Word: propaganda
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That wasn't always the case. Before NATO's campaign began, the propaganda of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic hit its limits in the credulity of many Serbs. His message mostly found purchase with the impoverished, rural and uneducated. In the cities you could seek out independent sources of information that put Milosevic's retrograde, neocommunist line in context. But with the war on, those independent voices are either snuffed out or taken over. Now, even among the educated elite, a slow, sad transformation is taking hold as Milosevic's distorted media prism resolves every shade of gray into black...
This is partly why NATO officials have insisted that propaganda--along with the special police--is one of Milosevic's two keys to power. It is also why, in a brutal attempt to end that information imbalance last Friday, NATO blasted a Serbian state television station in Belgrade. A barrage of bombs hit the building before dawn, killing at least 10 of the estimated 70 people inside. But if the attack was brutal, it was also ineffectual. Serbian state TV was back on the air within six hours, broadcasting its regular fare, including a statement by the Serbian Information Ministry...
...played a big part in making such wild accusations credible with Serbs. Nothing lays the groundwork for propaganda like seeing parts of your hometown blown away. NATO has bombed targets ranging from bridges to office blocks in its attempt to weaken the Serbian war machine and break Milosevic's resistance. But with "collateral damage" now including Serbian and ethnic Albanian civilians alike, the strikes have also provided all the material that Milosevic's minions need to win over even die-hard skeptics. NATO, the propaganda insists, simply wants to kill Serbs at any cost. "Most people--myself included--see this...
NATO's nonviolent attempts to redress that propaganda imbalance haven't got far. Assurances from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that they have deep affection for the Serbs are falling on deaf ears amid the noise of war. "[The NATO propaganda message] sounds utterly cynical from this end," says a tired, frustrated onetime pro-Westerner in Belgrade...
...dreariness and anxiety. "Of course I'm worried," says Mirjana. "I'm worried that I will lose my job, that my husband will be drafted by the army and that my children will have no future in a devastated country." The psychological scars of war--and of the propaganda--are most pronounced on the next generation of Serbs. Mirjana's two children, a son, 11, and a daughter, 7, have developed chillingly precocious antipathies. Her son spends most of his time watching state television or playing war with his friends; hide-and-seek is called "catch the pilot." Fiddling with...