28. 10. 2011

Project “Serbia 2011 – Report on media situation based on Council of Europe's Indicators for Media in a Democracy”

What is the media situation in Serbia in 2011, how far or close we are from the European standards in the field of freedom of expression and information and media freedom, what are the most important problems in the media sector and shortcomings of media legislation and practice, what are the priorities to improve the media situation - these are some of the questions that ANEM, in cooperation with its partners from the media sector, will strive to find the answers to through this project, using a list of 27 Indicators of the Council of Europe for media in a democracy[1]. It will serve as a suitable basis for the analysis of the media situation in Serbia, as it contains a wide range of media and journalistic freedoms guaranteed or promoted by other Council of Europe standard-setting texts. ANEM partners in implementation of this project are the media and journalists' associations, IJAS (NUNS), IJAV (NDNV) and Local Press, together with Research Associate at the Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade, Jovanka Matic, PhD, as the research team leader, as well as legal expert team of ANEM (law office "Zivkovic & Samardzic", from Belgrade) and Local Press (law office Dragan Lazarevic, from Kragujevac). The project is realized with the financial support of the Civil Rights Defenders.

The main project activities are comprehensive research and analysis of various aspects of the functioning of media and working conditions for journalists, the media regulatory framework and practices and media environment. The research is conducted by using different methods - collecting the data from existing available sources, conducting surveys among representatives of different groups (media owners, editors, representatives of political parties, representatives of minority media, etc.), in-depth interviews with relevant interlocutors in the media sector, government and competent authorities, the analysis of the existing media legal framework and its application in practice, with analysis of its compatibility with the Council of Europe standards arising from Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. All collected and processed data will be professionally analyzed and evaluated in accordance with the aforementioned Indicators of the Council of Europe, while the results of the analysis will serve as a basis for drafting the Report on the media situation in Serbia. It will include the findings and expert opinion on the degree of achievement and respect for media and journalistic freedoms, for each of the 27 CoE's Indicators for media in a democracy, as basic principles - the European standards in the area of freedom of expression. The Report will be available to public in electronic form on the websites of associations, as well as in print version, in the form of the Publication, to be distributed to the relevant authorities and institutions, national and international organizations, media and other interested parties. In order to promote this Report and Publication, a round table will be organized, with participation of representatives of competent authorities, media, journalists, experts, international and donor community and other stakeholders. The round table will also serve to discuss the results, findings and conclusions of the Report.

With this project, ANEM and its partners want to contribute to improving of the media situation in Serbia. Specifically, the Report, resulting from the prior comprehensive research and analysis of the media situation in Serbia, will represent not only a basis for understanding the current situation in the media sector, but also for facilitating the identification of shortcomings of media legislation and practice, thus enabling decision- makers, authorities, the media sector and other stakeholders to define and take appropriate measures to remedy them. In addition, the Report will contribute to focusing the attention of the public and all relevant social actors to the problems in the exercising media and journalistic freedoms, as well as the importance of implementation of European standards and values ​​in the field of media policy, which assume that freedom of expression is an essential requirement of democracy. Also, this project will serve to create a model for future implementation of the regular annual analysis and evaluation of the media situation in Serbia. Finally, work on a project like this is important for the media associations to strengthen their capacity to monitor, assess and analyze the media situation and thus better meet the challenges faced by media sector, but also to increase their visibility and impact on the overall development of the media sector.

[1] Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) adopted on 3 October 2008 the Resolution 1636 (2008) and Recommendation 1848 (2008), commonly named as "Indicators for media in a democracy", which are based on the same report. Indicators are presented in the first ANEM Monitoring Publication.