UNESCO - Stakeholders

UNESCO is the UN specialized agency with the mandate to promote "the free flow of ideas by word and image", and to nurture freedom of expression, media development, and access to information. It provides governments with technical advice on legal, regulatory, policy and other critical issues, and educates and builds capacities of journalists, media professionals and institutions.

UNESCO has a long-standing experience of promoting freedom of expression and media development in transitional countries, particularly in South East Europe and Turkey. In this respect, UNESCO contributed to the Guidelines for EU support to media freedom and integrity in enlargement countries 2014-2020.

From 2009 until 2011, UNESCO implemented the project "Alignment to International Standards in the Media Sector of South East European countries". From 2013 to 2015, a second project was implemented under the title "Media Accountability in South East Europe". In January 2016, the project "Building Trust in Media in South East Europe and Turkey " was launched, with the aim of supporting media accountability mechanisms, internal governance of media entities and media and information literacy in EU candidate and potential candidate countries with financial support of the European Commission, DG Near. 

Online Media Autonomy: Security Risks and Protection Mechanisms. Walking on the Digital Edge - Reports

The Guide “Online Media Autonomy: Security Risks and Protection Mechanisms. Walking on the Digital Edge” by Share Foundation assesses the conditions of online media and journalists in the Serbian digital environment

Media reform stalled in the slow lane. Soft censorship in Serbia - Reports

The document released by WAN-IFRA in collaoration with BIRN as part of the project on soft censorship around the world, reports on Soft Censorship practices and its effects on media liberty in Serbia

Report by the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights following his visit to Serbia - Reports

This report by Nils Muižnieks, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe (CoE), following his visit to Serbia from 16 to 20 March 2015, assesses the state of human rights in Serbia, devoting attention to media freedom in the country. Among the issues raised by the Commisioner there is the importance of the ongoing process of privatization, the recurrence of attacks against journalists and the lack transparency in media funding

Characterizing Information Diets of Social Media Users - Academic Sources

The authors of this paper examined the topical composition “information diet” of Twitter users

Freedom House – Serbia Country report 2015 - Reports

Freedom House yearly report on press freedom in Serbia provides a synthetic overview of media freedom in the country during 2014, highlighting main trends and developments

Report on Ownership Structure and Control over Media in Serbia - Reports

The Anti-Corruption Council of the Serbian Government has analyzed the media ownership structure and the most significant models of control over media in the period 2011-2014

Countering Online Hate Speech - Manuals

A study by UNESCO, presenting ways to tackle online hate speech through strategies put in practice by different actors.

Protection of media freedom in Europe - Reports

This 2015 report on media freedom shades light on the deterioration of the safety of journalists and media freedom in Europe

Monitoring Media Pluralism in Europe: Testing and Implementation of the Media Pluralism Monitor 2014 - Reports

The Monitoring Media Pluralism 2014 is a measurement tool updating and testing previous monitoring tools, designed to assess the risks to media pluralism in EU member states