In the Republika Srpska, there is a need for the adoption of adequate legal solutions regarding protection from foreign malign media-propaganda influences, as well as further awareness-raising among the population about the existence of recognized harmful effects of propaganda, highlights an analysis by the Public Institution Center for Socio-Political Research of the Republika Srpska.
The CSPR emphasizes the recognized long-term, continuous, and active exposure to foreign malign sophisticated propaganda campaigns which, along with other methods, led both externally and internally, negatively affect both the Republika Srpska and the Serb people as a whole.
- The institutions of the Republika Srpska are aware of such actions and take into account the activities of foreign propaganda when making certain decisions. The scientific community and institutions know that no activity that disrupts the stability and progress of the Republika Srpska happens spontaneously but behind all of them lies the tendentious intention of certain factors, both external and internal – the CSPR analysis titled “The Malign Influence of Foreign Interests Through Media Exploitation” states.
INFLUENCE OF GLOBAL POWER CENTERS ON THE STABILITY OF SOCIETIES
- In contemporary society, media have become an inescapable fact that greatly shapes public perception. In cases of attempts to realize malicious political and other interests by global power centers, we witness a malign influence on the stability and development of individual societies, states, or entire regions – the analysis writes.
The identification of their role, as stated in the text, as a key means of creating public opinion becomes increasingly significant in the context of global international relations, especially when analyzing the influence of foreign factors on the media space of the Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the broader region, where different interests and geopolitical influences meet.
- Today, media are the arena where conflicts and competitions between different political, economic, and cultural entities take place – the CSPR highlights.
As media become ubiquitous channels of information, conducting an analysis of their role is imperative for understanding the mechanisms of shaping public opinion and influence on political, economic, and cultural currents at a global level, the CSPR believes.
- They have largely become tools for enslaving and destroying the free-thinking individual and his fundamental identity, but, at the same time, remain tools for fighting for freedom and sovereignty /case of Julian Assange/.
An illustrative example is the recent interview of American journalist Tucker Carlson with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the relationship of Western mainstream media towards both in recent years. This example serves as a good litmus test showing the real intentions, desires, and needs of the global and local community and its inhabitants /the number of views and reactions to the interview/, and the malign plans and goals of certain world power centers and mainstream media serving them – the analysis writes.
CONTROL OF DESIRES AND NEEDS
In post-democratic societies, which today declare themselves as the cradle of true values, freedom, justice, and equality, the population is attempted to be kept under control, acting on thoughts and producing desires.
- This has become particularly possible with the advent of mass media. The system that imposes views and values, controls our desires and needs, influences our activities, our acceptances and rejections, is called propaganda.
The easiest way to recognize propaganda in relation to established facts is attempts to prevent the sources and carriers of propaganda from being scientifically and professionally verified for the truthfulness of the narratives they present – the analysis emphasizes.
ROOTS OF PROPAGANDA IN AMERICA
The example of using propaganda and the power of media is most easily observed in election campaigns in the USA.
- Currently, the public is witnessing Donald Trump’s fight for candidacy in the upcoming elections in the USA and preventing his candidacy at any cost, where propaganda combined with force acts completely exposed – CSPR writes.
It should be emphasized, CSPR notes, that the practice of propaganda in America dates back to the period before World War II when the first American propaganda agency was established. It was called the Committee on Public Information. From there begins the malign definition of many terms used today to justify American interventions, one of which is the concept of “aggressor”.
- Throughout history, we have numerous examples of American democracy, actions against aggresors in Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska, and other countries where groups from the American administration and political West have interests and through media apply the power of control by propaganda. Those aggresors were, of course, the domiciled peoples of those countries, who defended their system of values, their lives, and sovereignty – the text states.
PROPAGANDA METHODS TOWARDS THE REPUBLIKA SRPSKA
CSPR states that in the context of the current political situation in BiH, various propaganda methods are used to divert attention from taking away the ownership deed/title from the people over the Republika Srpska, by influencing its institutions and power holders.
- Media attacks on the institutions of the Republika Srpska are a perfect example of the action of foreign propaganda – CSPR emphasizes.
Together with other forms of invasive action of the foreign factor and political Sarajevo through imposed legal solutions, fabricated court proceedings, initiating and conducting investigations, aggressive and inappropriate political rhetoric, intimidation, dehumanization, criminalization, and demonization of the Republika Srpska, its population and leadership, and numerous other activities – there is a task to annul the Republika Srpska as a constitutional category, a republic of the Serb people.
- Such an outcome would place all the natural resources of this region at the disposal of foreign usurpers, among others, while the people would remain oppressed and unprotected. It should be emphasized that the media-propaganda actions of the foreign factor do not act partially but in the context of the region, and there are clear indications of the direction of such activities towards nullifying the Serbian factor in the entire territory we inhabit – the CSPR highlights.
THE NEED FOR DEVELOPMENT OF MEDIA LITERACY IN SRPSKA
- Propaganda creators use various strategies to manipulate people through media, which we also notice in our society. This indicates the need for the development of additional media literacy to enable citizens to critically and consciously consume information and recognize such manipulations – the text writes.
In BiH, CSPR believes, media are often under the influence of certain foreign political and interest groups and individuals who, through the misuse of various types of media, project and achieve personal gain.
- The ownership of certain, especially foreign media, is often questionable, and it is precisely from this that the quality and result of reporting depend. That is, the narrative that is mostly disseminated is the political or economic interest of the media owners or media groups, not necessarily the real picture of events. There is a clear problem with internet media.
Numerous cases of portals without imprints, whose objectivity and validity of information thereby become questionable. The most recent case of unprofessional and obviously paid defamation of character through portals without imprints is the campaign against Pejka Medic, a prominent journalist from the Republika Srpska. Mrs. Medic, as an uncompromising professional, is one of the direct victims of foreign malign influence – CSPR notes.
MEDIA INFLUENCE ON THE MASS PUBLIC
Besides the public media service, which is responsible for the cultural-educational and informational program of a society, the analysis writes, there are various profiles of media content, such as the entertainment industry, soap operas, reality programs, movies, social networks, sensationalist portals, tabloids, and the like. They are directed at the mass audience and mostly have the task of diverting the population’s attention, i.e., the targeted public, from fundamentally important issues for their community and nation.
The goal of such malevolent action, CSPR notes, is to make a certain society and individual become fascinated and obsessed with other people’s lives, sex scandals, famous individuals, their problems, or something similar. Anything, just to cloud their view of reality, to throw them off mental balance, convince them of the downfall of society, the nonexistence of a way out from the overdimensioned projection of certain challenges, i.e., to hinder or prevent the possibility of critically viewing and pondering reality.
Also, in the media, the use of emotional reactions instead of rational thinking is omnipresent, which represents one of the ways of creating public opinion.
- Numerous TV contents intentionally evoke strong emotions in viewers, and it is known that people easily accept views that are presented to them while they are overwhelmed by fear, happiness, sadness, or anger. Instead of critical rational thinking, the individual is subjected to the influence of emotions, in order to manipulate his perception and attitudes – the analysis states.
THE INCREASINGLY VISIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF MALIGN FOREIGN PROPAGANDA IN OUR SOCIETY
To malignant foreign sources of propaganda, CSPR emphasizes, it is important to convince people that everything they see on their media is true, that it is acceptable and modern to be uninformed and uninterested in national issues, tradition, culture, and science.
- In our society, the consequences of this method of manipulation are becoming increasingly visible. Our value system is compromised, and the youth are enslaved by wrong attitudes about life. Starlets, bullies, and morally, mentally, and sexually deviant behavior are placed on a pedestal, while family, our cultural identity, public and private morals and ethics, responsibility, knowledge, and integrity are cynically mocked.
In this way, media under the control of malignant foreign factors reshape the world and consciousness, and in our society,
they demolish the traditional value system for the complete disintegration and destruction of the vitality of the nation – CSPR notes.
Toxic media, the text adds, which undermine the value system by promoting harmful trends are our everyday reality, as well as diverting attention to fundamentally unimportant topics while fundamental national issues are undermined are images of our reality since the 90s.
- Foreign high-ranking civilian and military officials, like General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe, under whose command the operation to bomb Yugoslavia in 1999 was conducted, are very well versed in constructing and exploiting the situation. Back then, in Kosovo and Metohija, after all the upheavals, Clark’s company envidity Energy Ltd was granted by the Albanian authorities in Pristina the right to exploit a third of the currently occupied territory of Kosovo and Metohija in search of coal. It’s no surprise his 2022 meeting with Kurti on the topic of solar energy, because, surprisingly, Wesley Clark owns a company that deals precisely with the production of solar energy – the text writes.
USURPATION OF COMPETENCIES AND CRUEL PROPAGANDA
From this side of the Drina, the malignant activities of propaganda do not subside even today.
- Subservient actors of power from the Federation construct the usurpation of competencies of the Republika Srpska over its territory with disputable anti-Dayton laws. In the eyes of the domestic and global public, they judge the institution of the president of a republic, deceiving by methods of the cruelest propaganda. Targeted attacks on personalities to discredit specific individuals are methods of an adept switch of theses that is exceptionally present in the territory of the Republika Srpska – CSPR highlighted in the analysis “The Malign Influence of Foreign Interests Through Media Exploitation”.
Source: RTRS
