Albania’s print media mostly neutral on Kosovo developments, AIIS study finds
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- "The majority of articles analyzed by this study were neutrally reported. The negative or positive connotations were mainly noticed in articles illustrating relations between the two countries and reflecting different opinions on Kosovo's political developments," said Dritan Sulçebe, an AIIS researcher who authored the report.
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TIRANA, Nov. 15 – Albania’s print media is mostly neutral when it comes to reporting on developments in neighboring Kosovo, an attitude explained with few in-depth articles about the situation there and news coverage mainly focusing on politics, according to a study conducted by the Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS), one of the country’s top think tanks.
The study supported by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Tirana monitored four Albanian print media outlets, dailies Panorama, Mapo and Shqip, the latter no longer published in its print version as of July 2016, and weekly Tirana Times over the January-June 2016 period.
The report found that only about a fifth of the articles were dedicated to Albania-Kosovo relations with the overwhelming majority focusing only on Kosovo. A majority of 57 percent of total articles were neutral, compared with 20 percent positive and 23 percent negative.
The political stalemate in Kosovo, the election of its president and the Albania-Kosovo relations were the predominant topics in the 230 Kosovo-related articles published by the four media outlets in the first half of this year.
“The majority of articles analyzed by this study were neutrally reported. The negative or positive connotations were mainly noticed in articles illustrating relations between the two countries and reflecting different opinions on Kosovo’s political developments,” said Dritan Sulà§ebe, an AIIS researcher who authored the report.
“The neutrality of Albania’s media toward Kosovo can be explained with the lack of big and sensitive issues that could affect relations between the two countries and the neutral stance of Tirana’s press regarding the political events in Kosovo,” he added.
In two case studies covering the political crisis in Kosovo and the Albania-Kosovo relations the report identified different attitudes in the Albanian print media reporting.
Reporting on the political crisis in Kosovo on topics such as the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities, the Kosovo-Montenegro border demarcation dispute and the Kosovo’s opposition protests was characterized by balanced articles.
Articles with a negative attitude, accounting for 38 percent of the total, were used to unveil the damage the political stalemate has caused in Kosovo and stress the aggressive aspects of the opposition’s behaviour and the government’s stance toward the opposition, the study showed.
Albania-Kosovo relations were characterized by articles of positive attitude in almost three-quarters of the cases.
“Articles characterized by the use of positive attitudes stressed the importance of cooperation in the culture, education and economy sectors, focusing on events such as the third Albania-Kosovo joint government meeting, the mutual recognition of diplomas and the joint calendar of cultural events,” the study noted.
“The neutral articles, accounting for 16 percent of the total, were characterized by a moderate tone and balanced enthusiasm between the two countries. Neutral reporting was mostly identified in visits carried out by lower-ranking officials, the reaction of Albanian authorities over political developments in Kosovo, events of marginal importance and the objective analysis characterizing relations between the two countries,” it added.
Frank Hantke, the director of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Tirana described the current level of cooperation between Albania and Kosovo and all six EU aspirant Western Balkans countries he called as “six pack” as very low.
“Belonging to the same ethnic group is not enough,” said Hantke.
Albert Rakipi, the AIIS executive director, said relations between the countries have changed after 2008 when Kosovo declared its independence.
“The nature of Albania-Kosovo relations has changed after 2008 when Kosovo became an independent country. There have been small commercial ‘wars’ on the border signaling it is not an easy undertaking,” he said.
Kosovo’s deputy Ambassador Mustafa Avdiu urged Albanian media outlets to increase coverage on Kosovo, saying that “people in Kosovo know what’s going on in Albania much better than those in Albania do about Kosovo developments.”
The AIIS has also previously mapped Albania’s relations with Greece and Serbia in the print media in two previous studies.
Kosovo has emerged as Albania’s second largest trading partner for exports after the construction of the so-called ‘Highway of Nation’ in 2009 considerably cutting travel time between the two countries. Ethnic Albanian Kosovars also account for almost half of total foreign tourists to Albania, in what is known as ‘patriotic tourism.’
