The interviews were conducted by first-year undergraduate students attending the History of Journalism course (Journalism study programme at the Faculty of Social Sciences). During this course, students received hands-on training and thorough instructions on how to carry out the interviews and transcribe the audio recordings, with attention paid to the possible ethical issues involved.See Jernej Amon Prodnik “Nekaj etičnih dilem pri vključevanju študentov v raziskovalno delo,” Arhiv družboslovnih podatkov, http://www.adp.fdv.uni-lj.si/blog/2021/blog/nekaj-eticnih-dilem-pri-vkljucevanju-studentov-v-raziskovalno-delo (20. 3. 2022). We aimed for complete transparency and tried to clear up any pitfalls of doing this kind of research as quickly as they appeared. Even though conducting interviews was part of the students’ study obligations, archiving and thereby making them available for future research was entirely optional and had no influence on their grade. An informed consent form, which detailed the research project and future access to the interviews, was a prerequisite. In the form, interviewees had an option to remain anonymous. Pseudonyms are used for those interviewees who opted for anonymity, as indicated by the use of quotation marks, for instance ‘Prijazna Gospa’ (Eng. Kind Lady). In all other cases, interviewees are referred to by the first letter of their first name and surname, for instance P. Bezjak. In the majority of cases, the pseudonyms were chosen by interviewees themselves if they had decided on anonymity. They could also retract statements they deemed too personal or sensitive for the archived version of the interview. Where appropriate, strict anonymisation was applied throughout the interviews to avoid third parties being identified.

We developed a framework for conducting the interviews that assured a standardised structure for the future comparability of the interviews, while providing the interviewers with a general direction and an overview of the topics to be covered. This interview matrix included three broad thematic areas: 1) Media use; 2) Trust in the media and journalism; and 3) Perception of Yugoslav society. We provided the interviewers with a description of these areas and several sample questions. This gave them a sense of the topics that could be addressed, but also left them with enough leeway to have a genuine in-depth conversation with their interlocutors.

To provide more control and a tidier structure, the interview matrix further divided interviews into four stages of life: childhood, youth, adulthood, and senior years. All of the thematic areas mentioned above were to be discussed separately in these stages of life, which – depending on when interviewees were born – broadly corresponded with different historical periods of socialist Yugoslavia. Adulthood, for instance, in most cases overlapped with the peak of Titoist Yugoslavia in the 1970s, while senior years largely corresponded with the rise of nationalisms and disintegration processes. We also added “events of reference”, where the aim was to help interviewees remember particular historical periods better. These included the Vietnam War, the Space Race, or Tito's death amongst others. It was up to the interviewers to sensibly connect these events to a specific stage of an interviewee’s life.

The interview matrix was also followed in the textual analysis of the interviews performed in NVivo, software for organising and analysing qualitative (unstructured) data. Such a deductive coding strategy is common while analysing interview transcripts.See, for example, Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design. In the analysis, the qualitative approach of life history was combined with the methods used in oral history and memory studies of media consumption.

Our aim was to encompass as many time periods of media use in socialist Yugoslavia as possible, ranging from the early 1950s up to the independence of Slovenia in 1991. This is why the students were instructed to choose interviewees born between 1940 and 1955 (the arithmetic mean and median of the sample are both 1947, the mode is 1946). It was recommended they spend approximately 1 hour speaking to their interviewees. The lengths of the 96 archived interviews vary between 29 minutes and 180 minutes, with the arithmetic mean for the interviews being 59 minutes, the median 54 minutes, and a standard deviation of 25 minutes.

Even though this was not intentional, since we had limited control over the sampling process and could not aim for true representativeness, the demographic characteristics of the interviewees in our study do not deviate significantly from those of the general population in the same age bracket (65 and older). Men are slightly overrepresented in the sample (53.1%) and the interviewees also seem to have a better education since one-third hold at least a high school degree. The large majority of our informants (around 95%) were already retired at the time of the interview. About 30% of them were living in urban areas and 70% in rural ones, which more or less overlaps with the shares in the general population (in Slovenia, two-thirds of the population lives in places with fewer than 10,000 inhabitantsSee Ana Vučina Vršnak, “Slovenija ostaja ruralna dežela,” Dnevnik 9. 6. 2012, www.dnevnik.si/1042534899 (20. 3. 2022).). If we were to consider the place of birth and where the interviewees grew up, the number of people living in rural areas would be even higher.

We could expect overrepresentation of the informants coming from central Slovenia because they were chosen by students who study in Ljubljana, but this bias was in fact not so pronounced: 28 interviewees for instance came from the Central Slovenia statistical region, 20 from the Drava region, 11 from the Savinja region, 9 from the Southeast Slovenia statistical region, 8 from the Gorizia region etc. Apart from the Coastal-Karst and Mura statistical regions, which are underrepresented, these numbers roughly correspond to the general shares in the population.

In the majority of cases, students chose their grandparents or other older relatives as their interviewees, meaning the sample was generally based on convenience and ease of accessibility. It must therefore be stressed that people who were living a family life and had children and grandchildren are very likely to be overrepresented in the sample. Another source of imbalance was the explicit recommendation that talkativeness, accessibility, good memory, and openness to discussion should be considered while choosing interviewees so as to make the interviews richer in content.

Finally, it must be noted that the vast majority of interviews was conducted in the month of May in 2019, 2020 and 2021, when the summer semester was coming to a close. Although this was not the topic of the interviews, contemporary socio-political events such as SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the illiberal turn in politics and the continuous conflicts between the Slovenian government and the media were at least implicitly addressed by the interviewees and contrasted with examples from the past.

The post-war situation in the early 1950s was a starting point for most of the interviews, with radio often mentioned as the most important medium in the childhood and youth of the interviewees. In 1963, namely, more than 90% of people living in Yugoslavia listened to the radio.Splichal and Vreg, Množično komuniciranje in razvoj demokracije, 84. Radio was thus perceived as the most important media, even though newspapers also played an influential role in certain households. As one interviewee notes: “Radio was always in the kitchen; it was the centre of everything” (‘Športni navdušenec’). Similar domestication of radio can be observed in other interviews. Its use was often described as an event that unified the whole family: “Radio was a sacred thing, it was turned on only at certain times of the day, when daily reports or music shows were broadcasted; the whole family – and sometimes even some neighbours and friends – gathered on such occasions” (‘Planinski Sokol’).

Especially popular were radio programmes, which were suitable for group listening: radio broadcasts with folk-pop music such as Četrtkov večer [Eng. Thursday evening], testimonies of the Partisans fighting in the Second World War anti-fascist movement in Še pomnite tovariši? [Eng. Do You Still Recall, Comrades?], and the Sunday noon broadcast. “We gathered in the evenings after we had finished our work /…/ and we listened to the radio, especially to music shows. When I was a child, we sang a lot. In the evening one could hear singing in almost every house, particularly when people were busy with the tasks that were usually done together like pumpkin peeling or the husking of corn” (‘Prijazna Gospa’).

Listening to radio, therefore, fitted in quite smoothly with the existing social practices in the post-war period. Even though radio played an important role on various occasions and in specific social settings, media consumption was often restricted since it was regarded as something that encourages idleness. It was thus opposed to the urge to work as much as possible, as especially pronounced in the 1950s, a time characterised by modest living conditions in a mainly agrarian society. Interviewees who were still children at the time often described how their parents limited their media use: “There was not a lot of time for fun /…/ we had to work in the fields with our parents, we only relaxed in the evening or if it was raining” (A. Golež).

Like radio, print was often associated with a particular social function of connecting the community in this early period: “I still remember how my mother said: ‘the neighbour brought the newspaper!’ We didn’t buy our own newspapers, of course” (I. Markič). Newspapers, magazines and books were often shared or stored after reading so they could be re-used, and the topics appearing in them were often discussed by people. Reading was also regularly considered as part of leisure time: “We had time to read on Sunday afternoon, when we had fights over the newspapers from the previous week” (F. R. Steiner).

The interviewees often recalled their parents reading the press. In these memories, on most occasions the newspaper belonged to the pater familias: “My father was somewhat politically educated, and he sometimes read for us from the newspapers” (I. Trotovšek). Everyday socialisation typically occurred in a common physical space in local environments and the interviewees often perceived their life as being separated from the topics discussed in the press, especially when it came to politics. One respondent stated: “Those were the years when I was not interested in political stuff /…/ I mostly struggled with my own things, with work, friends, and women” (‘Lojtra’).

Many interviewees recalled the role of the magazines, such as popular magazine Tedenska Tribuna (Eng. Weekly Tribune, popularly called TT), which gained in popularity because their approach adapted to their audiences’ needs and was lighter in nature. Magazines devoted to specific audience profiles also became more prominent in the 1960s, for example Življenje in tehnika (Eng. Life and Technology) for technically engaged people, or Ciciban and Pionirski list for children and youth. Religious books published by Mohorjeva družba and the (bi)weekly Catholic magazine Družina (Eng. Family) were also popular and were not prohibited in Yugoslavia, as some might assume.

Certain interviewees, especially those who had lived in an urban environment, were already familiar with the moving image format that television brought to their lives early on as they had experienced it in the cinema. In most cases, the first memories of TV were very detailed and usually referred to the early 1960s when collective watching was common. This occurred in either the richer households of a village or town that could afford to buy a television set and allowed their neighbours (notably children) to join in watching or in semi-public spaces like community halls:

As the above anecdote reveals, socialising was an important aspect of this ritual for many, but only the early experiences were collective. Towards the end of the 1960s and later, television became an essential item in most households, while the practice of watching TV became either individualised or at least reserved for members of the nuclear family. In this period, most interviewees moved out of their parents' houses and completed their education. They began to establish their own families, usually in their own dwelling. A living room with a TV set became the main venue for consuming media and replaced the rural kitchen where large families had gathered to listen to the radio. A predominantly rural lifestyle, related to the cycles of nature and farm work, was in many interviewees’ stories replaced by a modern working lifestyle in which TV often represented the biggest source of evening relaxation, especially for men: “This is like a chronic disease or addiction /…/ I have always watched the evening news programme. At that hour, there had to be peace in the house” (D. Rajtmajer). Women, in contrast, were not so accustomed to watching the evening news and preferred movies or TV shows, which often started after the children had gone to bed. Of course, one can also find notable exceptions to this stereotypical pattern in the sample.

Television was crucial in the popularisation of sports fan culture in Yugoslavia, with interviewees mentioning ski jumping, skiing, the Olympic Games, football World Cups, and basketball World Cups as examples. There is little doubt that the most prominent example of a televised event was Tito’s death in 1980, as announced by the TV anchor Tomaž Terček. With his recognisable and memorable voice and always serious manner, most interviewees could recall exactly what they were doing and how they felt when he uttered those famous words: “Comrade Tito has died”. When the interviewees were asked which journalists they could recall from Yugoslavia, most remembered TV anchors and announcers, which goes far to demonstrate the role of TV in producing celebrities, even in a non-Western context. Memories of the most important public events – from the first moon landing in 1969 to the war for Slovenian independence in 1991 – were in one way or another connected to television watching, but often quite vaguely, which confirms Bourdon’s point that “much of our media experience, especially in an increasingly mediated world, is not encoded (or not primarily) as specific ‘media experience’”.Bourdon, “Media Remembering,” 61.

The absence of information plurality was often mentioned while describing the media situation in the 1950s, when radio was the main source of daily news for many households. In this historical period, a diversity of political views was generally seen as a threat to social cohesion due to the devastating consequences of ideological differences during the Second World War. Older people who had lived through that epoch often discouraged any kind of political debate, even in private settings. Those in search of different worldviews frequently used foreign media and depended on the radio signals coming from across the borders. The influence of Western media was especially important for people living in the border regions: Radio Trst (Eng. Trieste) was followed in the Upper Carniola region and Radio Graz in Carinthia and some parts of the Styria region. Slovenian programmes broadcast on Radio Vatican and Voice of America were also often mentioned as sources of information with alternative, 'Westernised' political views, while Radio Luxembourg was important for introducing Yugoslavia to Western pop culture in the early 1960s.

At least to some extent, journalists could criticise specific local problems and flaws, but as the interlocutors realise today it was not possible to doubt the social system’s foundations. For instance, one interviewee noted: “There would be a special kind of problem if someone tried to criticise the ideal of brotherhood and unity among different nations /…/, this ideal had to be preserved and respected” (H. Molan).

The first signs of criticism usually corresponded with youthful stubbornness and disobedience. In some cases, this was related with the reading of comics (Miki Muster and his famous comic Zvitorepec were mentioned many times) and satirical magazines like Pavliha, which enjoyed high circulation and popularity. In this context, Fran Miličinski – Ježek (Eng. The Little Hedgehog), the award-winning satirist, comedian, director, writer, chansonnier and self-proclaimed clown, was often mentioned as a figure whose jokes were seen as an implicit critique of the system. Similarly to how Bardan describes the New Year’s Eve television programme in socialist RomaniaBardan, “Remembering Socialist Entertainment,” 11., it seems that what contributed to the popularity of Ježek’s performances was its mildly subversive nature, ambiguous expressions, and “the structure of feeling” describing the bittersweet life of an ordinary little man in the socialist reality, with whom audiences could easily identify. The structure of jokes circulating in non-formal environments (usually directed against important members of The Party, such as Stane Dolanc) followed the same recipe.

The rise of liberal politics and student social movements in Yugoslavia in the late 1960s and early 1970s was not perceived as a turning point for most of the interviewees, who also paid scant attention to the political crisis related to the Croatian Spring (also known as Maspok) between 1967 and 1971. They usually saw this as a conflict between the Croats and Serbs, which was not as important for the situation in Slovenia. Expressions of nationalistic tendencies were often recognised as a classic example of forbidden content in the media sphere of socialist Yugoslavia, but the interviewees often perceived this censorship as a positive side-effect of stricter control of the media content, particularly when they took account of the consequences of such nationalistic discourse later in the 1990s. Even the first memories concerning the diversity and pluralism of political views in the media are often associated with the rise of conservativism and nationalism during the 1980s, when, for instance, “Slovenian and Serbian views on the situation in Yugoslavia began to diverge radically” (‘Dušan Anon’).

The male interviewees’ experience of military service was often described as a paradigmatic example of the actual solidarity existing among the different Yugoslav nations where the principle of “brotherhood and unity” was, on one hand, manifested in practice, but where on the other any expressions of disobedience or rebelliousness were also strictly rejected. One interviewee mentioned that his hair had to be shortened due to the military rules, another had minor problems after criticising the quality of weapons, while many of them remembered the mandatory daily practice of group watching the evening news on television, which they regarded as a typical example of the authoritarian tendencies of the system.

While discussing criticism and censorship, the interviewees often related these phenomena to interpersonal relationships. This seemed a bigger concern for them than potential control of the media content. Instances of undercover agents monitoring discussions in pubs and inns were frequently mentioned. Similarly, anecdotes were given about encounters with police or customs officers. Both were perceived as incarnations of the non-democratic system since they could act strictly if not treated properly. Problems that emerged with the work environment and career development due to the public expression of political opinions, religious affiliation or a controversial family history are another common theme discussed in the interviews. Still, these anecdotal cases were not very pronounced and were told almost as trivia that rarely had a defining influence on the interviewees’ lives or their overall attitude to the system. They should therefore be evaluated systematically against other historical sources, which lies beyond the scope of this article.

In general, answers regarding freedom of speech vary widely. Some interviewees stated they did not dare to be critical even in a private setting, especially in the 1950s. Others mentioned there were no particular issues attracting such criticism among friends or co-workers. Some interviewees did not regard themselves as being in any way deprived of free speech, while others noted they did not even have a need for any such criticism. This was explained as an outcome of their relative happiness, satisfaction with individual and social life, and feeling of social security: “As kids, we lived in a bubble, without problems, without deep considerations as to what was going on in the media” (H. Molan). “There were no [political] parties, no questions as to who to believe. I got my first job and went there immediately. Everything was pleasant” (R. M. Perlič).

Such favourable social circumstances not only led to a lack of interest in criticism, but also a broader absence of interest in journalistic reporting: “I wasn’t deeply interested in the reporting by the media. When you are young, you are not interested in that, but I never doubted whether it was true. /…/ We were living our lives, socialising, playing games /…/ we didn’t ask ourselves whether we trusted the media” (‘Cvetoča orhideja’). Especially news about domestic politics – a prime example being summaries of various Party meetings – were considered boring and separate from the interviewees’ actual lives.

The Yugoslav identity based on the “normative foundations of anticapitalist Marxism”, which is also “anti-Stalinist” in nature, “emphasized the ‘socialist’ rather than communist basis for Yugoslav society, ‘self-management’ in the economy, and the coexistence, however uneasy, of national ethnic and socialistic civic identities”.Ibid., 86. This identity was expressed and maintained through many public rituals, for instance the Relay of Youth (Slo. Štafeta mladosti) or the Train of Brotherhood and Unity, and especially through admiration of the figure of the leader of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz – Tito. It was also related to the feelings of pride that emanated from the country’s international reputation as a unique, powerful and independent entity, that was neither East nor West. Even the Yugoslav communication system was unique and significantly different from the stereotypical image of the state-owned and centralised Eastern European media. See Slavko Splichal, “Media Research in Socialist Slovenia/Yugoslavia: Some Afterthoughts,” Triple-C 18, No. 1 (2020): 350–59.

In this sense, it is no surprise that regrets about the collapse of Yugoslavia, which the interviewees viewed as a respected society (and not on the periphery of the First world), were often present in the interviews. Similar arguments appeared when some interviewees tried to explain the quality of Yugoslav journalism. It was typically seen as a very respected profession and its interpretations of world events were mostly considered to be neutral. Yugoslavia was not part of the Western or Eastern bloc and Yugoslav audiences were supposedly receiving objective information about world events. One interviewee, for instance, stated that “reporting was objective /…/ Yugoslavia was not a fan of Russia, /…/ We were freer, we were not as repressed as people living in Hungary or Czechoslovakia” (A. Zupančič). One question many interviewees lacked an exact answer for was how and when this Yugoslav identity disappeared, or indeed, whether today it is still somehow present.

Even though the period of socialist Yugoslavia is often presented as a repressed and somewhat rejected part of Slovenian history – an obstacle to realisation of the 1,000-year-old dream that finally came true upon Slovenian independence – our interviewees’ memories of Yugoslavia were rarely marked by any significant traumas. As one interviewee noted: “None of our generation – in contrast with those born in the 1930s – experienced any atrocities” (‘Lojtra’). Even though the interlocutors had varying evaluations of the socialist regime – with many mentioning negative aspects of the system, for instance the Goli otok concentration camp for political prisoners – they had not undergone a radical experience (such as war) in their lifetime. A certain sense of reconciliation with the past can thus be discerned from the responses: “That’s how the system was. It was a one-party system and we agreed with that /.../ we thought it was just right back then. That’s how they taught us /…/ and that’s what we taught our children. /…/ It was considered normal” (‘Prijazna Gospa’). Even though such a stance dominates, some interviewees mentioned the discomfort they felt when they retrospectively realised the regime’s problematic aspects or the post-war killings of local collaborators with the Nazi regime.

The conversations ended with questions concerning how the interviewees view the past regime today. It seems that the students had often implicitly anticipated that their interviewees would emphasise the radical otherness of the past. Yet, on the contrary, they often rejected such simplistic assumptions and argued that the change might not be so radical after all. One interviewee for example said: “Some of us are satisfied and others are not. Those who are dissatisfied now, were also dissatisfied back then and will be dissatisfied in 10 years time” (A. Zupančič). Another stated similarly: “It was hard back then for working people like us, but it is the same today, we are living in difficult times” (‘Julijana’).

Such a stance, which stresses that ‘nothing ever changes’, is probably generally characteristic for the perspective of ‘ordinary people’ whose lives are not necessarily dramatically affected by the regime change. However, the reason for the frequency of this view in our sample might also be attributed to the fact that Yugoslav self-managed socialism was significantly more democratic and open than in the Eastern European regimes, which is why the transition to market capitalism was not necessarily seen as such a radical event. Similarly, differences between contemporary journalism and journalism of the past were often relativised by the interviewees, as evidenced by several similar statements: “The media is always the same /…/ you can never believe it 100%” (M. Martinšek). “The journalistic profession has always been under pressure” (J. Maj). “There have always been good journalists /…/ and there have always been poor journalists acting on the behest of someone” (S. Mlakar).

The idea of historical continuity is also seen in political opinions regarding the regime. The majority of interviewees were completely devoted to the unity of Titoist Yugoslavia before 1980, while the same people later also unanimously supported the Slovenian independence movement. This transition seems to hold a deep structural influence on the interviewees’ understanding of their individual and group identity. Memory regarding the gradual change in worldviews is especially murky. In general, the interviewees’ responses fail to provide deep insights into the precise course of historical development throughout the 1980s when this change was underway. They sometimes mentioned the influence of dissident media like Mladina and Nova Revija, and events that added to the liberalisation of civil society (the rise of alternative culture, the punk movement, JBTZ court proceedings etc.).

Yet, the interviewees even more often explained the beginning of the disintegration of Yugoslavia with anecdotes from their own lives. These examples often describe the rise of banal nationalism on the level of everyday life. They also involve simplified economic reasoning, with claims that Slovenia put proportionally more funds into the common Yugoslav budget than it received from it, while combining this with the supposed laziness of the ‘southerners’. Many jokes circulating at the time illustrate this well: “In Slovenia, a concrete mixer is spinning, while ‘in the south’, a piglet on a spit is spinning [Slo. V Sloveniji se vrtijo mešalci, na jugu pa odojki]” (H. Molan). This narrative seems to be so effective because it corresponds with two main arguments for Slovenian independence: first, with the idea that Slovenians are culturally different from the other nations of Yugoslavia and, second, that independence would be accompanied by rising economic prosperity, as implied by the notion of Slovenia as “The Switzerland of the Balkans”. It is therefore not surprising that the criticism of contemporary politics often referred to the failure to realise these hopes: “They promised us another Switzerland /…/, but now we are closer to the Visegrad Group” (D. Pernek).

The other reason it is difficult to locate the exact point of the transition might relate to the fact that in both the period of Titoist Yugoslavia and the times of Slovenian independence public opinion was very homogeneous. In contrast to this, when the interviewees tried to explain the biggest difference between the past and the present, they often used the dichotomy between the homogenous society with a unified will (as something not necessarily negative) and the divided society in which we are currently living: “We experienced brotherhood and unity, and I miss that today” (V. Štiglic). “I am quite confused by the media reporting today – the news is so diverse /…/ as it suits the actor which supports or funds certain media. Today, it is difficult to know what the real truth is” (‘Bela Lilija’).

Individualism, which replaced unity and uniformity, was often presented as the main structural reason for the polarisation of society in which everyone has their own truth. Even if most interviewees agreed that they once missed plurality and diversity, they often still described the situation today as democratisation that “has gone too far”. As one interviewee noted: “There is only one truth, there cannot be many truths” (‘Želimir Anon’).