From a Leader-centred to a Party-centred System? The Curious Case of Media (De-)personalisation in Yugoslavia and Croatia, 1945–2015

Abstract

It is often argued that the politics of Central Eastern European countries revolve around political leaders. This can inhibit the development of fragile political institutions and the process of democratisation in general. This article examines patterns of media representation of political actors in the transition from a communist to a post-communist setting in the case of Yugoslavia and Croatia. The results show that, although there are significant similarities between the prominence of leaders in the communist and early post-communist eras, in the process of democratisation media attention has shifted significantly from leaders to parties as collectives.