Serbia: Media Monitoring of Public Service Broadcasters 2015/2016

The new Law on Public Service Broadcasting (2014) requires that the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) and Radio Television of Vojvodina (RTV), as the media established by citizens, funded by citizens and controlled by citizens, realize public interest through their informative, educational and entertainment programming.  As of the beginning of 2016, with the support of the Open Society Foundation, Novi Sad School of Journalism, a SEENPM member, began monitoring the content of these two public service broadcasters.

The aim of this project which will last until the end of September of 2016 is to determine how and to what extent Radio Television of Vojvodina and Radio Television Serbia are realizing public interest defined by the Law. In addition, it will be determined to what extent the public service broadcasters are fulfilling their legal obligation to meet the needs of socially vulnerable groups in informing all sections of society without discrimination. Also, the aim of the monitoring is to establish to what extent the two broadcasters are realizing their legal principles of operation, such as the independence of editorial policy and other principles of independence in relation to the economic and political power centres.

TV and radio programs of RTS and RTV in Serbian and languages of national minorities will be analysed. Trained team of monitors will use a method of quantitative content analysis and critical analysis of media discourse for the analysis. Research results will be publicly presented.

During the course of this project meetings with management representatives, research centres and the editorial teams of public service broadcasters will be organized in order to improve the achievement of programming functions in accordance with the Law.NNS_engl