Journalism and media industry in Serbia: Challenges and answers

Abstract

This article provides a general overview and reflects upon major findings of the research project 'Profession at the Crossroads - Journalism at the Threshold of the Information Society'. The two year project was conducted through two consecutive phases: the first phase (2010-2011) focused upon occupational professionalism and the journalistic community in Serbia. Its main goal was to investigate social, economic and technological characteristics of journalists and their capacity to respond to profound challenges posed by global transformations and internal transitional process. Research results indicated a need to broaden the investigation into the institutional aspects of professionalism. Therefore, the focus of the second phase (2011-2012) was on the organizational setting of journalism guided by the main research question: How leading media outlets provide for a working environment to accommodate necessary professional development induced by profound technological challenges. Building upon survey results from the first year, and institutional analysis of the media system, the second year research introduced qualitative methodology. The major data gathering method was semi-structured indepth interview with 30 media owners (for private media outlets) and top mangers (for public or state owned media). The goal was to identify how those outlets negotiate between adaptive needs, elements of the existing structures and resources available to them. A classification scheme was developed to differentiate between media in regard to five indicators: (1) level of technology development (2) available professional recourses (3) economic strength (4) introduction of network journalism and (5) attitude towards the role of the state in the media sector. Although results generated by qualitative methodology can only be regarded as broad generalizations, diversity of outlets analyzed and richness of the interview material allowed to classify media into five basic groups: public broadcasters, state owned printed press, media/technological leaders, media missionaries and survivors with scarce resources. The article concludes that while the state/publicly owned media secure economic position enables them to focus more on quality journalism, private/commercial media are more diverse and innovative in developing business strategies in response to changes in journalism.