Extensive online media monitoring ahead of the June 2020 Serbian parliamentary elections exposed an overwhelming imbalance in media coverage of political actors. Government officials received significantly more netural to positive coverage by monitored media, while opposition figures were marginalized and when covered the prevailing tone was negative.
President Aleksandar Vučić was by far the most frequent and most positive actor presented in the media, multiple times more so then the next most frequent - Prime Minister Ana Brnabić.
While the majority of monitored articles were neutral, monitoring findings demonstrated a substantial lack of contentious topics. Most notable was the lack of coverage of contentious topics during the state of emergency that following the initial Covid-19 outbreak in Serbia.
Online media did little to encourage informed debate ahead of the elections. Rather than asking questions media largely turned to promoting and amplifying government messages and retaliation against dissenting or critical voices. For the complete study download the document attached.