ANR TRANSLIT and COST “Transforming Audiences/Transforming Societies” Media and Information Literacy Policies in Croatia (2013) Experts: Igor Kanižaj, Faculty of Political Science, Journalism Department, U. of Zagreb Viktorija Car, Faculty of Political Science, Journalism Department, U. of Zagreb Lidija Kralj, OŠ Veliki Bukovec May 2014 1 ANR TRANSLIT and COST “Transforming Audiences/Transforming Societies” 1. 1. Dimension (Short) Historical background The Republic of Croatia is a South-East European and Mediterranean country, at the crossroads of the Pannonian plain, the Balkan Peninsula, and the Adriatic Sea. The area of Croatia is 56,594 km². It has a population of 4.29 million, according to the census carried out in April 2011. After the Second World War, until 1990, Croatia was one of six republics within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During the socialism regime, media culture was important part of especially elementary school’s curricula. It was a part of Serbo- Croatian language courses, and it was focused on theatre, film and television. The most valuable was a wide range of extra-curricula activities for pupils, that included drama classes, puppet classes, school choir, art group, writing and poet group, and excellent journalistic groups where students of the age 10-14 had a possibility to work as a real journalist for the school magazine, and for a wide range of national children magazines, radio program on state radio, even some television children programming. Once a year, the most motivated and active pupils from this classes and groups, gathered together at the Republic’s Meeting for children’s’ drama, writing and journalism, or at Novigrad Spring journalism school, etc. The first multi-party elections in Croatia were held in 1990, as relations among the Yugoslav republics worsened. In 1991, the Croatian War of Independence (“Homeland War”) started, and with portions of the country under effective control of Croatia’s Serb minority, armed and supported by the Yugoslav People’s Army, the government declared independence. The War ended in 1995 and during that period it was almost impossible to define or open any agenda on media education policies. At the time, changes in educational system were focused mostly on history textbooks and Croatian language, while because of the financial reasons, activities like drama, puppets, journalistic or poet and writing groups, lost motivated teachers as they were not paid for leading them. There was no official policy on media education. Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) governed the country until its leader, President Tuđman, died in office at the end of 1999. At the parliamentary elections in January 2 ANR TRANSLIT and COST “Transforming Audiences/Transforming Societies” 2000, a centre-left coalition of six parties took power and launched a series of reforms of the existing state structures. Croatian politics changed from isolationist to pro- European as the pro-reform coalition put Croatia on track to join the European Union (EU). The country underwent many liberal reforms. In the November 2003 general elections, a less nationalist HDZ regained power. A series of political, legal and social reforms led to the opening of Croatia’s EU accession negotiations in October 2005. In the 2007 elections, HDZ won in coalition with three smaller parties and representatives of national minorities. In April 2009, Croatia joined NATO. Negotiations on accession to the EU were formally concluded in June 2011. HDZ lost power in December 2011. Social Democrats regained power this time in the so-called Kukuriku coalition (consisting of four parties: Social Democratic Party, Croatian People’s Party, Istrian Democratic Assembly and Croatian Party of Pensioners). A referendum in January 2012 produced a vote in favour of acceding to the EU. Croatia became the 28th member of the EU on 1 July 2013. Education system in Croatia In 2012, 47,959 pupils graduated from primary school (23,399 female pupils), 43,248 pupils graduated from secondary school (21,906 female), 11,557 graduated from colleges (6,504 female), while 25,407 got University diploma (15,487 female). 1,338 got PhD (730 female)1. It is interesting to compare data for last five years (2008-2012): the number of professional theatres attendance raised from 1.067,000 to 1.211,00, of cinemas attendance from 3.283,00 to 4.064,000, public service TV subscribers from 1.498,000 to 1.676,0002. According to the report Mapping Digital Media – Croatia (Car & Andrijašević, 2012) Croatian households are well equipped to access content provided by digital media. The most popular source of information in Croatia is television, which is present in 98.8% of households. On the other hand, the PC is present in 55% of households. According to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (Državni zavod za statistiku, DZS), in the first quarter 1 Croatian Bureau of Statistics, Croatia in Figures 2013, Zagreb, http://www.dzs.hr/ 2 Ibid. pp.30 3 ANR TRANSLIT and COST “Transforming Audiences/Transforming Societies” of 20123 68% of households were equipped with personal computer, while 66% have the internet access. 98% of youth in the age of 16-24 use computers and internet. 85% of individuals used the internet for reading magazines and newspapers (a 19% increase, compared to the same period in 2008), 46% used internet radio or TV, and 56% used social networks. The most widely used media platform in Croatia is the mobile phone with a penetration of 116% in 2012 (it was 143.45% in 2010)4. Broadband development began with a considerable delay: in 2003 there were only 4,400 broadband internet connections and a penetration of 0.01%. At the end of 2004, the government introduced a new legislative framework and began drafting the first national strategy for broadband access, especially in underdeveloped and isolated areas. In 2010, the number of broadband connections reached 1,132,212 (26% penetration)5 and in 2012 it was 28.40%6. The number of internet users has increased significantly; from 1.47 million in 2005 it rose to 2.67 million in 2010, with particularly significant growth in broadband penetration. According to the Trust in Media research project, conducted in 2009 by the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Zagreb and the independent research centre Media Metar, Croatians trusted the Catholic Church more than any other institution (3.44), followed by scientists, educational institutions, the army, certain trusted intellectuals, and the leader of their preferred political party. Domestic media (2.78) and journalists (2.73) came after all these. The information platform most trusted by citizens is the internet (45%), followed by radio (39%) and television (35%).7 3 Croatian Bureau of Statistics, The First Release No. 2.3.2., 3 December 2012; Usage of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Households and by Individuals, 2012, first results, http://www.dzs.hr/Hrv_Eng/publication/2012/02-03-02_01_2012.htm (accessed 19 November 2013). 4 http://www.hakom.hr/UserDocsImages/2013/e_trziste/GOD%20ENG%202012_mobile% 20penetration.pdf (accessed 19 November 2013). 5 Croatian Post and Electronic Communication Agency, at http://www.hakom.hr/UserDocsImages/2011/e- trziste/GOD%20Broj%20korisnika%20Interneta%202010.pdf; http://www.hakom.hr/UserDocsImages/2011/e- trziste/GOD%20Broj%20priklju%C4%8Daka%20%C5%A1irokopojasnog%20pristupa%20internetu%20 2010.pdf (accessed 23 May 2011). 6 http://www.hakom.hr/UserDocsImages/2013/e_trziste/GOD%20ENG%202012%20Broadband% 20penetration.pdf (accessed 19 November 2013). 7 Research is conducted on a nationally representative, proportionally stratified and probabilistic sample, of 1,000 adults (examinees) in Croatia. A Likert scale and five-level Likert item was used (1 = do not agree at all, 5 = fully agree). See results in V. Car, “Television in new media environment” Media Studies 1 (1-2), pp. 91-104. 4 ANR TRANSLIT and COST “Transforming Audiences/Transforming Societies” According to research published in 2012 by GfK (www.gfk.hr) when looking at institutions, Croatian citizens had the biggest trust in scientists as a profession (4,9 on Likert scale from 1-7), in school system (4,5) Catholic Church (4,4) followed by trust in banks, army, superiors on work, Croatian National Bank/governor, president of the Republic of Croatia, banks in general, police, businessmen, media (3,1) judiciary, European Union, Prime Minister, etc8. According to the GfK research, in 2011, 96% of youth in Croatia use internet at home, while more than 50% of them consume internet between 60 and 240 minutes daily. 48% of youth in Croatia trust internet, 29% trust television, 12% trust daily newspapers, while 6% trust radio (GfK.hr, 2011). „(…) Besides spending time with friends (of the same age), media consuming is the most common free-time activity of children and the youth.“ (Ilišin, 2012: 148)9 Before 2010 it was only the Electronic Media Act which recognizes media literacy, in its article 64. Media literacy is listed as one of the principles that should be achieved for allocating funding from the Fund for pluralism and electronic media diversity (annually it is distributed about 5 million EUR from the Fund to local radio and television stations). In 2010 National Curriculum Framework for pre-school, education and general compulsory and secondary education (further in this text National Curriculum Framework, or NCF – the fundamental educational policy document of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport) was accepted and it recognises Media Culture as a part of Croatian language course curricula at primary, secondary and high schools. In NCF key competences, including digital one are listed also in technical and ICT area and in cross- curricular topic ICT use. However, if we focus primarily on media culture, as planned in NCF, media literacy learning outcomes can’t be achieved because it is not covering all aspects: access to medium, ability to analyze media text, to validate it and to produce new content.