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Folia Geographica 2026, 68/1, pp. ...

FRAMING MEDIA IMAGINARIES OF NATO’S POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS

Jelena LONČARA*, Danijel BAČANB

Received: October 10, 2025 | Revised: November 24, 2025 | Accepted: December 3, 2025

Paper No. 26-68/1-778


A* University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science, Department of Geography, Zagreb, Croatia
https:// orcid.org/0000-0003-2580-1931
     ajloncar@geog.pmf.hr (corresponding author)

B  * University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science, Department of Geography, Zagreb, Croatia
 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2977-0725
      dbacan.geog@pmf.hr

 

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Abstract
This paper deals with the framing of NATO’s political-geographic imaginations in the Western Balkans. The focus of the research is on the media portrayal of NATO, i.e. it includes a media analysis of 190 articles on NATO’s enlargement to Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. The selected articles were researched over three time periods from 2008 to 2021. The results show that over the period of three NATO enlargements, the number of articles framed negatively in today’s non-members nor the number of articles framed positively in today’s NATO members of the Western Balkans has not increased. In fact, the opposite processes have occurred; a decrease in negative articles in members and an increase in positive articles in non-members. The research confirmed that the choice of photographs and keywords in members is consistent with NATO’s professional political-geographic imagination. The results confirm that the media, by choosing the mentioned countries and the mentioned politicians, emphasize Euro-Atlantic integration. In the end, it turned out that Serbia and Russia are presented as „enemy“ states with the aim of opposing the leading Euro-Atlantic narrative.

 

Key words
NATO, Western Balkans, media analysis, imaginary geography, political geography.

 

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