The Serbian Regime’s Struggle with the Student-Led Protests: Manipulating the Digital Public Sphere Through Traditional Media

Abstract

This article explores how the Serbian government has utilized traditional media to curb online information flows during the ongoing student-led protests. The author examines the key strategies and instruments of online discourse manipulation employed by the prototypical competitive authoritarian regime in Serbia through a hybrid media system analysis, framing theory, and qualitative critical discourse analysis. He examines and (re)classifies these strategies and instruments, demonstrating how the regime remains heavily reliant on traditional forms of media in its efforts to control the digital public sphere. The findings show that previously effective manipulation strategies, such as sociopolitical polarization, discourse misappropriation, attention diversion, and participation deterrence, are increasingly being challenged by innovative grassroots countermeasures. The tools used by the government – (dis)information framing, content hyperproduction, cherry picking, activity mimicking, targeted slandering, and synchronized astroturfing – are no longer as effective as they once were, prompting increased use of physical force as a means of suppressing protests.