By Jane Fintova
Albania, a country still unknown to many. Isolated for many years and emerged from a particularly brutal strain of communism only in 1991, Albania has been since trying to catch up with the rest of the Eastern Europe.
Today, granted with the EU’s candidate, all political forces want to pass a message that keeping the European agenda is a national priority. Even though there is a still long way ahead, Albania continues to fight against corruption, organized crime and for fundamental rights and follow through with the judiciary reform.
Democracy goes hand in hand with the free media.
According to the Albanian Media Institute Research Coordinator Ilda Londo, the ownership structure of traditional media in Albania affects largely the state of the media freedom.
Reporting is strongly influenced by the economic or political interests of the media outlet owners and journalists‘ working conditions are not favourable at all—there is a lack of contracts and for many it is just a formality, she added.
Thus, the costs for keeping a stable job are very high and often result with self-censorship and editors’ dictate.
Government’s policy spurs a wake-up call among Albanians.
The media freedom in Albania was recently questioned by a municipality’s plan to build a children’s play area in the public park of Tirana. This triggered a wave of protests by the citizens who were against the project that would have destroyed another green area.
Notwithstanding the fact that the protest was met with clashes between the police and the protesters, several protesters being arrested illegally, the issue has received minimum media coverage.
“Even though some of us were able to express our views in the media, in the end, the media portrayed the whole issue as they wanted,” said Alida Karakushi, public policy analyst, civil society activist and a protester who actively reported on the issue online.
“We have been often labeled as “vandals” or part of the opposition Democratic Party.
A perfect way how to shift the attention of the public opinion,” she added.
“There have been many cases in Albania where reporters have recorded the controversial issues that never reached the viewers. In many cases, reporters just prefer to put down the camera and behave like nothing happened,” Karakushi explained.
Make the space for the citizen media.
The citizen-led protest turned into a strong citizen initiative: a community called “Qytetarët Për Parkun – Citizens for the Park” with over 12 000 followers on the Facebook. The community reported and live-streamed from the Park, remaining almost the only coverage of the events.
“With Facebook Live Stream, we managed to reach 2000 views per day,” noted Alban.
Facebook nation
Alban continued: “User-generated content will challenge traditional media very extensively, especially in a country like Albania, where traditional media is not free and the people are aware of it.”
With the growing number of 4G and social media platform users, Albania is definitely one of the emerging “Facebook nations.” Likewise, distrust in the traditional media is growing and traditional newspapers are losing their influence. As a result, the television is the only traditional medium that has maintained a larger position in the country’s media sphere.
Many hope that online media and user-generated content—even if not an immediate answer—are the only mediums that have the potential to fight against the media bias and pave the way towards free media in Albania.
