News

TROLL OF THE MONTH: Duda Balje, the President of the Social Democratic Union and Member of the Assembly of Kosovo

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. April Troll is Duda Balje, the President …

Reflecting diversity in the media: why and how?

The importance of reflecting diversity in the media On April 28th 2022, the Albanian Media Institute organized the conference: “Reflecting diversity in the media: why and how?”. The conference took place as part of the activities of the Reporting Diversity Network 2.0 Project, which has been implemented since 2020 in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia, …

Who asked her for her opinion – women in the media in Serbia

Although they make up half of the population, women as subjects and sources of news are in only a quarter of the world’s media content, according to the latest results of the Global Media Monitoring Project. The situation in Serbian media is below the world average, because women appear as interlocutors in a fifth of …

RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE IN MACEDONIA: A familiar but rarely practiced concept

Religious tolerance is built by getting to know others, a clarification that their diversity is not a threat to us or our religious beliefs.

SEXISM, ETHNIC DISCRIMINATION AND HOMOPHOBIA IN THE WESTERN BALKANS: March monitoring highlights

Throughout the month of March, the RDN monitoring team has detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. Cases of ethnic discrimination, religious hate speech and homophobia continue to influence the relations within societies in the Western Balkan region as well as the relations between neighbouring countries. Sexism in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia In …

TROLL OF THE MONTH: TV show ‘Why Not?’

“THE RIGHT KIND OF REFUGEES”: RACISM IN THE WESTERN MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE

Over six hundred thousand civilians have fled Ukraine to date, and the EU estimates that the number will go up to four million. The EU countries are “welcoming them with open arms”, lifting the normal rules for refugees and allowing them to settle where they want. Following this important and welcome development, some European politicians seem to …

HATE SPEECH BASED ON RELIGION, ETHNIC DISCRIMINATION AND HOMOPHOBIA IN THE WESTERN BALKANS: February monthly monitoring highlight

Throughout the month of February, the RDN monitoring team has detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. This month we uncovered ethnic discrimination, religious hate speech and homophobia across the Western Balkan region. Antisemitism in North Macedonia Recently, in an article published by libertas.mk, a headline read “38-year-old woman from Ohrid with the message …

SQUASH ONLINE HATE SPEECH: Digital spaces exclude vulnerable groups

Three days ago, in a post on Twitter, I took the effort to call out the typical behavior of men who debate in the media sphere. In the tweet, I wrote that if men truly want to contribute to the social justice debate, they need to listen more and talk less and that their privilege …