Name and Surname
Aleksandra Krstić
Affiliation
Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade
Contact email
aleksandra.krstic@fpn.bg.ac.rs
Short Biography
Aleksandra Krstić is an Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism and Communication, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade. Her research interests are media and journalism studies, local media, visual communication and representation, media ethics, conflict reporting, media instrumentalization, and media democratization. She teaches various subjects in the field of media studies and journalism, such as TV journalism, investigative TV journalism, political journalism, digital journalism and multimedia production, visual representation of politics, specialized media reporting, media, culture and the European Union, media and journalism in a global context, at both undergraduate and graduate levels. She participates in national and international scientific research projects, manages the Center for Media and Media Research at the Faculty of Political Sciences. She is also the recipient of the award of the Đoka Vlajković Endowment of the University of Belgrade for the best scientific work in the field of humanities and social sciences for 2018. She published a book entitled Media, Journalism and the European Union in 2020 (University of Belgrade, Faculty of Political Sciences) and a number of articles in national and international scientific journals, including the European Journal of Communication, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Journalism, Problems of Post-Communism, and Europe-Asia Studies. Finally, she cooperates with non-governmental organizations, investigative journalist networks and journalist associations in order to raise the level of media freedom and safety of journalists in Serbia. She used to work as a TV journalist in the Mreža Production Group.
Research abstract
The research “Local Media as Agents of Change: the Impact of Local Journalism on Solving Social and Environmental Problems in Municipalities in Serbia” examines the importance of local media in Serbia for the realization of democracy and public interest in the context of increasing social, political and media polarization as well as the pressures and obstacles with which are faced by journalists in local communities. For greater influence of local media on solving important socio-political and environmental problems in local areas, the aspect of active participation of citizens in initiating and realizing journalistic stories is particularly important. However, local media have been in an unfavorable economic situation for years, financially weakened, with inadequate human and technological capacities, and in a fairly disordered market environment. Moreover, local media which critically report on political authorities face numerous restrictions in terms of their communication with local self-governments and access to information from public institutions which make it difficult for journalists to work. In this way, the influence of local media on local governments is visible only in the domain of solving minor communal and infrastructural problems, while in terms of improving the quality of life of citizens in the long-term, solving more demanding problems, changing annual plans and strategies or discovering abuses and corruption at the highest levels of power their influence remains practically invisible. In addition to identifying the main problems, obstacles and contributions of independent local media and civil society media in solving social and environmental problems in local communities in Serbia, this research also provides concrete recommendations regarding what needs to be done in order to remove the existing shortcomings as well as to strengthen and recognize local media as one of the main actors in the development of democracy and the realization of public interest at the local level.