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Fragmentation of the Media Audience in Kosovo in the Era of the Internet

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Alban Zeneli at University of Prishtina
Alban Zeneli
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61
DOI:10.24193/jmr.36.4
Published First Online: March 2020
Journal of Media Research,
Vol. 13 Issue 1(36) / 2020, pp. 61-72
Fragmentation of the Media Audience
in Kosovo in the Era of the Internet
Alban ZENELI, PhDc
Department of Journalism
Faculty of Philology
The University of Prishtina “Hasan Prishtina”, Kosovo
E-mail: alban.zeneli@uni-pr.edu
Abstract. Audience fragmentation in the internet era is present also in
Kosovo. e few studies of this topic in Kosovo make this article very im-
portant as it fi rst studies the Kosovar audience in this form. e research
question in this paper is: What kind of fragmentation is most prevalent
in the Kosovo audience? Fragmentation of the audience is divided into
two types, ranging from access to fragmentation media and access to
the user as fragmentation. e research is based on two main methods,
survey, and the comparative method. To measure the audience in the
case study, a survey was conducted with 1051 Kosovo citizens from seven
main regions of Kosovo. is paper fi nds that audience fragmentation
in Kosovo occurs due to several factors. In terms of the type of media,
fragmentation is mostly a ributed to new types of communication that
have a high frequency of use. As for demographic fragmentation, young
people are the ones who mostly use new media.
Keywords: Audience; Fragmentation; Internet; Kosovo; Media.
62
Introduction
is paper deals with audience fragmentation in the case of Kosovo. e pur-
pose of the paper is to draw a distinction between the approach audiences have
to information they receive from diff erent types of media. is distinction can ad-
dress the fragmentation of the audience into two types, ranging from access to
fragmentation media and access to the user as fragmentation.
In theory there are two types of media fragmentation. Media-based fragmenta-
tion and user-based fragmentation. According to Webster (2012), media-based au-
dience segmentation is done by fi rst measuring the number of media in which the
audience is paying a ention, while in the case of the second approach the media
user is the one who makes the fragmentation because of his / her choice of medium
and content.
e research question in this paper is: What kind of fragmentation is most prev-
alent in the Kosovo audience? e purpose of this research question is to answer
the main purpose of the paper. Audience studies in the case of Kosovo are rare but
the use and access to various types of media are high. erefore, this paper aims to
contribute to audience studies in the Kosovo context.
Given that studies in this fi eld in Kosovo are underrepresented in the European
academic world, it is also necessary to explain the media ecology in Kosovo. Media
pluralism in Europe’s newest state began a er June 1999 when the United Nations
administration began (UNMIK, 1999) its work a er the end of this year’s war. Since
then, radio and television stations that use frequencies to broadcast their programs
are required to register with a regulatory body that is the Independent Media Com-
mission (Law on the Independent Media Commission of 2012). is institution,
which is a constitutional category, has the obligation to license and regulate this
part of the media (Constitution of Kosovo, 2008). With the legal changes of the
regulations of this institution, later were added competencies in the registration of
cable television systems in Kosovo.
us, now the Independent Media Commission has divided licensing into four
forms if we look at it from a public perspective: licensing of radio stations, televi-
sion stations, cable television and cable service providers. From the public data on
the IMC web site, the licensing of this institution is done based on the IMC Law
(Law on the Independent Media Commission of 2012) and the regulation approved
by the IMC Board (IMC-2017 / 2). According to this law and this regulation, the
media in Kosovo can be registered as a business or as a property of non-govern-
mental organizations. e licenses issued show that a signifi cant number of local
and regional radio and television broadcasters are licensed as non-governmental
organizations (IMC, n.d.).
As of August 2018, at IMC there are 83 radio stations and 20 televisions licensed.
Of these licensed media outlets, four radio stations have national frequencies (Ra-
... Kosova'da bu konu özelinde akademik çalışmalara rastlanmamaktadır. Yalnızca, geleneksel ve yeni medyanın karşılaştırılarak, sosyal medyanın izleyici üzerindeki etkileri çerçevesinde yapılan (Zeneli, 2020) çalışmalar mevcuttur. Yeni kurulan bir devlet olması, internet kullanımının gittikçe artış göstermesi, Avrupa'da genç nüfusa sahip sayılı ülkeler arasında bulunması ve en önemlisi tarihsel, kültürel, siyasi unsurlarla birlikte coğrafi olarak bulunduğu konum açısından Kosova, çalışma bağlamında oldukça işlevsel bir örnek olacaktır. ...
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... There are cases where media employers do not pay journalists, but due to fear of losing their Online media are the fastest growing and most important source of information for the larger part of society in Kosovo. Their rise in influence and impact has negatively affected traditional print and broadcast media (Zeneli, 2020). As the market for print media has shrunk rapidly, newspapers are forced to go online (Ismajli, 2020). ...
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