In the state of emergency, the regime is absolutely dominant on televisions with national coverage
Members of the ruling majority dominated the contents of programmes of television stations with national frequencies and occupied 91 percent of time dedicated to political entities in the extended prime-time on: RTS 1, Prva, Pink, Happy and B92 – as shown in the findings of the media monitoring performed by the CTRA in the period from the state of emergency proclamation on March 15th until its revocation on May 6th.
Of the 9 percent of media time devoted to the opposition, five percent went to parties that are boycotting the elections, and four percent to those that will participate in the elections. Reporting on the regime was mostly positive or neutral, on the opposition boycotting the elections mostly negative, and the opposition that announced its participation in the elections – neutral.
During the state of emergency, the CRTA recorded 9 special addresses by the government representatives broadcast on all televisions with national frequencies, which remarkably contributed to the significant presence of the authorities in television programmes. The President of Serbia participated in those addresses 7 times, and the Prime Minister 3 times.
In the aforesaid period, the CRTA performed monitoring of social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), comprising 378 official profiles of media, political parties, politicians, citizens’ associations and public figures.
On media profiles on social networks, the opposition was collectively mentioned more than the ruling majority. However, analysing individually, the Serbian Progressive Party, i.e. its members, were most often mentioned. On the media profiles, 9 out of 10 most frequently mentioned actors were representatives of the ruling majority, while Aleksandar Vučić was referred to in more than 40 percent of the total number of posts.
There were four times more activities on social networks on the profiles of opposition actors than on the pages of members of the ruling majority. An average of 900 posts were published per week on a total of 96 profiles of opposition leaders, and an average of 200 posts were posted on the same number of profiles of politicians of the ruling parties.
Coronavirus, health and economics were the dominant topics in posts published by both the ruling and opposition parties and actors. Moreover, the opposition dealt with elections and civil right issues in the state of emergency. The CRTA will soon publish a complete analysis of the behaviour of political actors on social networks and of posts on media profiles in the period from the beginning until the end of the state of emergency.
