Pravni režim elektronskih medija u pravnom poretku Republike Srbije

Abstract

Different legal regimes of public information in the Republic of Serbia and the differences between the existing media have not been sufficiently analyzed in legal literature. From the positive law perspective, media differ by the legal regime of their structural organisation, activities and control, as well as by public information activities they perform. The media are subjects of a territorial community which have a duty to communicate their program content in an objective, impartial and truthful manner. Consequently, all media (both commercial and non-commercial ones) primarily serve general and public interests. The only difference is the content of public interest in individual media. In the order of a legal state (Rechtsstaat), the greatest impact is attributed to electronic media, especially television stations with state-wide (national) coverage as media aimed at accomplishing special goals in the field of public information. TV stations with national coverage primarily aim to accomplish general interests. They are bound by the special content of the public interest and, thus, they have a significantly wider scope of duties than other televisions. Unfortunately, the current circumstances in the field of public information in the Republic of Serbia prove otherwise.