Level of happiness among journalists and political activists in Yugoslavia : before and after the war : now and 30 years ago

Level of Happiness among Journalists and Political Activists in Yugoslavia: Before and After the War - Now and 30 Years Ago

University of Amsterdam

Graduate School of Communication Track: Political Communication Student: Mirza Softić, 10315926 Master Thesis

Abstract

The overall satisfaction of journalists and political activists in former Yugoslavia tends to be very low. Although the internationally recognized organizations, such as Freedom House and Reporters without Borders, report that level of press freedom in former Yugoslavia increased in the last 24 years, some of the journalists and political activists question it. Fall of communism in most countries probably meant also freer and happier press, but did this happen in Yugoslavia? After interviewing 21 journalists and political activists, it is more than clear that press freedom indicators cannot be applicable in every country equally. Although the newest reports of Freedom House and Reporters without Borders state that free press exists in most Yugoslav countries, this research did not show this and overall happiness among journalists and communication/political specialists is much lower than during communist regime.

The purpose of this research is to identify and compare political and journalistic happiness within former Yugoslavia now and in the past. Twenty one political and communication expert answered several different questions in a qualitative interviewing method. Questions regarded political issues, journalism, level of press freedom and overall happiness within former Yugoslav countries. Interviewees gave us insight to understanding present situation in the Balkans, but also to talk about the past. Although the nostalgia factor was taken into account, this research showed that both political activists and journalists are not happy at all with the present situation of their professions. It would obviously mean that democratization and press freedom increase do not always guarantee individual and general happiness.

Introduction

'Thirty years after Josip Broz Tito's death Yugoslav nostalgia abounds' (Synovitz, 2010). This is a sentence from Radio Free Europe's article published on May 4 2010, after a journalist visited Tito's grave in Belgrade and talked with the people from all Yugoslav republics, who all stated that the time under Tito was a much better period for them than nowadays. In this article

a woman named Ljubica Gulić said that compared to the present, she was happier back then and not afraid of anything. Gulić also stated that life in Yugoslavia was much better than in other communist countries. This is a statement I have heard so many times from my family members, friends, colleagues, and even strangers. So many times I have wondered of the reasons people from former Yugoslavia had for these kinds of thoughts. What is it that they dislike about their present life that makes them less happy than they used to be under different circumstances in the past? What is it that makes a person happy in the first place?

Although the definitions of happiness vary, it usually represents the level of positive emotions of the individual (Profaca, 2009). Happiness in some countries represents an overall satisfaction, but in the Western countries it is much more about individual satisfaction, which means it is more a subjective concept than an objective one (Profaca, 2009). However, not every scholar shares this view. Marić (2012) would not completely agree with this definition, as she states that overall happiness is equally important as the individual one, mentioning that individuals cannot be completely happy if the overall society is unhappy and unsatisfied. Taking into account that this research focuses on happiness among people from former Yugoslavia that until recently lived in a rather collective society (Howard, 2002; 2003), than an individual one, the definition of happiness presented by Marić (2012) is more applicable to this research and will therefore be the guiding definition of happiness within this study.

In the first place, my aim was to explore the overall happiness among people from former Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, this soon proved to be impossible within the timeframe that I had. Also, I soon realized that my resources were limited, and that it would be hard to approach so many people to build a relevant, representative picture on this matter. Time was not the only problem. Happiness is a very wide concept and there are many studies on this topic, as happiness is regarded as something conditional and always depending on different variables such as freedom, development, democratization, social relations and structures and many others (Veenhoven, 2003; Ingehart, Foa, Peterson & Welzel, 2008; Haller & Hadler, 2006).

As I wanted to make a comparison between feeling happy 'before and after the war' as popularly stated among older generations of people from former Yugoslavia, and explore the reasons why people regard themselves happier in the past rather than the present, two variables among others from the present literature seemed naturally relevant to me: democratization and freedom. Namely, these two variables varied in the relevant periods within this research, the periods ‘before and after the war’. ‘Before the war’ is the period until the 1990s, before the collapse of Yugoslavia, and while the communism was still the ruling regime. This is also the period that is mostly referred in literature as non-democratic and not free, although some scholars recognize some liberal aspects in the Yugoslav political system (Đokić, 2007; McFault, 2002; Ritter, 2012). ‘After the war’ is the period after the second half of the 1990s, when all the war conflicts came to an end in all former Yugoslav republics, and all the republics went to the processes of democratization and state-building (Zakošek, 2008). From this period on, former Yugoslav republics are being perceived as democratic and free, although some scholars indicate that the process of democratization along with certain freedoms is still on-going (Džihić & Segert, 2012).

Freedom is also a very broad concept and can mean different types of freedom. For the purpose of this research two types of freedom along democratization seem particularly relevant: political freedom - because of the change of political system and the transition from a communist political system towards a democratic system, and press freedom as the press was mostly regulated by the state during Yugoslav era, while it is being perceived as free or at least partly free in nowadays modern times (Freedom House, 2013).

As I found out that it was impossible to scratch a representative picture on this matter within the short timeframe that I had, I decided to dig deeper into this matter, instead of presenting generalizations and statistical data on this subject. Another reason for this decision is the fact that there is not much existing data and literature on this topic, so it would be much harder to conduct a quantitative study, formulating hypothesis on existing data. This is the

reason why I've chosen to conduct interviews instead of a survey. This way I was able to ask broad questions, and leave more space to my interviewees in presenting their views on happiness in relation to democratization, political and press freedom. For this purpose I decided to sample my interviewees within the communication and political sector, that is, among journalists and political experts (e.a. professors, political parties’ members, political analysts and similar; also regarded as political activists as they actively participate in discussions and debates on democratization and freedom), as the variables democratization, political and press freedom are in particular relevant to their working field and therefore also to their everyday life. All these considerations, limitations, and decisions brought me to the following research question:

RQ: “To which extent did democratization, political and press freedom increase overall happiness among journalists and political activists in former Yugoslav countries?”

Why is this relevant? After growing democratization in many Eastern European countries, people expected that better times will come, especially after getting rid of direct or indirect dictatorships, but in many cases these changes proved to be questionable for certain countries, and it remained questionable if and in what ways people were better of in all life spheres. Scientifically, this study is relevant, as it presents new empirical data on this matter. A gap in literature can be found regarding this topic, and it is not entirely clear if and in what ways democratization, political and press freedom enhance overall happiness among people from former Yugoslavia, and in specific among journalists and political activists that value these aspects of society very much, as these aspects directly influence their work and field of professional functioning. Furthermore, in modern theories and societies democratization and different types of freedom such as political and press freedom are perceived as common goods. Therefore, one would argue and expect that increased democratization and freedom would

enhance happiness among individuals. Thus it is important to know if it is possible that even all these positive transitions such as democratization and freedom have no influence on one’s own feeling of happiness, or even demines happiness. It is also important to know if and, if to what extent, did the political and social situation fulfilled people's expectations, both expectations of political activists and journalists, who were directly influenced by democratization and political and press freedom. But before we continue to the theoretical background, I would just like to mention that in some parts of the research I might use other terms for happiness, such as life quality and/or satisfaction. To be clear about these three terms, I actually always mean the same thing.

Theoretical Background

Democratization and Happiness

As stated before, happiness can be conditioned by democratization. Democratization of Yugoslav countries came as a natural continuation of history after the war, even though some authors would say that the first democratic elections made a good background for the war, by growing nationalism just before 1990 (Hayden, 1992). But in spite of this opinion, democratization took place in the following years after the war in Yugoslavia and the countries did not go back to communism. In present literature there is empirical evidence for the positive relation between democratization and happiness. Inglehart et al. (2008) conducted longitudinal national surveys among 52 countries in the period from 1981 to 2007. Their analysis shows that happiness depends on the extent to which a society allows free choice. Moreover, Inglehart et al. (2008) found out that since 1981, economic development, democratization, and increasing social tolerance have increased the extent to which people perceive that they have free choice. In turn, that has led to higher levels of happiness around the world. Happiness rose in respectively 45 of the 52 studied countries.

Frey and Stutzer (2002) also state that direct democracy in the form of initiatives; referenda and local autonomy systematically increase self-reported individual well-being, or precisely said, happiness. They explain happiness rises because the political outcomes gained through direct democracy are closer to voters’ preferences, but also because the voters are able to utilize their participation possibilities. Furthermore, this study shows that microeconomic situation is also related to happiness. While unemployment has a strongly depressing effect on happiness, higher income level does raise happiness, but only to a small extent. This economic aspect can be found in many other studies (Easterlin & Sawangfa, 2010; Brockmann, Delhey, Welzel & Yuan, 2009; Frey & Stutzer, 2002) and seems to be important within research on the relationship between democratization and happiness.

However, there are scholars that are more careful with their conclusions on the influence of democratization on happiness. Dutt and Radcliff (2009) stated that democracy contributes to happiness, but that it does not necessarily bring happiness. Furthermore, Dutt and Radcliff (2009) specified that the democratization in ex-communist countries was accompanied by social and economic collapse; thus, democratization was rather followed by falling levels of happiness. Although democratization is good for overall happiness (Muller, 1995), many studies do not take into account negative aspects of the process itself such as corruption or nationalism. While Burg (1991) and Džihić and Segert (2012) elaborated how nationalism stood and still stands in the way of peaceful democratization in countries of former Yugoslavia, Rothstein (2010) stated that countries with higher level of corruption have lower level of happiness, and vice – versa. If we take into account that corruption is widely spread in all Yugoslav countries after the war (balkans.aljazeera.net, 2012), we could start wondering was the democratization a good thing for the overall happiness in these countries, or did the press freedom influence the journalists' and political activists' happiness as a whole?

Nenadović (2012) would rather say that the democracy in some Yugoslav countries, such as Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, was heavily influenced by the fact that the

countries were placed under transitional international administration. Nenadović (2012) sees this fact as a potential factor of bad democratization.

Also, according to the research conducted by the European Fund for The Balkans and published by the Serbian newspapers "Blic" (2012) and the Bosnian daily "Oslobođenje" (2012), it seems that the democratization of former Yugoslav republics did not enhance people's happiness in general. 2,000 people born in 1971 and in 1991 participated in the research where they were asked about everyday life in Yugoslavia and the most of them, from both generations, thought life would be better if Yugoslavia did not disintegrate.

Taking these limitations of democratization into account among ex-communist countries in Eastern Europe - the suspicion of bad democratization (Nenadović, 2012), corruption level (Rothein, 2010), and widely spread and fierce nationalism among all former republics (Burg, 1991; Džihić & Segert, 2012) it is to assume that journalists and political activists across former Yugoslavia are not happier now than before the war (H1).

Political freedom and Happiness

Many others have discussed different forms of freedom as an important indicator for individual and the overall happiness. According to Veenhoven (2000) freedom can be defined as the possibility to choose. A person is said to be free if his or her condition allows some choice and if others do not inhibit that choice. However, absolute freedom does not exist, as freedom is limited to human condition. For example, we humans are limited to our capabilities, so even if we would choice to fly or not to sleep anymore at all, this cannot happen even if we’ chosen it. Thus, our choice is always limited to certain extent. Furthermore, Veenhoven (2000) explains that political freedom firstly implies the existence of a political system and refers to possibilities or restrictions on participation in the system. Different views are given in the literature on what this (political) participation covers. One concerns civil rights such as free speech as political freedom, other deals with political rights and considers things like elections

as political freedom. Veenhoven’s (2000) extended study among 46 countries also shows that political freedom has an impact on happiness. Although his research shows that political freedom is positively related to happiness, Veenhoven (2000) study shows the strongest relation between economic freedom and happiness. This relation is the strongest in countries that are in conditions of poverty and low capability to choose. This study furthermore makes clear that the most free and happy nations are typically rich countries, while the unfree and unhappy nations tend to be poor.

Radcliff (2001) also states that political freedom is related to happiness. Radcliff primarily argued that although culture plays a significant role in one’s satisfaction of life as he calls it (some authors have used different variable names to indicate and measure happiness, but Radcliff’s data can be used in the same way as within this research as he refers to and uses different theory on happiness). Analysis of the World Value Survey demonstrate that political freedom, that is, democratic competition as Radcliff calls it, has immense effects on national levels of happiness. Social democracy, even though its failings, does appear to increase mean levels of subjective well-being. It is also interesting to find out that the welfare state and leftist governments make people on average happier with their life.

Welsch (2003) has also found prove for the relation between political freedom and happiness. His study focused on the relationship between freedom, rationality and happiness, while being mediating by a forth variable, namely, income. Welsch’s model with cross-national data shows that happiness is positively related to freedom as well as to rationality at high freedom/rationality levels and negatively at low levels. His second finding shows that freedom affects happiness only indirectly, while rationality has both direct and indirect effects on happiness (Welsch, 2003).

All these described cross-national, extended studies make it clear that there are enough empirical implications to take political freedom as an indicator of happiness. Questions regarding political freedom are therefore included in the interviews.

Press Freedom and Happiness

A definition of press freedom offered by McQuail (2005) indicates that press freedom is a fundamental principle of individual, political and human rights that guarantees in law the right of all citizens to publish without advance censorship or permission by authority, or fear of reprisal. McQuail (2005) further mentions financial barriers as a potential problem of the press and he regards it as a possible limitation of press freedom. Along press freedom, McQuail (2005) mentions freedom of information as a concept that covers all aspects of public expression and transmission of, and access to, all manner of content. Both press freedom and freedom of information have been advanced as human rights that are internationally guaranteed.

In addition to this, Scruton (2007) says that press freedom in a political context represents the choices that are ought to be, offered to the citizens as of right. Becker, Vlad and Nusser (2007) argue about "completely free press" and state that a completely free press is the one where the media have absolute independence and critical ability, no concentrated ownership or organized self - regulation. Breunig (1994) also distinguishes these concepts and sees freedom of speech, press freedom and freedom of information as separate concepts, similar as Scruton (2007) and McQuail (2005).

According to Veenhoven (2000), happiness is the overall appreciation of one's life as a whole. A part of this 'whole' forms the political system people live in, as this can have a major impact on an one’s life. In a wider context, happiness means everything that makes life good (Tadić, 2009). In the life of journalists, free press should be also a part of this 'whole'. The political system of former Yugoslavia is often portrayed in literature as tyranny, while the present political systems in all former Yugoslav republics are perceived as newly formed democracies (Bloomberg, 1995). Similar situation was also with the media, where most of them were portrayed as regime media. One would therefore expect that people in general, and especially journalists, should be happier nowadays, as their political and press freedom, for example, are fully guaranteed, at least according to the present law.

Although absolute freedom does not really exist, but presents the possibility to choose (Veenhoven, 2000), I was wondering can we make a connection between press freedom and happiness, in a sense of one's possibilities to choose, or for journalists, to work independently, for decent incomes and without pressures or simply said: with full freedom of press, which increased in this area, according to the Freedom House (2013).

According to the Freedom House, there was no free press before the war in Yugoslavia, unlike the post - war period, when it increased to the "partly free" or even "free" in some Yugoslav parts. This should also mean more journalists' freedom, more freedom of information, freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Logically, from the passages mentioned above, it would mean that journalists and political activists now have more political freedom, which should then mean that political activists and journalists are happier and more satisfied than before the war. But is it really like that?

There are studies that discuss that these increased press liberties in ex-communists countries are experiencing some difficulties while applying these certain rights. Jakubowicz (1995) expressed his concern stating that the language of liberty of the press is still new in Eastern Europe, but that unfortunately this language is not the only one in use, but that the one of the control of the press is still alive in these countries.

Waldron-Moore (1999) also stated that press freedom and other forms of freedom are less relevant to happiness in Eastern European countries while they were at the crossroads of democratic transitions. Rather, only economic evaluations of one’s own situation truly predict happiness.

Taking the conclusions of these studies into account, along with the report of the Freedom House and the fact that most former Yugoslav republics score as partly free press countries according to this index, I have reason to believe that, even though certain progress has been made regarding press freedom in former Yugoslavia, journalists and political activists do not experience increased press freedom as indicated in Freedom House reports (H2).

Method

Method of this research is qualitative interviewing of journalists, communication and political experts. According to Bryman (2008), interviews can go deeper than the other methods, even to the interviewees' personal lives. Bryman (2008) also says that interviews are very time-consuming and they can show us the most precise and the most exact data on some topic, which can be of a great importance for this sensible theme, for more reasons; it is hard to talk about someone's subjective feelings; it is hard to measure it precisely, especially while talking about the past; and it is needed to know some of their personal opinions as well. As they are all experts for this field, validity is higher. Although survey can also show good results, the interviewing method is more attractive because of its flexibility and depth.

The research consists of two parts. The first one is focused on the present level of happiness within the Yugoslav area, and the relationship between happiness and democratization and political/press freedom. This will be studied by conducting in-depth interviews with younger experts, those who do not remember or slightly remember communist period.

The second part is also focused on the relationship between political satisfaction, press freedom and level of happiness, but will be studied by conducting in-depth interviews with older participants, those who do remember communist era. In my interviews, I also included the questions about the past, so it would be possible to compare the present and the past of all participants, and their opinion on it. It is also interesting to investigate from which political options my participants are coming, so I tried to make an objective picture of actual political situation in Yugoslavia, asking both leftists and rightists, but also centered - oriented people, young and elderly, men and women. Unfortunately, there is no equal amount of both leftists and rightists, due to the rightists' unwillingness to talk on this topic. Although some experts said that they are more left on the political compass, it did not seem that they really are in a sense of every question.

In total, there are 21 interviewees, with the average age of 30.38, range from 23 to 48, 11 men and 10 women, 6 of them are over, and 15 of them are under the age of 40. 4 of them come from Serbia, 1 each from Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia and Kosovo, while 13 come from Bosnia and Herzegovina, but from different ethnic backgrounds. 14 of them declare themselves as politically left oriented, 4 are right oriented and 3 of them say they belong to the political center. Those who are over 40 years old remember the time of communism, while the others slightly remember or do not remember at all, but they had a chance to express their opinion in these interviews.

As this was a purposive sampling, I made a choice of these people for several different reasons. As there was no room to investigate the level of happiness in (former) Yugoslavia as a whole, I limited myself to communication specialists, journalists and political experts, in order to research their opinion and their personal satisfaction after the war about political themes and journalistic profession. As there are no relevant data on the happiness level before 1992 in Yugoslavia, I was forced to investigate at least the level of press freedom within the Yugoslav countries, and as we already know, in these years press freedom was on the much lower level than today, according to the Freedom House (2013). Then I concluded that I have to speak with journalists, communication and political experts on this topic and to group them into the two groups; the ones who remember better the previous system, and the ones who do not, or who were children in that period and did not have a chance to work and feel the regime at all. My choice was between some people that I already know, as I am an experienced journalist myself, but I also contacted some other people that I did not know before, in order to prevent the biased results due to my acquaintance of some interviewees. As this purposive sampling was made among communication, political experts and journalists, this does not represent society as whole, but mainly does represent journalistic and political world in The Balkans, as they were sampled carefully and from different age, political background, gender, etc. Naturally, it would

be better to have more interviewees, but the amount of 21 people seemed good enough for the representative research.

The most of the interviews were done in person, while some of them were done through Skype. My interviewees showed their strong will to help me with this project and the most of them offered me very good answers and observations. As interviewing involves a relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee (Maxwell, 1992), all interviews were done in Serbo - Croatian language, in order to avoid any misunderstandings. This helped a lot to understand more the nature of the relationship, my understanding to interviewees' views and their understanding of my questions. That also prevented bias among the questions and the answers, as well as improved validity of the research.

The questions for the interviews are carefully chosen and every interviewee received the same questions. Some questions refer to journalists' work satisfaction, because according to Fisher (2010), happiness at work increases individual happiness in general, while according to Benz & Frey (2004) independency at work raises one's happiness as well. I was wondering does it also apply to journalism, knowing that nowadays journalists, in spite of adopting media logic by the elites (Stromback, 2008), have to work harder and use all possible means to make a good story. They are expected to report, to take photos, to film, to write a blog etc., practically to do so - called multi-skilling journalism (Aviles, Leon, Sanders & Harrison, 2004), while ordinary citizens' journalism takes more and more from their everyday work. Being "independent" in journalism means also that one has to make his/her own finance sources, which in journalism does not seem to be profitable like in other businesses. Even though journalists have more freedom than before, at least according to the Freedom House, does it also mean that they are more happy if they cannot cover their expenses for their everyday life. Veenhoven (2000) would say that economic freedom should have a priority above the other freedoms, especially in poorer countries, because his findings show that freedom is not positively related to happiness in poor countries, which he colorfully described with a sentence:

freedom does not pay the poverty. That is also the way how I come to the so - called "relations" group of questions, where I ask about relations between political happiness, democratization and press freedom.

All interviewees participated on voluntary basis and were noticed a while ago, most of them two or three weeks in advance.

The interview has seven subgroups of questions and those are: 1. Interviewee info (demographic data about interviewee); 2. Interviewee background (questions about personal happiness and opinion about press freedom as a factor of society happiness); 3. Questions about journalism (questions about journalism now and before the war, as well as its independence and quality); 4. Overall questions (questions about overall happiness now and 30 years ago); 5. Political questions (questions about political leaders now and in the past, as well as some questions about relations); 6. Relations (questions about relations between political happiness, democratization, journalists' satisfaction and press freedom); 7. Closing (notices if the interviewee wants to add something). All these subgroups were formed because I was interested in interviewees' opinion on all these topics, but I selected people who can be relevant and have knowledge about it. The interview guide is available in the appendix.

It is important to say that some questions helped me to group people into different groups, such as left, centered or right oriented; for example those who have positive opinion about Tito I grouped to the group of leftists and those who do not to the non - leftists, etc. Question about the age helped me to divide those who remember a communist period and those who do not. That helped me to see whether there is some difference between their opinions on certain topics or not.

Order of the questions does not have any special reason, except demographic and closing questions, which naturally came to the first and the last place.

In this research, I am mainly mentioning "Yugoslav countries" and when I say that, I mean all the countries that formed this federation, which are Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia

and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and today's independent Kosovo (during Yugoslavia, Kosovo was an autonomous part of Serbia). However, I will not equally focus on all of these countries within this research, but in my interviews I will cover mainly Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a bit less Croatia, Slovenia, Kosovo and Macedonia. This choice is based on practical reasons and easier access to needed data for this research. My network within Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina is more extended and broader than in other Yugoslav countries, which gives me the opportunity to find participants for this research far more easily. However, there will still be a smaller section that covers other four countries, while Montenegro will not be researched. More about this we will get to know in the method section.

Although there are much more media than ever before (around 150 TV stations only in former Yugoslavia), quality of life in a professional journalists' life does not have to be better. Csikszentmihaly (1999) would say that more does not always mean better and that only individuals know what is good for them and what is not. This pattern could be copied to the journalism world within Yugoslav states, where there are too many media and not enough quality, but except the quality problems, there are also constant pressures on journalists and all other public figures who dare to talk about politics, which can also question the reports of the Freedom House.

Results

Change of Journalism

As this is a qualitative research, I will present my results in a narrative form of analysis, as well as in a thematic way in some parts, referring to the interviewees' quotes. After 21 interviews of people from different backgrounds, different countries and different age, I concluded that the most of them think there are fewer reasons for satisfaction than it used to be before, no matter do they belong to the group of left - oriented people or to the group of non - leftists. For example, questions 3a (In what ways do you think the daily work of journalists has

changed since before the last war?) and 3b (In what ways do you think it is easier? Harder? Why) about journalism showed that three leftists and three non - leftists have more or less equally negative thoughts about today's journalism and comparison to the past. For instance, Bosnian young politician and historian, Adnan Omerhodžić thinks that journalism has changed a lot, but unfortunately to the worse"; Aleksandar Muftić, Serbian older journalist says that "It’s harder now because there is no hierarchy like before, the amount of journalists is enormous and the most of them cannot be satisfied because simply there is no room for all of them. That's why there are a lot of tabloid journalists, but also bad quality political journalists".

"In that time 30-35 years ago I remember when police was confiscating some of the youth press, there was no really free press... but I think there is no free press today as well..." These are the words of Mitja Velikonja, Slovenian University professor, 48

Kenan Ćerimagić, Bosnian older journalist says that "Ordinary people would think that more media means more quality, but there is just more rubbish, and that's the problem."

Gap of 30 years that I sometimes mentioned to my interviewees was taken only approximately and in the interviews it was explained to the people that I meant the time of two different systems within Yugoslav republics; communist and non - communist; non - democratic and democratic; socialist and capitalist; system with no free press and system with free press, etc. They all understood my questions and they answered in accordance to it.

Complete table of answers of these six interviewees to these questions you can see in the appendix. The most of other interviewees have also very similar opinions on this, while only one (Aida Hadžimusić, Bosnian PhD student of Philosophy) thinks that it is much easier to work in journalism now, mentioning that it is easier to become a journalist, there are more media and more space to work within journalism. She does not mention work conditions, nor potential pressures on journalists.

Journalism Jobs Were Safer Back Then

They had also similar thoughts to some other questions, such as the difference of stress level at the workplace. They mainly said that the stress is much higher now, because of lower salaries, politicians' pressures and worse work conditions in general. The most of them agreed that jobs were much safer 30 years ago, even though it is easier to do the investigative

journalism because of technological advantages.

Macedonian PhD researcher Elena Stavrevska thinks that "journalists' positions are less safe than then, not only because of the overall job climate in the countries, but also because of the lack of functioning non - politicized journalist unions, and because of the oversupply with journalists who are often far from qualified."

These answers show that interviewees have very similar opinion about the journalists' job security. These quotes overlap with their claims about stress. For instance, Bosnian political analyst Emir Bavčić says that he believes stress level at work has increased, because there are no secure jobs like there were was during socialism state. Second factor is their fear for life, which did not exist during the period before the war.

Other interviewees share the opinion of Bavčić and Stavrevska about stress level, but some of them think that political pressures are the same like before. No one mentioned that political pressures were higher back then, which could be easily guessed comparing two

political systems. Mitja Velikonja, Slovenian professor said that "it is all the same, pressures are maybe even higher now. We took all bad habits from communism and rejected all good ones"

Journalism Independence

The interesting answers come on the question about journalism (in)dependence. Even six respondents mentioned the word "self-censorship" in their answers, meaning that officially there are no limits anymore and officially press freedom is guaranteed by law, but in practice the media do not dare to publish stories about "sensible" and "forbidden" topics, which mean there

are no big difference between dependency nowadays and in the past. The best answer was offered, in my opinion, by Slovenian professor Mitja Velikonja.

"In 80s, for instance, communists were in defense and new nationalists were in offense, which means that all state media belonged to either communists or nationalists. The only good thing was the civil society that existed, but later on we'll see they were also wrong in one way. They wanted to get rid of authoritarians, but they never hoped that it would come something much worse. We've got neoliberal totalitarianism, which is much worse, much more perfidious and it's like that also in journalism. Journalists won't be fired if they want to write about

"forbidden topics", but they won't be hired, too. Nobody likes to write about emancipation of minorities, either women, Roma, gays, lesbians, etc. In Slovenia it's maybe a little bit better. You know for Metelkova club (first alternative club in Ljubljana), that club survived only because of media, when all media supported them. That's one of rare examples, but on the other hand, no one could write about "Deleted individuals" (group of refugees in Slovenia that were deleted from the official data and it stayed like that for years), that was taboo."

Some responders even said now it is even worse. These are the words of Bosnian rightist politician Asim Sarajlić:

"Look... I don't know any journalist who was murdered or attacked in Yugoslavia. But I perfectly remember murder or Ivo Pukanić, editor in chief of Croatian weekly paper Globus, then murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, Serbian journalist, then Kosovan journalist from Koha Ditore as well... or attacks to FTV (Bosnian Federal Television) journalists. I think that says enough."

On the same question Croatian journalist Hrvoje Ivančić said that he thinks that now you can really write whatever you want. But being critical of the government can also mean indirect trouble. Especially in the marketing area: all the big companies can't work without government, and nobody will cooperate with you because you are too critical. The same is on the local level… with the local government."

None of my respondents believe that journalism is independent right now in the former Yugoslavia. Their answers, colorfully said, vary from "completely dependent" to "at least dependent on finances from governmental and/or related organization/firms. Only one

respondent says that there is at least one independent medium, but he mentions the one where he works for.

Overall Happiness in Opinion of Experts

There were not so many overall questions, but they were used only to distinct whether my interviewees think that people in (former) Yugoslavia are happy or not. From 21

interviewees, only two of them consider people of former Yugoslavia as happy, while 19 of them said that Yugoslavs are not happy. The most of them said that we were happier before the war, or at least we are now not even close happy like back then. Rightists and leftists, men and women, older and younger, offered similar answers. The most of them mentioned jobs and higher standard. Some of them said really interesting things, like Aida Hadžimusić, Bosnian PhD student of Philosophy: My answer is likely to be like most answers people of my age will give - people had jobs, high salaries that enabled them to travel. They were citizens of one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Their country was the host of Winter Olympic Games. They had plenty of other benefits that Balkan people can only dream of nowadays.

Kenan Ćerimagić, Bosnian journalist said that he is not a fan of the Yugoslav idea, so he always says that people didn't know for better. But he also said that in the last period he has a feeling that he is wrong.

Serbian political scientist Mateja Stanković offered the following answer: Yes. They had less, but they had what they needed for their happiness – free time to be with their loved ones and they could afford moderate life without restraints at the same time.

Other participants, such as Mitja Velikonja or Ivana Petričević (project manager at European Commission) say that it is contextually hard to answer, but even with the nostalgia

taken into account, where everything looks nicer, life was less complicated and because of that, seems that we were happier back then. Petričević added that we lived in peace and had free health care and education and jobs – basic needs were fulfilled. Now we are all suffering from the consequences of war.

Similar answer offered the Kosovan politician Fidan Aliu:

I think that people were much happier 30 years ago. There are many reason but I will try to list few of them: most of them had very safe jobs and good salaries; there were no set targets to achieve and there were no deadlines; the deficit that was created was covered from the state; social policies were much more developed than now; ability to buy a flat or to build a house was much easier than now; interest rates for loans were way lower than nowadays.

Political Questions

Political questions of these interviews contain questions about Josip Broz Tito, today's political leaders, overall political satisfaction, democratization of Yugoslavia, and advantages of politicians. From 21 interviewees, only two of them said "Tito was a dictator, like any other dictator". Two interviewees have personally neutral opinion about him, but they do admit his merits, especially in foreign policy, jobs security and overall people's satisfaction. Even 17 interviewees have positive opinion about him. This question was asked in order to distinct interviewees' opinion about him and today's politicians, and to decrease bias of those who either adore him or hate him. Even though I expected fruitful answers about Tito, I did not get anything which was "too colored" and quite surprising answers came both from some leftists and

rightists. For example, Croatian journalist Hrvoje Ivančić said that he was a dictator, like any other in the world, while Bosnian journalist Merima Mašić, who declares herself as centrist, think that Tito was one of the most important leaders in our political background, the father of socialist Yugoslavia. His country faced many problems, economic and political, but was strong,

Ivana Petričević, Bosnian - Dutch project manager at European Commission, which means she is a person who also experienced democratic and different life than in Yugoslavia, said the following statement about Tito:

"Despite a policy that restricted many freedoms and tough handling of his adversaries, Tito was the best thing that happened to us in the last 200 years. Unity and brotherhood, even with limited freedom, are far better than war and destruction with all the freedom you wish."

As it was usually the case in The Balkans that leftists like Tito much more than rightists do, I expected vice - versa effect, but as these interviews will be used only for this research and will not show up in the Balkan media, I got much more honest and unbiased answers.

When I asked about opinion about today's political leaders, I got all negative answers about their attitude, behavior and actions. The most of my interviewees said really bad words about them and only few of them kept polite critics. Andrea Teftedarija, public servant at European Commission, gave one of these “polite critics”.

"I have the feeling that to a large extent they put their own interest above the interest of the collective (or anybody else for that matter) and that the current political system allows them to do so."

But unlike Ms. Teftedarija, other interviewees said that they are Incompetent, they have no goals to improve the society, they only think about their own interests, they are not focused on getting things done, improving industry, economic situation, social system, or anything else. (Vedrana Halepović, Bosnian - Dutch former teacher at UvA), or that There are more singers, dancers, actors, managers, sports players in politics than people who actually studied to do that…that tells a lot. (Asja Kratović, Bosnian researcher at National Democratic Institute, 28) Aida Hadžimusić, (PhD student of Philosophy, 25) said that she dislikes the way they speak, she dislikes their negativity and dislikes that every aspect of our lives has to do something with national and ethnic conflict. She wishes we had a leader whose moral and ethical imperatives are greater than any other ambition."

Maja Nenadović (Croatian, PhD in Political Science, 32), said they are Opportunistic, self-interested, parasitic, power-hungry elites, while Zoran Kubura, (Bosnian experienced journalist, 31) called them short sighted invertebrates (Serbo-Croatian expression for someone who does not have his / her own opinion on anything and adjust his / her opinion always to the mass; kind of chameleon) who look only at their own interests.

The next questions were about pressures on political activists and journalists, similar to the question 3e, but this time I included a phrase "pressure on political activists". The most of the interviewees offered similar answers as to the question 3a, but some of them even repeated them in a similar way. For instance, Andrea Teftedarija, public servant at European

Commission, says that she thinks the pressure is still there, but it manifests itself in a different way.

Slovenian professor Mitja Velikonja said the following: "Political pressures exist from the inside or from the outside. All political pressures are now less visible, but as I said, they are more perfidious. We don't have to talk only about politics here, we can have other examples where we see there is no freedom like before. For instance, smoking policy is one of the ways to get rid of the people in the bars. Then they close the bars now earlier than ever, because most of revolutions started in the bars or on the streets. Now they force you to go home "on time", you have no room to even think about it. But you think you are free."

Question about possible "advantages" for those who belong to the political parties are answered also in more or less similar ways. People mainly said that that advantages are either the same or even worse than before. Only one interviewee said that people used to have more advantages in Yugoslavia than people have now. Interesting answers are below.

It was always like that, it's very similar like before, and maybe it's even worse now. Now it's much easier to get job if you are in the "right" political party. There are examples everywhere around us, mayor deputy in Maribor is only 24, but she was in the right party and that's why she got that job, she didn't have any experience. Student officers are all party people, and they even

have much bigger salaries than the ones in Yugoslavia. There was a big political affair on it few months ago, when some of them bought yachts and land on the Slovenian coast. Imagine that someone can buy it at the age of 20-21... In Yugoslavia that wasn't possible. Mitja Velikonja, Slovenian professor, 48

I think this has not changed much from the previous system. Political elites, before and now, have certain privileges and easier access to certain benefits. The only difference is that today multi-party system exists. Mateja Stanković, Serbian political scientist, 27

The political power, money and the possibility to exert influence –also undemocratic-, is much bigger if you are a politician. It is hard to say when they had more advantages. Andrea Teftedarija, public servant at European Commission, 29

Relations between Journalism, Democratization and Press Freedom

At the end, naturally I asked people if they see any relations between journalism, democratization and press freedom and I received quite interesting answers. To the question 5e, " Was the democratization of Yugoslavia a factor of increasing overall political satisfaction and freedom?” people mainly said very short "no". Some of them offered different answers, but 20 out of 21 persons were quite negative towards democratization and a link to the political satisfaction and freedom. Only one participant offered a bit positive attitude towards

democratization and it was Macedonian PhD researcher Elena Stavrevska, who said "In theory, it was. However, combined with the long-lasting transition period to market economy, the outcomes and the effects they have had on the political satisfaction and freedom have been far from satisfactory."

To the question 6a, which was " To what extent do you think there is a link between political happiness and democratization?", I got several different answers, but the most of my interviewees did not see a huge link between these two terms in the area of (former)

Yugoslavia. Except some short answers, where people were really negative, one of the best - explained answers was offered by Mateja Stanković, Serbian political scientist who said:

"This depends on the circumstances, however, as I assume this considers Yugoslavia, I think that democratization has been done in wrong way in Yugoslavia. It was brought up too soon. Political happiness goes along with democratization if it is done in a right way and people are educated about citizenship and true democratic values, not quasi democracy (referenda type democracies)."

This answer really explains a lot and it is one of the points that I was also thinking about very often, especially while researching all of this. Older journalists were also quite negative towards this issue, and one of the answers that describes it well was offered by Kenan

Ćerimagić, Bosnian journalist, who belongs to the older generation of my interviewees. He said: "If we talk about Denmark, then there is a strong link, but we talk about Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia... Political happiness is a term that can be used only by the ministers, politicians and other elites, not by ordinary citizens. There is no happiness here and there won't be for the next 30-40 years."

Next questions was about the link between political happiness and press freedom, which had an aim to possibly connect the press freedom to the overall political happiness, but also negative answers were offered by the interviewees. Slovenian professor Mitja Velikonja, whose quote you can see below, offered a nice expression.

"You probably know graffiti from Belgrade which says, "there are no free newspapers, but there are free walls". Today you can always find a way to function within mud, if you are journalist and have no job, you can make your own medium, if you are artist, you can make your own (online) gallery, but is it worth, that's the question. It's hard to say if there is some link between happiness and press freedom."

Kosovan political activist, Fidan Aliu, said that, in his opinion, political happiness should mean that journalists have less political issues to cover and politics then wouldn’t be main topic of the interest. He does not see that it will happen in the near future.

Question about the link between press freedom and overall journalists' satisfaction was one of the most important for this research, so I will try to show all relevant quotes in the

appendix. The most of interviewees were very pessimistic and said that either there is no press freedom or there is no satisfaction, or both. They do not believe in full satisfaction within the journalists in The Balkans, neither they think they are free at all. They usually question the freedom of the press and they have great doubts about that. Some of them said that it is not only to say the truth, but also to work under normal working conditions. Ivana Petričević offered a nice answer where she said that Freedom of press, if backed up by rule of law (adopted standards through law and enforced in practice to protect that freedom) can increase journalists’ satisfaction, otherwise if freedom comes at the price of losing job and personal security, then it decreases satisfaction.

Conclusion and Discussion

The quote of the Slovenian professor Mitja Velikonja, where he mentions the Belgrade graffiti, perfectly describes the previous passages where it is shown that more does not have to mean better (Csikszentmihaly, 1999). In The Balkans there are more than 150 TV stations, hundreds of radio stations, and thousands of websites, but does it really mean something if all of them have to compete on the capitalist market? Does it mean anything if their journalists do not have a chance to work independently and without pressures? Is it enough to say it on the paper that press is free, while in practice political murders take place? In the moment when I write this conclusion, new Freedom House's reports are published and state that in 2014 press freedom in the Balkan countries increased even more. The press is free in Croatia and Serbia in 2014, according to the Freedom House (2014), unlike 2013 when it was partly free. Even

though press freedom increased, my interviews do not really agree with it. It seems that quality of life, measured by Brajša Žganec and Kaliterna-Lipovčan (2006), also affected quality of journalism which would mean that bad quality journalism cannot be independent and vice - versa.

In this research I tried to answer to the question to which extent did democratization, political freedom and freedom of the press in former Yugoslav countries increase happiness as a whole among journalists and political activists?" Even though it is hard to answer such a wide question, in my opinion, my theory and interviews showed that it is, at least, partially answered, and that hypotheses are fully answered. Realizing happiness and satisfaction, especially by the qualitative research can be a tough task, but what I said in the introduction, lots of interview participants agreed on doubts in press freedom in Yugoslavia and satisfaction among journalists and political activists. Because of that it seems that journalists and political activists are not happier after democratization and theoretical increase of press freedom, reported by the

Freedom House. It also seems that Freedom House's reports can be at least questioned, as my interviewees did not really agree that press freedom exists in its full capacity in former

Yugoslavia, which would mean that they do not experience increased press freedom as indicated in Freedom House reports and they are not happier now than before the war.

As we could read in the interviewees' answers, most of them agree that freedom of the press in former Yugoslav countries did not increase happiness among individuals who are directly included in the democratization process, either through journalism or political activism, but also of the overall society. There was no significant difference between answers of the politically right - oriented, center - oriented and left - oriented people. There was also no significant difference between younger and older interviewees, men and women, or those from Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries. It is very interesting that younger and older

press and free journalism does not coincide with the results of Freedom House and Reporters without Borders.

Interviewees mostly think that democratization also did not help increasing political happiness. Some of them even think that it came too early to The Balkans, which can be linked to the Nenadović's work (2012) where she says that full democratization was not possible without international supervision of some of the Yugoslav countries, concretely Bosnia and Kosovo. This area, not used to having a democratic tradition, in the opinion of some of them, was not ready for such a big change. Nenadović (2012) underlines that political parties are, even though they got supervision and assistance from the international organizations, the most corrupt institutions in these new European countries. Besides corrupted political parties,

journalistic institutions are also corrupted and influenced by the politics itself.

Here it comes to the inference that journalism, besides its decrease in quality, also suffers from a huge dependence of political and finance factors. Although it is easier to be a journalist in some way because of technology, it is also harder because nowadays every editor expects more from their journalists (Kanižaj and Skoko, 2010), but this is a worldwide problem within this profession. In former Yugoslavia, editors are mainly political figures, who obey to the governing parties in that moment, especially those who work at public services. Naturally, politicians then set an agenda for these services, and as they are traditionally financially strongest in the country, they influence public opinion in the way they like.

In all these circumstances, it is really hard to say that there are free media in former Yugoslavia. As my interviews show, it is almost the same case with every Yugoslav republic and they do not differ in many things, such as journalism dependence, stress at the workplace, pressures on political activists, etc. In some cases we could hear that situation in Slovenia is a little bit better, which was also confirmed by both Freedom House and Reporters without Borders, and I would say that situation in Slovenia is proportionally good in other life aspects like it is good in press freedom. Is it also freer and better comparing to the past, as the Freedom

House says, it is hard to say, especially after those very pessimistic interviewees' answers. If we even take into account the factor of nostalgia, it still looks quite desperate and it is almost

impossible to predict will the situation change for the better soon. The article of Kanižaj and Skoko (2010) diagnoses the journalism problems and suggests solutions for the future, so I would like to say that there is a way to solve it, but it is hard and very long way, which I am afraid we will not experience in our lives. Journalism in Yugoslavia suffers from many diseases and it should be cured from the very basics, such as journalism faculties, and then in the editorial boards. Only when we all agree to make it better and less dependent, we can succeed in it. Otherwise we will witness many negative examples, such as the ones that already

happened in every certain Yugoslav country. First of them brings us to Slovenia, where one year after he published his fiction novel "Čefurji raus" (Godeč, 2012), Slovenian writer Goran Vojnović was arrested. Police arrested him to show the power of the state, because Vojnović dared to speak about the case of so - called "deleted" (group of refugees, mainly coming from Bosnia and Kosovo, who were struggling with getting their documents for years in Slovenia, later on being completely ignored and discriminated from the state). Croatian example goes further. Editor in Chief of the weekly newspaper "Nacional", Ivo Pukanić, was murdered in 2008 (www.b92.net, 2012), after he wanted to witness against tobacco mafia in Montenegro and Croatia. In Serbia, there were several murders of journalists, but the most famous one is when Slavko Ćuruvija, editor in chief of the weekly newspapers "Telegraf" and "Evropljanin",

mysteriously died in 1999. Even though 14 years passed after the murder, Serbia still did not completely investigate this case (Nešić, Glavonjić, 2014). In Kosovo, there were two journalists killed in 2000 and 2001 and motives were never investigated (www.cpj.org). In Macedonia, the best example is closing TV station A1, which was the most popular medium in the country, because of their critical approach toward the government (Jordanovski, Rabrenović, 2013). After that, the court in Skopje also imprisoned for 4 years one of their former journalist, for the reason of betray of protected witness.

Unlike the situation after the war, before the war, there were no journalists' murders recorded before the Yugoslavia's fall (Softić, 2013), or at least it is not possible to find any recorded data.

All these examples could raise doubts and even question criteria of the Freedom House. But although one would maybe doubt their criteria and their results, another institution which also makes yearly reports, "Reporters without Borders", in 2013 placed the most of Yugoslav countries to the group of countries where "noticeable problems" occur, from time to time (www.rsf.org, 2013), while only in Slovenia, situation is so - called "satisfactory". Unlike the Freedom House, Reporters without Borders grouped countries to five different layers, and satisfactory is the second best layer. In 2013 only 21 countries in the world have so - called "good" situation in the media (2013), which is the first and the best layer.

The information presented above, both about pressures on journalists and about increasing press freedom, force us to start questioning what is actually closer to the truth. If we know there were no murdered journalists in Yugoslavia, but there were in new countries, we could also start wondering how is it possible that level of press freedom increased at all, even if we know that it was not the only criteria.

Political and journalistic happiness or, better explained, political satisfaction among journalists and public political figures is also an occurrence that is visible within almost every editorial or political party. Journalism in Croatia, but also in other Yugoslav countries underwent through the fall of professionalism and responsible reporting (Gavranović, 2006), while interest in studying journalism increases in this country (Kanižaj and Skoko, 2010), which is a quite contradictory, but it is a fact. It is not only the case in The Balkan countries. Reddern and Witschge (2009; in Curran, 2009) notice that journalists are today under the pressure because of different deadlines, speed and much bigger amount of information, and that is the reason for "borrowing" information from other media, but also for overall dissatisfaction within this profession. That "borrowing" is nothing else than plagiarism, which was proven by Kanižaj et al.

(2010), when their colleagues investigated Croatian daily newspaper with the biggest circulation, "Jutarnji list", and found out that 61 articles were copied within only one daily issue. Poverty within journalism world in Serbo-Croatian language area found a perfect spot to develop tabloid journalism, which actually happened immediately after the fall of Yugoslavia (Vilović, 2004).

These passages say that journalists are probably not happier than they used to be. Does it mean that we should reassess the way of journalists work or the Freedom House's reports, that is the big question. But in order to increase overall journalists' happiness and satisfaction, I would like to suggest to start working on the solutions suggested by Kanižaj & Skoko (2010) and then we can maybe hope for the better.

This work was done in the period of three months, not counting the beginning preparations and pitching ideas, and I can say that this is probably the best that can be collected in such a short period. Of course, content could be always better, but taking into account that this is a qualitative interviewing method, it is understandable that some things did not match with each other in the best possible way.

There were no any special difficulties during the research, so I can say that participants did their best to help me and to give me honest and good answers. Finding literature was not always easy, but when I started searching outside of English speaking area, then I succeeded and found a lot of relevant and good articles.

Although it is more than clear that press freedom index in former Yugoslavia should be at least questioned, there are lots of ideas how to improve this theme and to make it much wider than I covered it. In my opinion, the best would be to make a survey with both younger and older journalists, and then to make a direct link between the variables. Good idea is also probably to make a literature synthesis, where researcher could investigate possible older data and compare them to the present. It is hard to measure happiness, but maybe even measuring happiness of whole society, not only journalists and political activists, would give more real

results. Combination of qualitative and quantitative research could be also an option, in - depth interviews for the past and survey for the present.

I am glad that I cut into interesting theme that was not researched before, at least not among journalists, communication and political activists. When I presented the data of Freedom House and Reporters without Borders to my interviewees, the most of them were quite skeptic and/or cynic. Now I can see that skepticism and cynicism are not the only reaction that it should provoke these data, but also not believing in them, because press is mostly not free in The Balkans. Even though some of them are free from pressures, they are not financially free. And then, of course, there are no freedom, nor satisfaction, nor happiness among them.

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