RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

communication and with the activity of the subjective forces - to the coordination of the republic publics. This is already that process of articulation of the attitudes of public opinion which leads to the consensus of the Yugoslav public. In the field of mass communications the abovementioned iron law of the hierarchy of information is even more fully expressed. This law (which acts in all systems and even in the framework of the foreign public) influences the concentration of information on the top, its selection and arrangement The hierarchv of information is so arranged that the information relating to global and federal events, which reflects the politics of the integrated whole and which has the primacv of the first and most important information as regards its distributive power, is ranked as the most important Only foreign news of important foreign policy events can compete with this kind of information. Republic news ranks second while commune and local news comes even lower. Such a distribution is particularlv evident in federal communication organs, while in republic organs it is altered in favour of information on the republic level and in commune organs in favour of news of the commune and local commune and local communities. The results of the pyramidal ranking of information аге seen in the form of tvpical ог classical inter-republic communication reduced to an "essential” minimum percentage in almost all public communication media. That percentage, it is true, varies with regard to the significance of the events which potentially unfold in ап individuai republic. True, research shows that in the last few years that percentage has grown, which is the result of the efforts of subjective forces and tlie increased responsibilitv of editors. The amount of that content can, of course, be artificiaUv increased, but the question is whetlier the public’s ”hunger for information” about other republics will at the same time grow automaticallv. The prospects of the development and restructuring of the communications system seems to me to lie in the initiation of new delegate relations, that is, in