RESEARCH BIH: Eroding Media Freedoms, Eroding Democracy

Significant changes in journalism and the media have been unfolding in Bosnia and Herzegovina(BiH), yet these shifts have not been accompanied by adequate policies or interventions.

This report outlines key trends affecting journalism, media usage, and democracy, highlighting issues crucial for the future of the profession:

  • The number of journalism students has significantly decreased over the past decade, a trend which could lead to a shortage of qualified professionals in the long run.
  • Although unemployment among journalists has declined in recent years, 2023 saw a considerable number of journalists lose their jobs due to the non-renewal of fixed-term contracts or being deemed surplus labour. Unionizing remains unpopular among journalists in the country and without protection mechanisms, journalism in BiH risks becoming even more unstable.
  • Reports of attacks and violations of journalists’ rights have increased in recent years, reflecting a decline in BiH’s rankings on media freedom indexes.
  • Despite rapid technological advancements, including the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, the media lack guidelines for their use or studies addressing potential abuses in the media.This absence of regulation and oversight increases the risk of misuse and potential harm.
  • While regulatory and self-regulatory mechanisms exist, they fail to tackle a core issue in the media: biased reporting, which risks becoming normalized in journalistic practices.
  • The digital era has brought a proliferation of media outlets, including new television channels. The growth of media outlets does not necessarily improve media pluralism, but could lead to smaller newsrooms, increased workloads of journalists and less quality journalistic content.
  • Print media has been on the decline, and the country’s major political weekly magazines have ceased publication.Without strategic interventions, print media operations will be difficult to sustain in the future.
  • Media ownership transparency remains unregulated further aggravating media capture. Media outlets are predominantly owned by companies or individuals with business interests beyond the media sector.
  • The advertising markethas grown slightly in recent years, likely influenced by inflation. However, it remains insufficient to support the growing number of media outlets, posing challenges to financial sustainability.
  • Television still dominates advertising revenue, but online media’s share is steadily increasing, signalling that digital marketing will become increasingly dominant in the coming years.
  • Public budgets and donor support remainimportant for sustaining media operations. Without proper regulation, financing from public budgets, however, bring risks to media independence.
  • Media primarily serve the interests of the three major ethnic groups, excluding minorities from decision-making roles and positions in mainstream outlets, limiting media pluralism.
  • In 2023, online media had a daily reach that was nearly on a par with television, showing that television is likely to lose its position as the most widely used information source
  • Facebook remains the most popular social network in BiH, followed by Instagram and YouTube, highlighting the strong influence and market dominance of Meta’s platforms
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina ranks at the bottom of the Media Literacy Index among European countries. Low levels of media and information literacy skills lead to increased vulnerability of its citizens to propaganda and disinformation and increased polarization.
  • The Democracy Index, Rule of Law Index, and Media Freedom Index have all been declining, with corruption remaining a pervasive issue.
  • Data on media and journalism is often difficult to access, and there is a significant lack of research studies to inform effective policy interventions.

Download the publication in English.

The regional program “Our Media: A civil society action to generate media literacy and activism, counter polarisation and promote dialogue” is implemented with the financial support of the European Union by partner organizations SEENPM, Albanian Media Institute, Mediacentar Sarajevo, Press Council of Kosovo, Montenegrin Media Institute, Macedonian Institute for Media, Novi Sad School of Journalism, Peace Institute and Bianet.

This article was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of SEENPM and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.