Berišić 1

Eva Berišić

S1115735

Data Culture

dr. Roel Smeets, Julia Neugarten, MA

1st November 2024

Bias in Media and Data: Framing Youth Culture in Crno-bijeli svijet

The Croatian TV series Crno-bijeli svijet (Black and White World) wisely and pregnantly

depicts the cultural and social intricacies of 1980s Zagreb, illustrating with great clarity the lives,

frictions, and values of different social groups in a time of great politics. The series elaborates on

such themes as generational conflict, class, and changing youth identity within the nostalgic but

repressive environment of Yugoslavia's final decade. Given the focus of the course on data

culture, there is no better subject to show how media and social biases frame people's

understanding of social groups than Crno-bijeli svijet. “Serija je u radu posmatrana kao medij

posredstvom kojeg gledaoci formiraju određenu sliku o specifičnom periodu.” (The series is

viewed as a medium through which viewers form a particular image of a specific period) (Ajduk

10). This is particularly evident in Season 3, Episode 5, where the characters deal with the

stereotypes and misconceptions of youth culture, demonstrating how prejudices, such as

confirmation bias and selection bias, frame the narrative of marginalised communities. The essay

will discuss, through the analysis of this episode, the continuity of traditional media narratives

concerning today's data-driven biases.

The plot of Season 3, Episode 5 of Crno-bijeli svijet revolves around a string of

misunderstandings and social frictions between the youngsters trying to find their place in this

world and the traditional thinking of the older characters set against the backdrop of 1980s
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Zagreb. The plot follows a musical event organised by a group of youngsters who want to open a

space for artistic and social freedom. But as word gets around, the media and the local authorities

latch onto this gathering as proof of an emerging “rebellious youth movement,” casting it as a

force for decay and a threat to society. Key scenes show how the event is sensationalised in news

reports, highlighting selected images of wild dancing and nontraditional fashion choices that

have confirmed the worst fears of the older generation about “irresponsible youth.” This episode,

therefore, reflects the data bias of today, as assumptions, partial information, and selective

portrayal all combine to form a distorted public image of the youth, which shows how strong this

bias is in the media and data representation.

Data culture refers to the social and institutional practices that surround data collection,

analysis, and interpretation. On the other hand, data bias is a more systematic skewing of data,

sometimes due to some selective collection, analysis, or interpretation processes. This bias can

spring from incomplete data, assumptions underpinning data models, or selective portrayal,

which creates distorted or partial representations of reality. Data bias impacts how groups are

perceived since biased data leads to conclusions that either reinforce stereotypes or overlook

diversity within datasets. A data culture, then, is the embracing of data as a tool of insight, and

it's only through data bias that its limitations and potential inequalities not fully or fairly

representing the complexities of society become clear. “Data analysis promises an ‘objective’

way to grasp the complex and dynamic reality we live in. Visualized via colourful dashboards,

infographics and charts, it puts forth, persuasively and seductively, a seemingly accurate and

unbiased assessment of reality.” (van Es & Schäfer 13). Examining the Croatian TV series Crno-

bijeli svijet, set in 1980s Zagreb, several scholarly works bring out how data, media, and

technological biases shape perceptions in society. This review will discuss those concepts about
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generational conflicts and biases depicted in Season 3, Episode 5, and how data culture impacts

the framing of social groups.

The first book, The Datafied Society from 2017 by authors Mirko Tobias Schäfer and

Karin van Es, discusses datafication: the process in which everything in life gets translated into

data.

This is the basis of Schäfer and van Es' argument, whereby data are often taken to be

objective while, in truth, being frequently subjected to bias through selective collection and

interpretation. These biases result in partial, distorted realities that represent societal priorities,

which might reinforce stereotypes and shape public perception. This framing of the analysis can

be paralleled with the selective portrayal of youth in Crno-bijeli svijet, where the media focuses

on provocative aspects such as wild dancing and unconventional fashion at a youth event. Such

selective framing, ignoring the positive cultural contributions of the event, is a mirror of data

bias in modern data culture, where selectively picked data often coincide with pre-existing

societal concerns, reinforcing a distorted public image of youth culture.

Marija Ajduk's Vesele osamdesete kroz prizmu televizijske serije ‘Crno-bijeli svijet’

further explores how the 1980s in Yugoslavia are both a cultural memory and a constructed

narrative. Ajduk demonstrates how television, through selective portrayal, plays a powerful role

in shaping collective memory. One can notice this concept in Crno-bijeli svijet, as the media

selectively emphasises rebellious behaviours among young people to fit into the societal

anxieties about the “irresponsible youth.” Ajduk's work points out the series' exploration of how

media can crystallise generational biases when the older characters interpret the events within the

youth as a moral decline based on selective portrayals rather than understanding the evolving

identities of young people. This selective cultural construction is akin to Ajduk's assertion that
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the media can limit understanding through the repetition of simplistic, biased images—thereby

marginalising groups like youth.

In her work Discriminatory Design and Liberating Imagination, Ruha Benjamin shows

how technology could embed social biases, often appearing objective while reinforcing racial,

economic, or generational hierarchies. Benjamin introduces the idea of the “New Jim Code” to

show how algorithms and data-driven technologies are potentially perpetuating inequalities

under the guise of neutrality. This dynamic is illustrated in Crno-bijeli svijet through selective

media coverage of a youth event, which epitomises sociotechnical imaginaries that view youth

culture as a threat to society. Benjamin thus relates how this parallels technological biases: media

narratives can project an exaggerated, biased portrait of youth for social control. In Crno-bijeli

svijet, such representations legitimise older generations' authority over youth, reinforcing power

structures through manipulated, one-sided stories that marginalise youth as troublemakers rather

than cultural contributors. Together, these sources document how data, media, and technology

are mobilised in the framing of public perceptions, often rendering partial or biased portrayals

that reinforce societal norms and constrain marginalised groups. Crno-bijeli svijet is emblematic

of this phenomenon by illustrating how the youth culture gets distorted through biased media

representation—clear testimony to the ongoing power held by selective narratives and data

practices over shaping collective understanding.

Confirmation bias is a cognitive tendency to interpret information in a way that confirms

one's preexisting beliefs, often leading individuals to disregard facts or perspectives that might

challenge their views. This type of bias can cause people to focus on certain details supporting

their preconceived notions, resulting in a narrow, quite often distorted view of reality. The

Croatian TV series very strikingly illustrates confirmation bias through generational conflict and
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misunderstanding between the young and older generations in 1980s Zagreb. This prejudice,

particularly through the perceptions and interactions of the older characters, is a vivid example as

they interpret a youth-led musical event through a lens of distrust and fear. Though the event is

organised by the young as a place where creativity and self-expression—social freedom—can be

acted out, media and local authorities pick up on scenes such as crazed dancing or at least non-

traditional styles of dressing that, to the older eyes, seem provocative. By highlighting these

details, the media frames the gathering as evidence of a morally reckless youth, which is in line

with the fears of the older generation regarding a decline in social values. Such sensationalised

details confirm the already existing anxieties of the older generation about “irresponsible youth”

and that the younger generation is not just expressing its individuality but challenging the very

norms of society. Thus, the older characters will dismiss the greater cultural and artistic values of

the event, holding onto a myopic view that upholds their presuppositions of pessimism.

This portrayal of confirmation bias in Crno-bijeli svijet says a lot about how the older

generation's views become limited by their refusal to question or broaden their beliefs about

youth. Rather than view this event as an opportunity to understand the changing identity and

values of younger generations, they frame it as a threat to social stability—reinforcing

generational divides. In its representation of these dynamics, the show provides a clear example

of how confirmation bias may choke empathy, perpetuate misunderstanding, and distil a nuanced

subculture down to a simple stereotype—all in service of portraying youth as a social threat

rather than a source of change and growth. The sociotechnical imaginary: A shared, often

idealised, vision of how society believes technology and societal structures should interplay in

shaping the future. These imaginaries carry at their core ideas of collective values, fears, and

hopes, guiding not only the development of technologies but also reinforcing social norms and
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power structures. They help to frame which behaviours and groups fit within the norms of

society and which are viewed as “deviant” or destabilising. “Technoscientific approaches seem to

'fix' the problem of human bias when it comes to a wide range of activities.” (Benjamin 2). So,

sociotechnical imaginaries are often simply social control tools that perpetuate actions or policies

seen as containing groups deemed to be a threat to the status quo. In the series, it becomes

crystallised through the reaction of the media and public opinion to a musical event organised by

youth in 1980s Zagreb.

The event, conceived by somebody as a creative and social space for youth, is rapidly

framed by the media in terms of selected imagery—pictures of unruly dancing and provocative

fashion statements that seem to flout conventional norms. Such images are then relayed to the

public, presenting the gathering as an epitome of social decay and an affront to the established

moral order. This constructed image of them complies with the illusion nurtured by the older

generation and the authorities, who already mistrust youth subcultures and consider them

potentially destabilising forces that need to be contained. By emphasising only such sensational

aspects, the media takes away the cultural and artistic intentions of this event while fostering the

narrative of those already fearful of “irresponsible youth” and the imminence of moral decay.

Such reporting not only distorts public perception but also legitimises the desire for

control over youth culture at the same time, validating the older generation's belief that social

order must be preserved by containing perceived threats. This episode shows how sociotechnical

imaginaries can become potent societal tools: embedding selective and biased portrayals of youth

culture into public discourse, they construct a version of reality that consolidates societal norms

and further justifies the necessity of authority to control social “deviance.” In this respect, Crno-

bijeli svijet displays the persistence of biased narratives in the creation and control of public
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perception and how that, in turn, defines and limits whole social groups. Selection bias refers to a

kind of cognitive distortion that occurs when the features of an event or group are selectively

presented in such a way that a distorted perspective harbours specific narratives while dismissing

general context.

This produces distortion, typically due to selective gathering or presenting information

that favours a particular view while disregarding the diversity and complexity within the group in

question. The outcome is often misleading, partial, or exaggerated and may correspond to the

prevailing stereotypes or fears in society. Season 3, Episode 5 of the show, demonstrates

selection bias through how the media portrayed a youth-organized musical event that took place

in Zagreb during the 1980s. The event is meant to celebrate artistic freedom and the expression

of culture by young people who are looking for an open place where they can search and share

their identity. Media coverage of the event has, however, been so biased, focusing its attention on

provocative elements such as intense dancing and outrageous fashion. This focus creates a

sensationalised narrative of youthful rebellion, irresponsibility, and moral decay that caters to the

older generation's anxieties about the “reckless” behaviour of younger people. Focusing on these

selective scenes, the media overlooks the greater cultural importance of the event, the diversity

of participants and the positive social intents the events carry. This selective framing is a mirror

of current problems related to data collection, where data points are cherry-picked in general to

affirm a certain societal concern or stereotype.

Selection bias may also arise in modern settings, where it shapes perceptions about

marginalised groups by promoting specific data that best fits the preconceived image and

disregarding information that may say otherwise. In Crno-bijeli svijet, the selective focus

confirms stereotypes concerning “irresponsible youth” and feeds the social narrative regarding
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moral decaying, hence building a rather narrow but often misguided public perception of the

youth culture. The episode critically comments on how traditional media and modern practices of

data distort complex groups by discussing selective, exaggerated portrayals that feed societal

fears and further entrench power dynamics. Through this lens, Crno-bijeli svijet provides

important insight into the strong influence that selection bias has on public opinion and

emphasises that such bias can skew societal understanding of whole groups.

“This insidious combination of coded bias and imagined objectivity is what I call the

New Jim Code—innovation that enables social containment while appearing fairer than

discriminatory practices of a previous era.” (Benjamin 3). The series shows how selective

narratives contribute to a simplistic view of youth as disruptive or dangerous, thereby

highlighting how the practices of media and data shape the norms of society. It is a reminder of

the dangers of allowing biased portrayals to define public understanding and highlights the

importance of capturing a more holistic and nuanced view, specifically for the complexities of

marginalised communities that are usually overlooked. In the final analysis, Crno-bijeli svijet

presents a nuanced exploration of how biases and selective portrayals shape public perceptions

and reinforce societal norms. In that spirit, Season 3, Episode 5 serves to crystallise how media

and generational perspectives can construct simplified, distorted images of youth culture, going

along with many of the course themes around data culture, sociotechnical imaginaries, and

discriminatory design. In that sense, the series tells a story about the complications and

misrepresentations of 1980s Zagreb's youth, offering a critique of mechanisms through which

selective narratives navigate control over social groups and pointing out the need for more

holistic knowledge that exceeds representations. This episode reflects the current relevance of

such discussions in today's data-driven media landscapes.

Works Cited

Ajduk, Marija. “ ‘Vesele’ Osamdesete Kroz Prizmu Televizijske Serije Crno-Bijeli Svijet.”

Anthropology: Journal of the Centre for Ethnological and Anthropological Research

(CEAR) Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, 2016,

[Link]/handle/123456789/6372.

Benjamin, Ruha. “Introduction: Discriminatory Design, Liberating Imagination.” In

Captivating Technology. Duke (2019), edited by Ruha Benjamin. pp. 1-22.

Datafied Society: Studying Culture through Data. Amsterdam University Press, 2017,

[Link]/10.5117/9789462981362.