RALLYING FOR CHANGE: RESTORING GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY THROUGH PROTESTS
RALLYING FOR CHANGE: RESTORING GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY THROUGH PROTESTS

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the communication practices during protests and social initiatives (in 2014 and 2015) in order to understand how activists are promoting their movement and its goals, how successful are they in mobilizing the public to join their cause and what tools do they use for this purpose. Furthermore, it examines how government officials responded to calls for accountability and how they engaged in talks with those movements. The previous government seemed to be in a standstill in terms of communicating with the public and the various social initiatives in society. Government officials communicated mainly through the media that had the reputation to be “pro-government”, and shunned critical media outlets that include different viewpoints in their reporting. Additionally, the media environment in the country was severely polarized, and dominated by media outlets that are known to favor the government’s policies, and mostly criticizing the opposition’s ones. This left activists with a limited arena for expressing their opinions and dissatisfaction of public policy that is affecting their live. They therefore were conducting their communication with the public and their target groups through social media and through some of the online news portals that enabled them to voice their attitudes, opinions and requests. The paper investigates the communication practices of the activists with government officials and institutions during the student protests in 2014, the case of an imprisonment of a journalist in 2013, and the protests against the reshaping of the exterior of the Skopje City Centre Mall (GTC) that began in 2013. The paper aims to provide an improved understanding of communication dynamics during protests and will enable recommendations for improvements of communication practices of activists with government officials, media and citizens during times of unrest and social protests.

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