Opinion makers
While blogs in Serbia were popular and lively places of discussion during the second half of the last decade and at the beginning of the 2010s, they are now most often platforms related to fashion, cooking, IT and marketing, usually with advertising deals. Public discussion of current issues now mostly moved to Twitter. On this social network, politicians, journalists, people from the public sphere and citizens exchange information and opinions and often participate in heated discussions about politics and other daily affairs.
Some of them have tens of thousands of followers, including journalists Slobodan Georgiev, Dusan Masic, Slavisa Lekic, Antonela Riha, Stevan Dojcinovic, Tibor Jona, and others. “Twitter is the hub of resistance to the regime of Vucic. Unfortunately, sometimes it seems to be the only place of resistance against the dilettantism of the government,” the head of Nezavisno drustvo novinara Srbije (the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia - NUNS), Slavisa Lekic, told Balkan Insight in December 2017. Every day since June 2016, journalist Ana Novakovic posts a question addressed to the former Prime Minister and now President Aleksandar Vucic, asking him who is behind the demolition of Savamala, a part of an old Belgrade district that was brought to ruins in the night after the 2016 Parliamentary elections under murky circumstances, for the sake of the controversial project Belgrade Waterfront.
Since 2010 portal Njuz.net takes a satirical stance on Serbian politics and has constant popularity. Their Facebook page has over 215,000 likes. Its team members are also behind acclaimed satirical TV program 24 minuta sa Zoranom Kesicem (24 minutes with Zoran Kesic) and are individually popular and influential on social networks.
Supporters of the political authorities also have their following and influence public discourse. Such is the case with former pop star and marketing specialist Nebojsa Krstic or TV host and politician Vladimir Djukanovic.