WORLD NEWS FOR MONTENEGRO DIASPORA
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SOURCE: RASKRINKAVANJE.ME- AUTHOR GDNUS
Disinformation, conspiracy theories, misogyny, pronounced bias and direct attacks on organizers and participants – these are just some of the methods used by some media outlets to defend the authorities in Montenegro and Serbia from protests organized by students.
Protests in Serbia and here are quite different, students there block universities, protests are even more massive, streets are blocked in many cities, and two facts connect them with the protests in Montenegro - the student movement and the cause, or rather the initial trigger - the suffering of citizens.
The behavior of portals from Montenegro in whose posts we found disinformation related to the protests is, however, quite similar, or, one could say, identical, towards both movements. The narratives used by these portals are well known – the protests are organized by the former government and crime, the response from citizens is weak, and they even go so far as to claim that everything is organized from the outside by “powerful villains”.
It is worth recalling that after the first reaction of the students, the deputies of the Democratic Montenegro party “jumped out” with the first statement, demanding the resignations of their people who lead the security sector. They claim that the protest due to the suffering of 13 innocent citizens was organized by Milo Đukanović and criminal clans. They were joined by PES deputy Jelena Nedović, who also claims that the strings are being pulled from behind bars – that is, that the protests are being orchestrated by the former police chief Zoran Lazović. She, however, did not explain to the public how a prisoner from UIKS, which is under the control of the Ministry of Justice, which is under the control of the government of which she is a part, and of course the aforementioned Democrats, manages to orchestrate anything from a pre-trial detention center? If by any chance he is coordinating from prison, then it is a failure of the authorities, who should have kept a closer eye on a man suspected of very serious things.
As every narrative goes from top to bottom, the media are the rung below the authorities, who are defending them from protests with all their might.
Thus, Borba and the company could hardly wait to see certain names from the inglorious past on the list of those supporting the students, triumphantly claiming that this was quite enough evidence for the theories put forward by the government's deputies.
The founders of these and similar portals tried to drag young people with no experience in public speaking into debate shows and confront them with politicians, members of the Security Committee, and otherwise people who never leave television, and after the group Kamo sjutra refused and decided, rightly or wrongly, to appear on TV E, claims began to emerge that the students "only appear on DPS television stations", that TV Prva fulfilled practically every wish they had in life, and yet they still did not want to come. Of course, it was not mentioned that the students were guests on several television channels and some podcasts that cannot possibly be labeled as cooperating with the previous regime.
The students presented their demands, rejected the possibility of negotiating with the prime minister about them – a legitimate choice of tactics, unless you are a portal whose purpose is to defend the government. Then you will claim that the students have “lost their compass” because they are asking Spajić to organize a press conference and say whether he accepts the demands or not.
Borba even tries to connect the protests with the events in the Parliament, claiming that it is “symptomatic that the so-called student and civic protests in Montenegro coincide with the boycott of the sessions of the Parliament of Montenegro by the opposition”. Borba is clear about everything – “the opposition is trying on two fronts (on the streets and within institutions) with protests and boycotts to block the state and try to stop economic and all other reforms, as well as the work of the security sector, judiciary and prosecutor’s office”. So – if you ask Borba, the students want to destroy the economy and the security sector, the judiciary and the prosecution.
Space on the portals is also given to Facebook statuses in which it is claimed without any evidence that Darko Ivanović Skočko took over the coordination of the entire action from the students.
The newly awarded portal Alo online goes into misogyny and the post of the Croatian singer Severina related to the protests in Montenegro and very inventively refers to her famous video. The support of professors from Serbian universities, especially Dinko Gruhonjić, was greeted with a series of insults and a conspiracy theory that Gruhonjić is leading colored revolutions in the region.
They also protect us from students from Serbia
This portal, admittedly, made more of an effort to defend the government in Serbia than the functions of the heads of the security sector in Montenegro.
Borba raises things to a regional level here – it defends Montenegro and Serbia together, and no less than – Soros, “revealing” to the audience that the “bloody hand” is his symbol for overthrowing the government, ignoring the death of a total of 28 citizens in both countries and the symbolism of the bloody hand of the government.
In the article titled – “Borba publishes a long list – Dragan Đilas, Marinika Tepić, Milo Đukanović, the DPS parliamentary group, but also various “lazovićs and katniks who dragged free citizens through the streets”.
Other media and journalists who criticize Vučić are attacked, foreign secret services are blamed and secret plans are revealed, Croats are arrested, and everything is in the end, spiced up by pop - who calls Montenegrin students a frog that raised its leg because it saw that the horse was being shod in Serbia. In his column for IN4S, Pop, admittedly, goes to the other extreme, seeing the protests in Montenegro and Serbia as an attack on the Serbs, the church, and the Russians.
What is clearly seen is that these dual-mode portals are trying to undermine the protests with disinformation narratives and portray them as anything but what they really are, for now - a rebellion of citizens and the demand for responsibility for everything that happened to them.
Darvin Murić, editor-in-chief of the Raskrinkavanje.me portal
