On February 4th, activists from a group of civil society organizations from the Eastern and Southeastern regions, at a workshop in Shtip, began their training for the production of media content for the Local Community Media.
The study "Journalists' Views and Perceptions of Judicial Transparency: A Comparative Study in Three Western Balkan Countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia" presents the findings from the regional research project conducted among journalists from three Western Balkans countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia. The author of this study is Dr Snežana Trpevska, from the Research Institute on Social Development – RESIS.
The RESIS Institute started the Mapping of communication habits, knowledge, needs and interests of vulnerable groups of citizens in the Eastern and Southeastern regions of RNM. The mapping includes citizens who live with a certain degree of physical disability, intellectual disability or visual and hearing impairment, as vulnerable categories of citizens whose communication rights are most threatened. This is the first Mapping of the communication habits of vulnerable citizens in RNM and will serve as a basis for a thorough research that will assess the needs and communication habits of groups in the local community.
On September 30, the RESIS Institute and the Local Community Development Foundation – Stip held a meeting with civil society organizations that represent the rights of vulnerable categories of citizens from the Southeast region, on the occasion of the establishment of the new community media platform #LocalActive, part of the LocalActiveMedia project.
On September 15th, RESIS Institute and the Local Community Development Foundation – Stip held a meeting with civil society organizations from the Eastern region, part of the Network of Audience Councils, on the occasion of the establishment of the new community media platform #LocalActive, part of the LocalActiveMedia project.
The RESIS Institute together with the Local Community Development Foundation - Stip continue their cooperation within the Public Council Network (PCN) with the new project for the establishment of the #LocalActive platform, part of the LocalActiveMedia project.
A new assessment of the risks for media pluralism in North Macedonia was published, which was conducted by the RESIS Institute as part of the Media Pluralism Monitor 2022 (MPM2022), a project coordinated by the Center for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom from Florence. The assessment that covers the year 2021 concludes the following: reform fatigue, clientelistic pressures from the political domain towards media (and vice versa) and party-political confrontations, coupled with structural pressures not exclusive to North Macedonia - such as the disinformation and misinformation flooding of the public sphere, exacerbated by health challenges concerning the COVID 19, have all partaken in the assessment that the media system in this country needs a new impetus for constructive change.
The RESIS Institute for the needs of the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services (AVMU) prepared the Analysis "Gender in the media 2021: Gender issues and the way of representation of women and men in the sports program of the national terrestrial televisions". This is the first analysis that provides quantitative and qualitative insight into how much and in what way national televisions report on female athletes and sports, as opposed to male athletes and sports.
RESIS published a new analysis detecting the still existing structural obstacles to the development of media freedom in North Macedonia: the market is fragmented, most media outlets are financially weak and unsustainable, the working status of journalists is still insecure and unstable, the public broadcaster does not have financial stability, autonomy and independence, and the access of local communities and vulnerable groups to the public sphere is imperiled. In addition, since social networks are the main source of information for most of the population, especially younger groups, people are greatly exposed to disinformation and hate speech.
RESIS Institute and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) continue with the implementation of the Communication Strategy 2020 - 2023 of the State Audit Office, whose main goal is to support the SAO Development Strategy 2018 – 2022, to open new channels of communication with the general public, media and civil society organizations, as well as to strengthen the impact of audit reports in terms of transparency and accountability of the state institutions.
