"This research project focuses on media reporting of and in crisis situations, with case studies of examples mostly from 2016. Political and social crises have been recurring in recent years, aggravated by unstable political environments, underdeveloped economies, ethno-national divisions and unresolved legacies of war. They ranged from political clashes, government crises, through crisis involving citizen protests or pertaining to response to natural disasters, to refugee crises. As indicated by the national reports from five successor states of the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia) and Albania, in the analysed cases of crises, the media largely failed to fulfil their public service role and to an extent did just the opposite, providing sensationalistic stories, favouring particular sources (mainly official ones, from one political faction or one ethno-national group), sometimes accentuating security threats and possible conflicts, or simply by failing to provide relevant information or in-depth analysis necessary for substantive understanding of related public interest issues. In this research we start from the assumption that weaknesses of the media sector manifest themselves with particular severity in crisis situations. We also recognize the pivotal role of media in what the dominant framing of the crises is, by which they can contribute to, or thwart, democratic communication. The experience of media in former Yugoslavia in the 1990 is a reminder of how devastating the consequences can be." (Pages 2-3)