In many ways, the government is trying to stand in the way of professional media before the general elections in Serbia. What would the campaign look like if they succeeded? Can citizens rely only on social networks?
The long-standing struggle to "images" and silenced by United Group media, also numerous "slap" lawsuits against professional media, financial extortion and failure to answer questions, stamping of pro-regime portals on premises, but also openly calling out the media that report independently from the regime - these "efforts" of the regime could only be avoided. Experts believe that the situation will only culminate before the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in the country.
"With all the praise to the media, who do their job professionally and who try to deliver the necessary information to the citizens, we constantly have a very limited possibility of information," says Professor Rade Veljanovski of the Faculty of Political Sciences for "Vreme". "I'm afraid that the government's attitude towards them will only further escalate as the elections approach, when informing citizens is actually the most important thing."
Media expert Bojan Cvejić tells "Vreme" that Serbia has more than 2.300 registered media at the moment, which is too many for a country this size of Serbia, which creates a chaotic scene.
"There are enough professional media in Serbia, especially local media that play a significant role in reporting stand out for their quality and high standards," he thinks. "To that should be added the situation where government representatives satanize, discredit and target professional and critical media and send a message to a part of the public that they are media that are foreign mercenaries, traitors, those who hate their country."
Veljanovski believes that it would be disastrous to lose the existing media as well, because they are also dominated by the regime media, while Cvejić says that these regime media "spread propaganda, do not respect professional and ethical standards and destroy people's lives, so these professional and somewhat professional are invisible in that sea of media that cannot be called media in the true sense of the word."
"Regime and non-professional media are much more accessible to citizens, and it is known that media literacy in Serbia is at a low level, so part of the audience cannot critically observe their content," thinks Cvejić. "And of course, the problem is that we don't have a public service in the true sense of the word, which should be an example of objectivity and impartiality, which we cannot say in the case of our RTS."
"Vreme" has written several times about the wave of portals opening in Serbia. Local media are only springing up before the elections, and they have in common that they have the same company, the same editor, the same day of registration.
Novi Sad company Zaple Media Group founded at least 11 new local ones portal, with the same editor-in-chief and without the aforementioned imprint.
Informatization of Western Serbia: How the regime manipulates the local media for the elections
During the student protests, many were informed partly on social networks and thus followed the details of the struggle on the streets. Despite the fact that social networks are a modern way of communication, Veljanovski says that they can contribute, but that they are forms of communication that escape regulation and are often not reliable.
"It is very important to understand that Serbia has extremely strong organizations and institutions with the potential for destruction, and that they also use social networks for this. The regime has entire organizations of people who deal with communication on the networks, everyone knows the bots that are employed in social enterprises, and actually do work for the party during working hours."
Bojan Cvejić thinks that they are critically oriented citizens who are aware of the importance of professional media that offer the public a different and more realistic picture of reality than the pro-regime ones.
"And it is mostly a combination of traditional media, portals and social networks and there are no rules," he adds. "Social networks are not enough for quality information of citizens, because it is necessary for media professionals to shape the information and put it in the appropriate context. They are a good source of information if you first make a list of media, organizations and individuals that you trust and that you will follow through those platforms, and if you are aware enough to be able to recognize fake news and filter out real information, which unfortunately many people do not know how to sufficiently, and education is necessary."
Social networks can only be the "first hand" in informing, but it is necessary to check and supplement such information through traditional media that do their work in accordance with all professional and ethical standards of journalism, adds Cvejić.
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