two decades, but it also represented a realization that some Slovak complaints had been valid and that they desired not to endanger the federation by discussing them. Celebrations of the life of Andrej Hlinka, the Slovak autonomist priest of the interwar period, in September 1990 finally awakened the Czech press. Jirák and Šoltýs are not bothered by the strong evidence that, at best, the media only followed politics, seeing this as a considerable improvement over the previous single-view communist system. They also acquit the press because they say the media are drawn primarily to news, and so much of the material relating to the question of splitting the state had to do with longer-term issues and discussions.27 One Czech newspaper, Lidové noviny, whose roots were more in analysis than in day-to-day news coverage, paid perhaps the greatest attention to Slovakia, but its focus was mostly on Slovak nationalism. A Slovak newspaper found that 157 of the 191 articles on Slovakia that appeared in Lidové noviny through the end of May 1990 dealt with Slovak nationalism.28

The performance of media in Slovakia also left something to be desired. A study of Slovakia through mid-1991 suggests that the emergence of democratic values was hindered by “the unfavorable structure” of the Slovak press, “unprofessional” editorial staff on Slovak radio and television, and intellectuals who failed in efforts to address the Slovak public.29

A December 1992 study by Ondrej Dostal, Zuzana Fialova, and Michal Vasecka showed how strongly national in form the Slovak mass media were. The authors established six categories for the daily and weekly press: extreme nationalism, radical nationalism, moderate nationalism, nationally oriented, nonnationalism, and antinationalism. The category with the largest circulation was the nationally oriented one:

Because these periodicals with the largest circulation have not resolutely countered nationalism and failed to condemn nationalist excesses, because they leniently offered space also to extreme views, which needed unequivocal challenge, they indirectly participated in significant shifts in public opinion. Their endeavor to offer space to all made possible a gradual dominance of the most aggressive, least constructive, and intolerant opinion so that, in consequence, they pushed one side of the dialogue into the background.30

The study despaired that “the antinationalist press . . . perished precisely because the dominant Slovak press failed to react to the outburst of nationalism, thereby relegating the antinationalist position to the role of marginal intellectual extremism.”31 The study shows clearly how much the national Slovak frame succeeded in pushing alternative frames out of the picture.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.