Liberalization and Development of the Media in Communist Croatia in the 1960s and Early 1970s

Abstract

This article shows the process of liberalization of the media that took place in the 1960s and early 1970s in Croatia. By using the methodology of historical sciences and based on previously unpublished archival sources and relevant literature, the author researches this process in the context of wider social and political processes of the 1960s, which Croatian historians usually characterize as the reform period. For the Croatian media, this period was a phase of significant development in both the technological and professional sense, but also in terms of criticism in which the media started to change their role as an independent social factor. Numerous Croatian journalists started to adopt the liberal concept of the public sphere and the role of media, but the process was stopped by the highest political officials in late 1971 and early 1972. The liberalization process and its end is analyzed through the activities of the Croatian Journalists Society, the umbrella organization of journalism in the Socialist Republic of Croatia and through the activities of the biggest Croatian media companies of that time.