dc.description.abstract | The aim of this paper is to sketch a brief history of complex digital transformation of
media and journalism in the context of Serbia, a European country which has undergone
politically turbulent transition from authoritarian to democratic rule over the past
20 years. Despite the long process of the EU integration, the country has been recently
downgraded to a partly free hybrid regime with rapid decline of press freedom, high
political and media polarization and raising political and economic instrumentalization of
media. Against this background, the paper problematizes how the main structural
transformations of the media environment, such as the transition from state to public
broadcasting, the introduction of new media laws and the lengthy process of media
privatization intersected and influenced different phases and outcomes of the digital
transformation of journalism and news media in the country. Unlike the digital journalism
development in established democracies of the West, the real systemic change and
adaptation of Serbia’s media market to easy-to-use technologies, newsrooms convergence,
profitable content and participatory journalism has been largely limited and
overpowered by the interplay between the state and the media over the past two
decades. | sr |