“YOUNG&DIVERSE” PODCAST WITH SELMA SELMAN – “I have to serve as a role model and that means that I cannot fail”

Selma Selman is an artist from Bosnia and Herzegovina. She incorporates her creativity, but also identity aspects into her artwork. Being part of a Roma family that earns their living from collecting and selling iron, Selma uses iron and reusable materials in her art. In her show Mercedes Matrix breaks a Mercedes car with the …

Monthly Monitoring Highlight: Ethnic hate speech and narratives of divide

Throughout March, Reporting Diversity Network monitoring team has detected several incidents related to xenophobia and hate speech based on ethnicity in the Western Balkan media. Hate speech was spread by politicians, influential figures, and other public figures. While there is a consistency in spreading hateful rhetoric targeting migrants and refugees, media representation of the Roma …

BALKAN TROLL OF THE MONTH: Ivan Ivanovic, a TV Host from Serbia

The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate on the internet based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkans region. Our March Troll is Ivan Ivanovic, a …

SERBIA’S METOO MOMENT AND THE BATTLE BETWEEN DIGITAL AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA

One year after the global pandemic started, we can see how COVID-19 gripped the world. In terms of violence against women and girls, the pandemic had a devastating effect. Although there is no official data, women organisation helplines have reported a significant rise in cases of violence against women, and the Republic of Serbia was no …

SEXISM IN THE WESTERN BALKANS: Monthly monitoring highlight

Throughout February, Reporting Diversity Network’s monitoring team discovered more than 20 incidents related to sexist and misogynist narratives across Western Balkan media that targeted female politicians, journalists and other public figures, perpetuated rape victim-blaming and placed women on usual margins of media reporting and society.  Although we looked at other diversity categories as well, sexism …

“YOUNG&DIVERSE“ PODCAST WITH HANA CURAK- Feminist meme activist from “Sve su to vještice“

In the first podcast produced as part of Reporting Diversity Network 2.0 you can hear Hana Curak talking about patriarchy, sexism, media as well as her activism.  Hana Curak is a feminist meme blogger, creator of the meme page “Sve su to vjestice“ (“It’s all witches“), that uses memes in  her struggles for gender equality. …

“Not Welcome!”: Migrants and Refugees Labeled as Undesirable in Serbia

Since the beginning of the migrant crisis, the online space and media landscape in Serbia has been intoxicated with xenophobia and bigotry towards refugees and migrants which led to fear and the rise of the far-right’s ant-migrant actions. On December 24, journalists of the “Južne vesti” portal received several death threats against them and their …

BALKAN TROLL OF THE MONTH: Bosnian antimigrant.ba website

The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate on the internet based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkans region. Our February Troll is the Bosnian website …

DOES ONLINE HATE END WITH THE END OF PARLER?

“The lie outlasts the liar,” writes the historian Timothy Snyder. Donald Trump’s deployment of social media to erase any “distinction between what feels true and what actually is true” will go down in history as his most dangerous legacy. The complicity of social media companies that enabled Donald Trump’s social media accounts is equally dangerous. Only after …