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Medij. istraž. (god. 18, br. 1) 2012. (89-107) PREDHODNO PRIOPĆENJE UDK: 324:070(497.5)“2010“ Zaprimljeno: siječnja, 2012. Second Electoral Round of the 2010 Croatian Presidential Election in Daily Newspapers: Uneven Coverage of Candidates Đurđa Vrljević Šarić* Nada Zgrabljić Rotar** SUMMARY Using content analysis method, we examined the quantity and the quality of me- dia coverage of the candidates for the Croatian president in the second circle of the campaign during the 2010 elections, from December 28, 2009, to Janu- ary 8, 2010. The studied corpus encompasses six Croatian mainstream national political dailies as the sources of articles (units) for content analysis: Jutarnji list, Večernji list, Vjesnik, Glas Slavonije, Novi list and Slobodna Dalmacija. The analysis was conveyed on 625 newspaper articles on the presidential can- didates, published in the mainstream dailies during the 12-day period of the second electoral round. Out of 625 analyzed articles, 276 (44.2 %) referred to the candidate Milan Bandić, 194 (31 %) items discussed both presidential candidates, and 155 (24.8 %) articles were about the candidate Ivo Josipović. The two presidential candidates made the cover of the investigated newspa- pers 43 times in a 12-day period during which articles on Milan Banadić were more frequently announced on newspaper covers. The candidate Milan Bandić was also granted more space in the political dailies during the campaign in second electoral round than his opponent Ivo Josipović. Research results dem- onstrated that the print media more frequently connoted both candidates nega- tively than positively in journalists’ and editorial comments. Negative statement * Đurđa Vrljević Šarić, Doctoral candidate Department of Information and Communi- cation Science, Faculty of Philosophy University of Zagreb, Croatia; [email protected] ** Nada Zgrabljić Rotar, Ph.D. Department of Tourism and Communication Science University of Zadar, Croatia; [email protected] 89 Medij. istraž. (god. 18, br. 1) 2012. (89-107) bias is even more emphasized in comments on the independent candidate Milan Bandić. Analysis of the articles’ themes has shown that the candidate Milan Bandić was more often presented in articles that were campaign not-related. The results have confirmed that mainstream print media did not fulfill their task of ensuring even coverage for both parties in the electoral process. Key words presidential election, campaign coverage, media bias, mediatization of politics, personalization of politics, print media, Ivo Josipović, Milan Bandić Fifth presidential elections in independent Croatia At the beginning of the year 2010, the young Croatian democracy has elected its president for the fifth time since the Croatian independence was achieved in the ear- ly 1990-ies. There were twelve candidates1 in the first electoral round of the presi- dential campaign. In accordance with the Croatian Constitution provisions (Ustav RH, 2001: paragraph 94)2 the two candidates with the highest number of votes in the first electoral circle - Ivo Josipović with 32.4 percent, and Milan Bandić with 14.8 percent - entered the second circle of presidential elections. Their campaigns during the second electoral round were very different. As an independent candi- date, Bandić based his campaign on populism and attacks on his opponents’ party SDP (left center) in efforts to mobilize the voters of the right. Josipović’s cam- paign was more moderate as he presented himself as the representative of modern, pro-European, intellectual Croatia. In the second electoral round Ivo Josipović won 60.3 percent or 1 339 385 votes leaving behind his rival Milan Bandić with 39.7 percent or 883 222 votes. These were the fifth presidential elections held in Croatia since its independence, but Ivo Josipović is the third Croatian president. Josipović ‘inherited’ the second Croatian president Stjepan Mesić who won his first mandate in the 2000 presiden- tial election3, and obtained five more years of presidency in the 2005 presidential election4. Prior to Mesić, the Croatian president was Franjo Tuđman - the founder of the Croatian state and the ruling Croatian party (HDZ). In 1990 he was elected for President of Socialist Republic of Croatia (one of the six Republics in former Yugoslavia), and he won the first immediate presidential election in independent Croatia in 1992. Tuđman had seven opponents in the 1992 election5, yet he tri- umphed in the first electoral cycle. In 1997 Tuđman was reelected and had once 90 Đ. Vrljević Šarić, N. Zgrabljić Rotar Second Electoral Round of the 2010 Croatian ... again repeated his victory in the first electoral circle with an even higher score – he won 61.4 percent of all casted votes6. The media researchers who investigated media coverage of parliamentary and pre- sidential elections in Croatia during the 1990-ies have established that the media were biased, favoring the ruling party HDZ in the 1995 parliamentary elections (Baranović, 1995), and also clearly favoring Franjo Tuđman, the contemporary pre- sident in the 1997 presidential election (Baranović, 1999). The results of 1990-ies election coverage studies comply with Chalaby’s notion of political communication in presidential regimes in de-structured and non-consolidated democracies, which Croatia was in the 1990-ies Tuđman’s era. Such regimes result in ‘a specific type of the relationship between presidents and state-controlled media on the one hand, and between presidents and the press on the other’ (1996:136) - and in both relations the president controls the media by setting an adequate legislative frame (more in Chalaby, 1996). With the 2001 Constitution changes, the presidential regime in Croatia was substituted by a semi-presidential regime. Also, due to the process of Croatian accession to the EU, for the past decade the legislative frame concerning media and electoral coverage was modified to meet the European standards and demands equity of all parties in the electoral process: the Law on Croatian Public Television (Zakon o Hrvatskoj radioteleviziji) was changed in 2003, and the Law on Electronic Media (Zakon o elektroničkim medijima) was altered in 2009. With the aim of defining rules on electoral coverage in the electronic media, other laws are also applied on media coverage during the electoral process7 (more in Zgrabljić Rotar, 2010:15). As a result, the research on electoral coverage in the young Cro- atian democracy after 2000 show an increase in media impartiality (Stantić et al, 2003; Peruško, 2008). However, the conducted research was in relation to the cov- erage of the electoral proces on radio and television, which are submitted to strict and precise legal regulation. The Croatian print media, whose electoral coverage is in the focus of this paper, are, on the other hand, not submitted to such strict legal regulations. None the less, they are expected to implement the same rules in order to fulfill their task of providing equal coverage of all parties in electoral cover- age. This demand is formulated through professional rules and codes issued by the Croatian Journalists’ Association (Hrvatsko novinarsko društvo - HND)8. But even though the tasks of media in electoral coverage are clear, Croatian media experts note that the ‘rules on media role in elections are not a guarantee for honest and objective reporting’ (Malović, 2003: 45) and that the Croatian print media actually delude the public by not recognizing their obvious support to one of the candidates or to a certain political option (Malović, 2007: 95). Therefore, this study aims to empirically investigate whether Croatian mainstream print media successfully met 91 Medij. istraž. (god. 18, br. 1) 2012. (89-107) their task of equal and impartial coverage during the 2010 presidential campaign or have they abused their role. We explored the characteristics of the print media reporting on the second electoral round of the 2010 presidential election in Croatia in relation to the concept of media biases, as well as the presentation of presidential candidates in print media regarding and the idea of mediatization and personaliza- tion of politics. Considering the increase in media impartiality found by the studies of Croatian media electoral coverage conducted over the last decade, we assumed that the print media have fulfilled their role in ensuring even presentation of the presidential candidates through equal number and size of published articles, but we also assumed there would be differences in tone as well as in topics through which candidates were presented in published articles. Media bias concept Explaining the factors that effect media coverage of politics in general, the political competition model of contemporary media theorist Gadi Wolfsfeld (2009: 86-87) implies that the intended role of media in coverage of politics, and electoral process as well, is never fulfilled. Wolfsfeld’s model argues that: (1) it is more probable that the political process will affect the media, then the opposite, 2) the level of control that a political party holds over its political surroundings is one of the key variables that defines the role of the media in the political conflict, 3) the role of the media in political conflicts is subjected to change in time and depending on different cir- cumstances, 4) the changes in the role of the informative media must be analyzed in two dimensions: structural and cultural dimension of political competition and 5) one side in the competition always has an advantage in the quality and quantity of the media coverage it is getting, but the other party (challenger) can succumb this obstacle utilizing media as tools for gaining political influence. Wolfsfeld thus implies that the media, rather than being objective and neutral, tend to be biased, which means they favor one party in a political conflict. According to McQuail the term media bias connotes ‘tendency in a news report to deviate from an accurate, neutral, balanced and impartial representation of the ‘reality’ of events and social world according to stated criteria. A distinction is usually made between intended and unintended bias.

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