Journalistic Transcreation of News Agency Articles from English into Serbian: Associated Press and Reuters Articles in Blic and N1 Online Portals

transcreation refers to adapting translated content to suit the target audience’s context, culture, and expectations. Predominantly researched in marketing, this phenomenon has recently come under scrutiny as a method of transferring foreign news to local readership. This paper explores journalistic transcreation in Blic and N1 , the two most visited Serbian online news portals, considered to be on opposing ideological and political spectrums. as a point of comparison, articles in english are taken from web portals of the two leading news agencies globally – the Associated Press and Reuters – as their reporting practices are regarded as more factual and less biased compared to non-agency media. The findings reveal transcreation’s much greater presence in the Blic portal, as illustrated in two selected examples, which might stem from the portal’s pro-government reporting and reader base who predominantly have absolute trust in the government or support it in the hopes of gaining employment via political affiliation.


Introduction 1
Journalistic practice as we know it seldom involves writing original news without utilizing an already written article. The majority of stories are thus based on creating an article through the aggregation of different pieces of information found in other media. frequently, the information used comes from international media sources, written in different languages. as having a journalist who is fluent in other languages is not always possible, and employing both translators and journalists unprofitable, journalists resort to translating foreign articles by themselves and re-forming them to create original texts (filmer 2014). This means that both processes -translation and creation -are in the hands of journalists, which grants them plenty of possibilities to, intentionally or not, make significant changes to the news. The act of translation has become invisible in journalism, for both the journalists and readers, and so implicit that media do not even mark quotes made in other languages as translations, although they assuredly present them as verbatim.
yet, despite the mass media's considerable role in mediating between different nations and cultures, opposing politicians, a country's leadership, and the general public, until recently journalistic work was exclusively the focus of Media Studies, when research shed light on the enormous presence of translation in news practice. What the research into this topic (Bielsa 2007;Caimotto 2014;federici 2011;van Leeuwen 2006) shows is that news reporting today largely lies in the hands of those who are not fully equipped to deal with the linguistic and cultural nuances of the community(ies) they write about. In theory, this phenomenon is not yet conclusively named. adaptation and localization are among the terms frequently used to denote this process, but both come with limitations, as will be presented in the next section. various theoreticians (Caimotto 2014;Mukherjee 1997;Pedersen 2014;a.o.) refer to this phenomenon as transcreation, though with varying definitions.
The paper analyses the presence of journalistic transcreation in selected articles published by two Serbian online news portals -Blic and N1, as compared with their corresponding pieces issued by the news agencies Associated Press (henceforth: AP) and Reuters. The paper aims to assess the presence of transcreation in selected Serbian media portals compared to englishlanguage articles in global news agencies and provide findings into methods, motivations, and goals of transcreation in the two Serbian media.
Section 2 provides a review of relevant literature on transcreation, followed by a section on the methodology used in this work (section 3). The results section discusses two selected examples of transcreation in Serbian news portals, and compares them to the related news agencies' pieces (section 4). Section 6 then summarizes and concludes the paper.

Transcreation -Basic Tenets
even though the first news translation bureau was opened in 1832 (valdeón 2010, 156), a landmark in research on news translation did not happen until the 1980s, when Stetting 1 The paper is based on the author's master's thesis "Journalistic transcreation of News agency articles from english into Serbian: Associated Press and Reuters articles in Blic online Portal", the faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, under the supervision of aleksandar kavgić. for the purposes of the current paper, the original thesis theme has been expanded to include the N1 news portal. The author's master's thesis is available online: http://remaster.ff.uns.ac .rs/?rad=68a1d2dcebadf594d3cd1f2e52ddc052. (Stetting 1989(Stetting , as quoted in valdeón 2014 coined the term transediting, which refers to the alternations of the source text, with the aim of transforming and better fitting it to the target culture (valdeón 2014). Stetting (1989) argues that such a practice is present in various genres, such as religious, historical, and literary texts, and transediting inevitably found its way into news translation. however, valdeón (2010, 53) believes that "even though journalists often translate, they reject their role as translators of news originally written in other languages. […] [they] view this process as part of an editing process, or, to put it differently, of the adaptation of the source news texts and/or events to the expectations of the target audience." filmer (2014) investigated methods of and opinions on news reporting translation by nine British newspaper correspondents for Italy. his interviews with the journalists revealed that only one of them had some formal training in Italian, but that all of them translated texts on their own, resorting to the help of Italian colleagues only when a word was ambiguous. "translation is implicit, readers know", concludes one of filmer's (2014, 145) interviewees. as news articles are thus rarely regarded as translations -both either journalists, and readers -valdeón considers transediting to be an unsuitable term, as the very process of translation includes a certain degree of editing, not taking into account "any ideological shifts aimed at infusing the target versions with new meaning" (valdeón 2014, 53), nor "the political, economic and social implications" which processes such as adaptation and appropriation entail (valdeón 2014, 60). Besides adaptation and appropriation, valdeón proposes framing as the potential terminology describing varied translation processes in news production, noting that framing involves the "selection and deselection of news events and reports, as well as linguistic transfer and adaptation of other elements such as headlines and quotes" (valdeón 2014, 56).
van Leeuwen (2006) investigated the work of 40 translators who also proofread and sometimes wrote original articles, using a sample of more than 100 translations from The Vietnam News, a daily newspaper entirely in english. The author (2006,218) observed three steps in the process of translation: (i) correcting the translated text in english, (ii) adaptation to journalistic style, and (iii) adaptation of source text culture and ideology. van Leeuwen (2006) thus introduced the notion of 'adaptation' -though as a tool of globalization, as the vietnamese newspaper adapts its content to the expectations of its english-speaking readers. In contrast to 'globalization' there is also 'localization', a term which van Leeuwen (2006) asserts to be closely related and in fact nearly synonymous with the term translation. Localization is also mentioned by Mangiron ando'hagan (Mangiron ando'hagan 2006, 20 as quoted in Pedersen, 2014, 64) and rike (rike 2013, 73, as quoted in Pedersen 2014, 64), the latter describing localization in the field of translation of manuals, instructions, and software, not granting it a creative aspect. however, both localization and adaptation are in professional circles understood as the final two processes, following translation, and done by companies attempting to appeal to a potential market. although similar to the intentions of news producers, those involved in localization do not re-create, as journalists do, but simply change or adapt their product to meet customers' expectations. Therefore, localization and adaptation are inadequate terminological choices for this paper. Mukherjee (1997) was one of the first researchers who focused on the term 'transcreation', noting how, although not included before the 5th edition of the Oxford Advanced English Dictionary (oeD), it has been well-known to Indian speakers of english ever since the mid-20th century. The author (1997,158) quotes the dictionary definition of transcreation as being "creative translation seen as producing a new version of the original work." even before being officially recognized, transcreation had existed in the translations of Purushottam Lal, frequently referred to as P. Lal, who is responsible for one of the biggest and most important translation ventures in India, as he translated several centuries' worth of fiction and poetry from a variety of Indian languages into english. Mukherjee (1997, 180) points out that what P. Lal did was not translation per se, as he introduced many changes into the translated texts, compared to their original versions -"yet enough of the original remained in the new texts […] to be able to relate it to the old texts." furthermore, Mukherjee (1997) recounts that the term translation is nowhere to be found in any of the Indian languages, suggesting its unfamiliarity to Indians. The author (1997,180) argues that instead of translating certain texts, they would use "it as a take-off point and composed a similar text in another language." Di giovanni (2008( , 34, as quoted in Pedersen 2014 quotes Lal's definition of transcreation as a "readable, not strictly faithful translation." Notably, in the oeD there is Coleridge's quote on transcreation, where the term is defined as a process of "creat[ing] by or in the way of transmission", which renders clearly both aspects of transcreation, namely "faithful transmission and creation" (katan 2014, 17). Caimotto (2014, 161) also identifies transcreation as a process that often occurs in the translation of poetry, which she sees as a "creative translation […] attempting to retain culturebound elements." She compared the stories of Iginio Ugo tarchetti, the 19th-century Italian author who introduced gothic tale to Italy using transcreation in his works, and Daniele Lutazzi, a controversial Italian comedian who in 2010 suffered nationwide condemnation for allegedly plagiarizing various american stand-up comedians. Lutazzi's case, argues Caimotto (2014, 159-60), is a good example of how translation practice is viewed disparately by laypeople and scholarly professionals. Social media responses to the issue of Lutazzi's plagiarism reveal that acts of translation and/or adaptation are not regarded as creative tasks, and thus for the general public, translation, and copying are identical, concludes Ciamotto (2014, 168).
Zanotti (2014) studied the dubbing process of english-speaking movies for the Italian market, focusing on the instances of transcreation. The author (2014, 109) refers to galassi (galassi 1994(galassi , 64, as quoted in Zanotti 2014, who stated that a talented dialogue adapter is able "to forget how the original line is structured and recreate it in another language as if it were not a translation, while fully grasping its meaning, the allusions it contains as well as the intentions that underlie it." for Zanotti (2014), the creative aspect of transcreation is of interest, as she quotes o'hagan and Mangiron (o'hagan andMangiron, 2013, 106, as quoted in Zanotti 2014, 110) for whom transcreation brings about occasionally unpredictable translation choices. additionally, she (2014, 100) reflects on transcreation as being a buzzword of the current translation business, mostly linked to the advertising industry.
for fang and Song (2014, 74), transcreation "fundamentally involves the transfer of meaning from one language to another", a process usually carried out in the field of advertising and marketing. In their study of Chinese translations of labels for australian health products, fang and Song (2014,74) argue that the creation part is introduced only when "a product […] is believed unable to strike the chord with the intended audience." however, as there is a striking resemblance between the characteristics of free translation and transcreation, they are both criticized (fang and Song 2014, 74) for scaling down semantic equivalence and giving precedence to cultural and social needs. although their research revealed significant changes in the translations, fang and Song (2014) assert that creative translation does not automatically imply unprofessionalism.
as already mentioned, transcreation is widely used in the field of marketing and advertising, with the intention of altering a marketing campaign or advertising slogan, making it more appealing to target consumers without suffering the original message (Pedersen 2014, 58). Pedersen (2014) focused on definitions and explanations of the process of transcreation as given by the professionals in the field -transcreation providers. analysing definitions of different transcreation providers (Branded translations, transPerfect, alpha CrC and textMinded), Pedersen ( 2014, 59-61) discovered that they use a variety of phrases to define transcreation, such as: "creative adaptation", "creative wordplay and techniques such as assonance and alliteration", "recreat[ing]" and "transferring the essential message […] as opposed to a more traditional translation", respectively. Pedersen (2014, 62) infers that such companies regard transcreation as a sub-category of localization -as suggested by Mangrion and o'hagan (2006) -aimed to ensure cultural applicability, and that transcreation not only has nothing to do with translation but rather is even more than translation itself. The author (2014, 62) concludes that while "translation is transferring words from one language to another […] transcreation is transferring brands and messages from one culture to another." gambier and Munday (2014) discussed the position of translation and transcreation, both in relation to each other and in translation Studies. They reflect how such terminological vastness can destabilize translation Studies, however, the emergence transcreation and similar terms could actually hold the key to the future of translation. With the exponential growth of machine translation, where translators' "already fragile habitus is being encroached on by machines" (katan 2014, 16), transcreation is an "inherently creative process [...] [which] a machine cannot touch" (gene Schiver, Ceo of machine-driven gLoBo Language Solutions, as quoted in katan 2014, 17).

transcreation in Journalism
"translation is not the job of the journalist", argues John Lloyd, a long-serving foreign correspondent to the Financial Times, and co-founder of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (Lloyd, July 15th, 2013, as quoted in filmer 2014, 136). although translation has been an integral part of journalism ever since, it is only in recent years that its importance became the focus of scholars (valdeón 2010). filmer (2014,136) argues that, as the boundary between journalist and translator us blurry (van Doorslaer 2012, 1050, as quoted in filmer, 2014, 136), and translation in news discourse is rather implicit (van Dijk 2009(van Dijk , 191-205, as quoted in filmer 2014, both lead to the invisibility of translation in the field of journalism (Schäffner 2008, 3). Similarly, federici (2011,1396) agrees that in analysing journalistic texts it is challenging to "distinguish translators from editors, page editors, and every 'writer' involved in the delivery of the news." This is the case because "producing a single news item often involves the integration of various text sources" (filmer 2014, 138), i.e., journalists turn to (inter)national coverage of the particular news, including some expert comments, and/or re-use information from earlier, related articles (van Doorslaer 2012). This 'cut and paste' approach, as filmer (2014, 138) calls it, renders the translation process in the news invisible. valdeón's (2010, 154) "news aggregator" is a journalist whose job consists of gathering news from different sources, and consequently producing a new piece in new, 'original', form. however, filmer (2014, 154) argues that the term "journalator" is yet not to become a thing.
In contrast, filmer's study (2014) of British correspondents to Italy demonstrates how journalists translate on their own, only rarely relying on their Italian colleagues, even though they almost exclusively did not go through any formal course in the language, translation, nor intercultural communication, as Lloyd suggested. "There is no great mystery", says The Times correspondent James Bone in an interview conducted for filmer's study (2014,146), proving the assumption journalists do not give much attention to a deeper understanding of foreign meanings, as "things are what they seem to be" (hannerz 1996, 120, as quoted in filmer 2014, 146). Bassnett (2006, 5-7) points out the fact that journalists do not have any formal training, yet regard themselves as "international journalists", whereas hernández guerrero (2007, 57, as quoted in valdeón 2010, 156) observes how for journalists translation is a "marginal and secondary" process, which Paterson sees as "paradoxical when online news has caused 'demystification and deprofessionalization' of journalism." to help in revealing and analysing the transcreation practices present in selected Serbian media, the subsequent section outlines the methodological approach used in the paper.

Methodology
for the purposes of the analysis, a corpus of 139 unique news articles in Serbian and english, amounting to approximately 40,000 words, was collected. The gathered data include 45 news stories and events, presented in at least two news pieces, by at least two distinct media, and in two different languages. Data collection took place from the beginning of february 2019 to the end of July 2019.
articles in Serbian add up to 90 articles in total: 45 news articles published by Blic and 45 pieces published by N1. In contrast, the corpus includes 49 news pieces in english: 18 published by AP and 31 by Reuters.
all articles in Serbian, published by Blic and N1, have their english counterpart(s) issued by either or both Reuters and AP. It is important to note that a number of article sets lack either aP's or reuters' pieces. This is due to several factors, of which the most common are: (i) news/ events were not reported by both agencies; (ii) news/events were discussed within an article piece that included a broader context, and thus this was not truly equivalent to the Serbian version; (iii) news/events were reported in a rather short article (two or three sentences long), rendering the piece ineffective for comparative analysis (predominantly present in AP).
articles for the corpus were first searched for on the Serbian online portals Blic and N1, upon which complementary articles in english were looked for on the AP and reuters web portals. The choice of articles to be included in the corpus was based on selecting news distant enough from Serbia to ensure that Serbian articles relied on foreign reporting, yet close enough to Serbia in terms of interest in the topic. as such, the corpus does not include news originating from Serbia or neighbouring countries whose languages are mutually intelligible (e.g., Bosnia and herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia); however, it does include a number of stories regarding russia, the USa, germany, the eU, etc., all of which are the great importance and interest to Serbian people. to ensure maximum compatibility, pieces in both Serbian and english had to be published on the same date. after a parallel corpus was fully compiled in the form of a Microsoft Word document, all Serbian-english pairs of articles were copied into separate tables, providing a side-by-side layout for comparison.
The analysis of the corpus involved both qualitative and quantitative methods. Since the corpus data consist of text only, qualitative analysis was preferred as it allowed for describing, interpreting, and contextualizing examples of transcreation found in articles published by Blic and N1.

factors in Media outlets Choice
regarding the selection of the analysed media outlets, the two Serbian news portals were selected due to their positions on different ends of the ideological and political spectrum (Đorđević 2020, 456). Blic, the portal owned by a german-Swiss media company, is one of the most popular and widely read newspapers in Serbia, both in print and digital. although considered essentially pro-government, with known practices of "expressing its political affiliation to the government" (Đorđević 2020, 465), Blic is still moderate when compared to some other Serbian media. It is neither overtly pro-Western, nor pro-russian, but rather adjusts its views to those of the government. It is also noteworthy that Blic is very much a tabloid newspaper, with frequent instances of loaded language, clickbait titles, and celebrity coverage, yet it still has elements of a broadsheet, such as an occasionally formalized journalistic approach to news coverage with in-depth news stories and analyses. N1, on the other hand, is Blic's polar opposite in its reporting of Serbia's internal affairs, being far more leftist, pro-Western, and objective in its reporting, and prone to express open criticism of the ruling party and the government (Đorđević 2020, 456). The news portal, which also has a cable tv channel, is CNN International's local broadcast partner and an affiliate, which is why the ruling party and pro-government media often dub it a "Western satellite" in Serbia.
Besides being the most-read media portals among the Serbian general public, Blic and N1 portals were chosen for this research due to their disparate reader bases (CeSID 2021; IreX 2018). Namely, according to CeSID's research (2021), N1 consumers tend to hold pro-Western views, identifying the eU and the US as their preference for life, education, work, and medical treatment, as well as considering the two as the biggest economies and Serbia's allies. In contrast, "Blic readers tended to declare themselves neutral in geopolitical terms", and see russia or China as Serbia's greatest allies (CeSID 2021).
analysing two entirely different media outlets and their potential transcreation practices is thus envisioned as a way to tap into the reasons for the use and effects of transcreation with regard to two disparate groups of Serbian people -those with pro-and anti-regime sentiments.
The two news agencies, Reuters and AP are selected for their integrity and factual, leastbiased reporting, as well as their global influence and positions as reliable news sources (ad fontes Media). Choosing these two agencies and their (more) neutral coverage enables easier identification of transcreation occurrences on the Blic and N1 online portals.
The reason why this paper does not analyse perhaps more suitable counterparts to Reuters and AP, such as Serbian news agencies tanjug and Beta, or foreign media similar to Blic and N1, is that the research was aimed at evaluating the transcreation practices in news pieces directly consumed by end-readers. Blic and N1 represent the choices of the majority of Serbian people as the favoured media to stay informed, whereas local news agencies are scarcely ever read by the general public. In addition, the accessibility of a myriad of media outlets via a single click and general familiarity with the english language have had detrimental effects on the vitality of local news agencies, as nowadays, journalists from Blic, N1, and all other news portals across the globe are able to share a news story to their audience directly from foreign media.
finally, the decision to retrieve articles from online portals of the four media lies in the fact that digital news sources have an advantage over print versions (of Blic at least, as N1, Reuters, and AP do not have print editions) for being up-to-date and more easily accessible to a wider readership.

The Analysis
transcreation has been identified, at varying degrees, throughout all 45 chosen news pieces from Blic and 17 articles published by N1. It is important to note that the quantity of transcreation found in the corpus was not expressed as the number of individual instances of transcreation in each article pair, as it is challenging to determine what a single transcreation occurrence is -e.g., is a complete alteration of news title an example of one transcreation instance, or several of them simultaneously?
In terms of findings, the methods of transcreation identified in articles published by Blic and N1 include lexical choices (such as occurrences of loaded language), shortening or lengthening, addition and/or omission of information, grammar alterations (including instances of focalizing, change in modality, etc.), examples of mistranslations, refocusing (changing a story's focus point), reframing (presenting a certain event, person, or idea differently on the level of the entire article, not only a segment), and so on.
Political news comprised the majority of the articles in the corpus, and this was found in diverse forms, encompassing everything from international summits and bilateral disputes, to articles that reported on the interweaving of politics and entertainment. In addition to politics, stories on religion, social issues, and sports were others that underwent transcreation, although there were significantly fewer articles concerning these issues.
russia and the US were expected to be the leading countries in stories that had been produced through the process of transcreation, considering stance Serbia's in-between these. although the results proved the lasting importance of russia and the US for Serbia, it was surprising that these two countries were matched by an unlikely competitor -france. however, upon closer observation of the political situation at the time the stories were collected, it became clear as to why france had such a strong presence in the Serbian media.
This was because of the public backlash in germany against the admission of migrants from the Middle east and africa, as well as angela Merkel leaving the position of Chancellor, leading to the declining power of germany in the eU, and europe more generally. france's President Macron thus emerged as the new leader of the eU, and taking into consideration Serbia's efforts towards becoming an eU member state, the growing interest of the media in the france was thus not unexpected. So, even though germany remains one of the most important countries for Serbia, politically as well as in terms of migration, its lessening influence in europe is definitely reflected in the two Serbian media examined in this study.
The subsequent sections discuss in more detail two examples of transcreation identified in articles published by Blic and N1 in comparison to their corresponding english versions issued by AP and Reuters. The first example analyses the set of articles on the suspension of the Intermediate-range Nuclear forces treaty between russia and the USa (henceforth, the INf treaty). The second set of news articles discusses one of the weekly rallies that took place as a part of the yellow vests series of protests in france.
The topic of INf treaty suspension is selected for analysis as the event involves russia and the USa, both of which Serbia strives to maintain strong political and economic relations with. as Serbia's foreign politics is well-known to look both east and West (konitzer 2010; Lopandić, 2020;rastović, 2018), analysing the portrayal of this event in Blic and N1 for transcreation practices may provide insights into each media's (and their target audiences) sentiments with regard to the two countries.
regarding the topic of yellow vests Protests, the event was chosen due to its equivalence to the anti-government protests, one of five Million, that took place in Serbia during a similar period as the rallies in france. as Serbia's protests were mainly discredited, or entirely overlooked, by the pro-government media, analysing the portrayal of french protests promised to offer some compelling findings.

The Suspension of the INf treaty between the USa and russia
The INf treaty regulating nuclear disarmament between the US and Soviet Union (now russia), was revoked in february 2019, after being in force for more than 30 years. In late 2018, President trump announced US withdrawal, which officially took effect on february 1, 2019. russia's response came a day after when its suspension of the treaty was also announced.
The analysed articles were taken from all four analysed media outlets, and published on february 2, 2019, the day russia made its suspension of the INf treaty official.
to begin with, the article titles in the stories from the agencies and Serbian portals (table 1) have sharply distinct focuses. While the titles of AP and Reuters focus on russia -perhaps somewhat expected considering the fact that the articles were published on the day of its treaty revocation -and seemingly put the responsibility on russia, Blic and N1, on the other hand, foreground the US perspective. an identical tone is kept throughout each article. only the articles from AP and Blic can be further analysed, as the piece in Reuters is only a few sentences long, and the coverage in N1 involves a nearly one-to-one translation from the AP. an interesting note regarding the article in N1 is that the only difference between the text from the AP and its translation by N1 is that the latter refocused the title to perhaps highlight that the USa initiated the INf treaty's suspension, without providing any indisputable evidence of a russian breach. The remainder of the similarity between N1 and AP may be attributed to the similarities in the two media's audiences and genres, as N1 is generally the choice of pro-Western Serbian readership (CeSID 2021).
Throughout its article Blic exclusively presents the US view of the matter, through State Secretary Pompeo's statements, only mentioning the russian response in the last sentence of the text. Blic portrays the US decision as legitimate and justified, by omitting some very important information that provides a bilateral and clearer picture of the issue. for instance, Blic says the US halted the treaty following a russian breach, as the article puts it (table 2). however, from the text by AP we learn that the US did not provide any evidence of a russian breach, a piece of information that is left out in Blic (see appendix). In the following excerpt from Blic (table 2), State Secretary Pompeo asserts russia's breach of the treaty.
Pompeo's accusations of a russian breach were left unanswered by russian officials in Blic, completely disregarding russia's viewpoint. In Blic, the russian perspective on the matter is mentioned only in the last sentence of the article, stating that "after the US decision, russia announced that it is no longer bound by the INf treaty." 2 to provide a more objective perspective, it would be necessary that Blic include additional statements by russian officials.
There are other significant pieces of information that are not mentioned in the Serbian text but have been referenced in AP (see appendix), as shown in table 3 and the following excerpts from the AP article.

AP
Moscow has strongly denied any breaches and accused Washington of making false accusations to justify its pullout. […] "We will respond quid pro quo," Putin said. "our american partners have announced they were suspending their participation in the treaty, and we will do the same. They have announced they will conduct research and development, and we will act accordingly." […] trump's move also reflected his administration's view that the pact was an obstacle to efforts needed to counter intermediate-range missiles deployed by China, which isn't part of the treaty. […] russia has rejected the U.S. claims of violation, charging that the missile, which is part of the Iskander-M missile system, has a maximum range of 480 kilometers (298 miles). russian officials claimed the U.S. assertions about the alleged breach of the pact by Moscow were intended to shift the blame for the pact's demise to russia. […] The russian Defense Ministry on Saturday released a satellite image of what it described as new production facilities at the U.S. missile maker raytheon's plant in tucson, arizona, noting that their expansion began in 2017 as the Congress authorized spending for the development of intermediate-range missiles.
Without these pieces of information, the article in Blic creates a one-side image of the issue, siding with the US, and confirming its view without any questioning. In contrast, the aP's coverage of both the american and russian sides offers a more objective and complete overview of the events. according to [Pompeo], the US did everything to save the treaty, but official Moscow still denies violating the treaty with its rocket system. russian actions, as the US Secretary of State says, jeopardize the US and they cannot allow being limited by the treaty while the other side is openly breaching it.
other reasons for the US withdrawal -for example, the nuclear advances of China, which was not a member of the INf treaty -and russia's denials of a breach, as well as evidence of US violation of the treaty, are all specified in the AP article. In Blic, however, there is no mention of any of these issues. The overall tone of the news piece on Blic is that US assertions are undeniably true, which is further supported by the lack of a russian answer to the american accusations. This creates an impression that the russians did not defend themselves -which could be interpreted as a sign they really are at fault.
By focusing the piece only on the US point of view, omitting russia's responses to US claims, and using Pompeo's statement filled with loaded language, Blic creates a significant reframing of the issue, in which russia is the guilty party, while the US does only what is necessary.

yellow vests Protests in france
on March 20, 2019, the french government announced its decision to deploy special military troops to maintain peace during the protest announced for the following weekendone of many that took place within the series of weekly yellow vests protests.
Reuters did not report on this particular story, so table 4 only includes article titles from Blic, N1 and AP. In addition, N1's article is nearly identical to the one published in AP. Therefore, the remainder of the analysis will focus on comparing articles from Blic and AP alone.

Media Title Translation
Blic graĐaNSkI rat U NaJavI francuska vojska za vikend izlazi na ulice zbog najavljenog protesta "Žutih prsluka" CIvIL War aheaD french army goes to the streets on the weekend because of the announced yellow vests protest

N1
Pojačanje za naredni protest Žutih prsluka -vojna antiteroristička jedinica Back up for the following yellow vests protest -a military counter-terrorism unit AP france to deploy troops to maintain security during protests -Choosing to use the phrase civil war in the title is certainly aiming to sensationalize the news piece, and attract the readers' attention. however, taking into consideration the target audience of Blic, it becomes clearer why the journalists opted for this particular phrase. for Serbian people, civil war is a phrase that carries a strong connotative meaning, reminding them of the decade-long conflicts between ex-yugoslav countries, fuelled by genocide, ethnic cleansing, and fights for independence. The death toll was around 150,000 people, almost half a million were displaced, and yugoslavia as a whole ceased to exist.
Therefore, claiming that a civil war will break out certainly sparks memories in the general public in Serbia, whose memory of the horrors of war is deeply instilled. So, using such strong examples of loaded language aims at readers' emotions, particularly those of fear, panic, hate, pain, loss, powerlessness, and so on. however, the question remains as to why journalists working for Blic would want to arouse these negative and painful emotions in their readers, and in relation to the violent conduct of french protesters. The answer lies in the events in Serbia, and the anti-government protests one of five Million, which were held around the same time as the yellow vests protests in france. here, in fact, reporting on french protests in the Serbian media served as a commentary on those at home. The excerpts in table 5 show how Blic transcreated the article to fit this purpose. 3 table 5. Comparison of excerpts from the AP and Blic on the topic of the yellow vests protests.
french troops will be deployed on Saturday, March 23 during the yellow vest protest and will guard public sites in case the violence in Paris and other cities repeats, the french government announced today.
AP french president emmanuel Macron has announced that soldiers will be deployed across the country to help maintain security during yellow vest protests planned this weekend. -
Last weekend, more than 5000 police officers did not manage to stop hundreds of violent protesters who were rampaging along the Champselysees, and robbed and set on fire more than 1000 firms. The violence lasted for more than seven hours, afP reports.

AP
The french government announced on Monday new security measures and a ban on yellow vest protests along the Champs-elysees avenue in Paris and in two other cities following riots on Saturday that left luxury stores ransacked and charred from arson fires.
-3 Blic referred to afP (agence france-Presse; a french international news agency) as their source, as the second excerpt states; however, the author was not able to retrieve the afP's original article at the time of the corpus collection, nor at a later date from afP's archives.
In comparison to the article from the AP, the one in Blic is quite openly against the participants of the protests, dubbing them violent and their activities a rampage. furthermore, the AP article clearly states that the protesters set out to attack upscale stores, highlighting the anticapitalistic aspect of the protests. Blic, on the other hand, suggests the protesters attacked any random firm they came across, belittling the protesters' cause. The entire article is filled with examples of loaded language, i.e., words and/or phrases which are used to "elicit strong emotional response from the reader or listener", 4 such as violent and rampage. extensive use of loaded language in this news piece by Blic presents the french protesters in a very bad light, as senseless, violent, destructive people, who will wake the spirits of the past and revive confusion, bloodshed, cruelty, suffering, and death in a "civil war". Blic's portrayal of french protesters as such can be understood as a reference to the Serbian ones, suggesting that both the motives and consequences of anti-government protests in france and Serbia are not much different.
The time references in the above-shown excerpts of the two articles differ considerably. The english text concentrates on the future, and the idea of the army preserving peace and order at the protest. Blic, on the other hand, focuses on past events, promoting the idea of brutality and chaos related to protests. Thus, the concept of the past is once again woven into the story of the protests, serving as another echo of the events of the 1990s in yugoslavia.
By condemning the french protests, Blic implicitly suggests to its readers that disapproving of the government equals brutality and leads to war, and that protesters are there to disturb the peace, halt progress, and restore enmity. as such the Serbian protests are criticized, although not even mentioned per se.

Conclusion
The analysis of the data presented in this study yields two significant findings: (i) Blic resorts to employing transcreation methods almost as a regular practice when adapting foreign news on topics relevant to Serbia; (ii) N1 employs transcreation practices moderately in comparison to Blic and these are generally focused on alterations of grammatical constructions and article titles, whereas the remainder of the stories are identical to those published by AP.
The latter finding, regarding N1, may be explained by the fact that N1 is a Western-owned media, with an audience identified as pro-eU/pro-Western, pro-opposition/anti-government (rendulić 2023; Cesid 2021), as discussed in section 3. The media's genre is such that it almost exclusively deals with formal topics, including politics, business news, social commentary, culture, sports, health, and so on, without tabloid-like stories and sensationalism. together, all these factors may significantly influence why the majority of articles in N1 are rather faithful translations of texts from AP -after all, both N1 and AP state they are focused on providing factual and unbiased news (Đorđević 2020, 456, ad fontes Media). It is thus expected that near identical news stories will fit the purposes and expectations of readers of both AP and N1.
The minimal employment of transcreation methods in articles published by N1 might be argued to be the result of an already present political bias in the news pieces by AP. While AP is regarded as one of the least biased media globally (ad fontes Media), it is hardly possible that any media in the world is completely devoid of (at least partial) inclination toward a political figure, regime, country, system, etc. It might thus be possible that N1 by and large copy-pastes the texts from AP because within them the desired sentiments and ideas are already interwoven, thus diminishing the need for additional interventions by N1 journalists.
Blic, on the other hand, resorts to transcreation frequently, at least when it comes to reporting on foreign events of importance to Serbia. The findings align with this media outlet's politics, which is neither pro-east nor pro-West, but rather pro-regime (Đorđević 2020, 456; vučić et al. 2022). The articles in Blic and the effects of transcreation employed in them correspond to Serbia's in-between political and economic position and aspirations towards both east (russia and China) and the West (the eU and USa). as with Serbia's foreign politics, Blic balances the two in ways to support the regime's needs and decisions, and it affects the audience's opinions and sentiments on certain issues, as the example of the french protests confirms.
The discussion regarding the desired aims behind the use of transcreation in Serbian news portals, especially Blic, yields somewhat incomplete answers, as it is impossible to know what the driving force for such alterations was, and primarily, who the decision-maker was in the creation of the news pieces, be they journalists, editors, editor-in-chief, and so on.
one clear reason for such changes, even without inside knowledge of the article-writing process, is modifying the way of presenting certain topics, individuals, and countries for the Serbian audience. all the issues presented are, to a greater or lesser degree, relevant for Serbia (or, perhaps better to say, its official politics), in terms of existing or planned business cooperation and economic investments, political relations and aspirations, analogous political and/or social events. The underlying motive for transcreation in Blic could unequivocally be to influence the general opinion, beliefs, and attitudes of the Serbian people towards those matters.
however, as was previously mentioned, all the issues which were found to be transcreated in Blic are affiliated or have some parallel with events in Serbia. Therefore, transcreation in Blic was not intended to affect only the Serbian perception of foreign affairs, but the understanding of and feelings on matters in Serbia as well. In terms of the limitations of this research and recommendations for future work, it should be pointed out that a wider range of Serbian media should be analysed in order to yield a more comprehensive overview of the media scene and its politics in this country. Comparing the potential presence, methods, and aims of transcreation in a variety of different types of portals in Serbia, such as news agencies, media entirely discussing politics, unashamed tabloids, and others, will certainly yield more exhaustive conclusions as to how, to whom, and why the media in Serbia resort to transcreating their articles. In addition, future research could focus on analysing the transcreation of a single topic/country/individual across media to perhaps provide a clearer image of differing sentiments on the issue, or focus on the comparison of identical media genres in both english and Serbian (e.g., only tabloids or only news agencies). finally, this paper presents the results of a small scale research, and a larger scale study into transcreation practices in Serbian media would certainly yield conclusions that would confirm or reject this paper's results. The media have been used for decades as a political tool, but the primary role of mass media, which was to inform and educate the general public, has been further redefined in recent years. Understanding the scope of transcreation in journalism is a question that undoubtedly calls for further research, considering the omnipresence and profound influence the media has in today's world.

AP: Russia to pull plug on nuclear arms pact after US does same
MoSCoW (AP) -following in the footsteps of the U.S., russia will abandon a centerpiece nuclear arms treaty but will only deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles if Washington does so, President vladimir Putin said Saturday.
President Donald trump accused Moscow on friday of violating the 1987 Intermediaterange Nuclear forces treaty with "impunity" by deploying banned missiles. trump said in a statement that the U.S. will "move forward" with developing its own military response options to russia's new land-based cruise missiles that could target Western europe.
Moscow has strongly denied any breaches and accused Washington of making false accusations in order to justify its pullout.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in explaining that Washington on Saturday formally suspended its treaty obligations, said in a statement that russia's "continued noncompliance has jeopardized the United States' supreme interests." he said the treaty will terminate in six months unless Moscow returns to "full and verifiable compliance." The collapse of the INf treaty has raised fears of a repeat of a Cold War showdown in the 1980s, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union both deployed intermediate-range missiles on the continent. Such weapons were seen as particularly destabilizing as they only take a few minutes to reach their targets, leaving no time for decision-makers and raising the likelihood of a global nuclear conflict over a false launch warning.
after the U.S. gave notice of its intention to withdraw, Putin said russia would do the same. he ordered the development of new land-based intermediate-range weapons, but emphasized that russia won't deploy them in the european part of the country or elsewhere unless the U.S. does so.
"We will respond quid pro quo," Putin said. "our american partners have announced they were suspending their participation in the treaty, and we will do the same. They have announced they will conduct research and development, and we will act accordingly." The U.S. has accused russia of developing and deploying a cruise missile that violates provisions of the pact that ban production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,410 miles). trump's move also reflected his administration's view that the pact was an obstacle to efforts needed to counter intermediate-range missiles deployed by China, which isn't part of the treaty. "The character and the timing of the works provide an irrefutable proof that the U.S. administration had decided to pull out of the INf treaty years before making unfounded claims of russian violations," it said.
Putin has argued it makes no sense for russia to deploy a ground-based cruise missile violating the treaty because it has such weapons on ships and aircraft, which aren't banned by the pact.
Speaking Saturday in a televised meeting with his foreign and defense ministers, Putin instructed the military to work on developing new land-based weapons that were previously forbidden by the INf treaty. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin that they would include a land-based version of the kalibr ship-based cruise missile and a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile.
Putin emphasized that such new weapons won't be deployed unless the U.S. does so.
"russia will not station intermediate-range weapons in europe or other regions until similar U.S. weapons appear in those regions," he said.
The russian leader said Moscow remains open to talks with Washington, but added it would be up to the U.S. to take the first step.
"Let's wait until our partners are mature enough to conduct an equal and substantive dialogue on those issues," he said.
at the same time, Putin told his ministers that he would like to review the progress on building other prospective weapons that don't fall under the INf treaty, including the intercontinental avangard hypersonic glide vehicle and the Poseidon underwater nuclearpowered drone.
he noted Shoigu's report that a key stage in testing of the Poseidon was completed several days ago. The drone is designed to carry a heavy nuclear weapon that could cause a devastating tsunami wave.
The russian leader last year unveiled an array of new nuclear weapons, including the avangard and the Poseidon, saying that they can't be intercepted. Putin also noted during Saturday's meeting that he would like the military to prepare a response to the possible deployment of weapons in space.
The Pentagon's new strategy unveiled last month calls for a new array of space-based sensors and other high-tech systems to more quickly detect and shoot down incoming missiles.
Putin instructed the military to make sure the research and development works on new weapons don't swell military spending. he said the military must reconfigure the existing defense budget to find money for the new weapons.

Reuters: Putin says Russia suspends INF nuclear deal with U.S.
MoSCoW, feb 2 (Reuters) -russian President vladimir Putin told a meeting with foreign and defence ministers on Saturday that russia has suspended the Cold War-era Intermediaterange Nuclear forces treaty following a similar decision by the United States, the kremlin said.
Putin also said that russia will start working on creating new missiles, including supersonic ones, and told ministers not to initiate disarmament talks with Washington.