Snezhana Venovska-Antevska

The Balkan region has always been a crossroad of cultures, religions, customs, ethnicities and, hence, research related to intercultural communications in this area in different periods gives different results. The actual ethnographic condition of the Balkans now, followed by statistic data, censuses, related to displacements, and the relevance of official data, creates the picture of languages that are used in the Balkans. In the 21st century different processes are going on, some fading out, and other finding room to activate (again) not only through languages and lexicon (active, passive and disappeared), but through other forms, too. The critical analysis of the discourse of Balkans witnesses the art of linking of differences through languages (Slavic, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Bosnian, Herzegovinian, Montenegrin; and non-Slavic: Greek, Turkish, Albanian, English) supplemented by nonverbal communication, as a wide space for building the impression of common conditions. All this reflects on the national identities and on the construction of diverse characteristics as a sum of diversities on the Balkans.

Rumour communication, although always present in different areas of mass media in the Republic of Macedonia, has not yet been researched. Topics devoted to various rumours, unverified information spread, “gossiping” circulation of information of specific purpose were particularly popular in 2015 through a part of this kind of information transmitted in the mass media as information “bomb”. The scientific approach to define such information was especially present in the yellow press and in researches related to “hate speech” as an opportunity for mass dissemination of specific information of specific purpose. Here is an overview and analysis of rumour communication and the ways it is expressed in the mass media in Republic of Macedonia. Special emphasis is given to the linguistic devices used in the dissemination of such kind of information.