Croatia

[HR] The Electronic Media Council calls for the reduction of intolerant and offensive speech in the media

IRIS 2018-4:1/25

Nives Zvonarić

Ministry of Culture, Zagreb, Croatia

The Electronic Media Council calls for the reduction of intolerant and offensive speech in the media. Based on the legal framework of the Electronic Media Act, the Electronic Media Council has concluded that in 37 reported cases of possible hate speech in electronic publications and television and radio programmes in the Republic of Croatia in 2017, there were no actual cases of hate speech. However, it can be concluded that there was a lot of offensive and impassioned speech.

The Council and the Agency for Electronic Media will continue to work proactively on this issue. This year, they will organise, inter alia, a series of workshops for media providers on recognising and preventing hate speech as well as offensive and inappropriate discourse in current affairs programmes and other media contents.

The role of the media in society is to promote tolerance and high standards of civilization. The Council invites all media providers to actively contribute to social cohesion and to adopt responsible behaviour, considering the great influence they have on their respective audiences.