Introduction
Digital platforms and social networks have changed journalism much more deeply than could be concluded solely on the basis of the fact that news is now published on the internet. The way in which a journalist obtains information has changed, the way in which they choose what is important, the way in which the audience reaches the news, but also the relationship between professional journalists and citizens themselves. At one time, the newsroom largely decided which information would reach the public. Today, information can originate outside the newsroom, spread through social networks within a few minutes, and only after that become the subject of professional journalistic reporting.
For this reason, I believe that the question of the influence of social networks on journalism should not be viewed only through a simple division into “good” and “bad” consequences. Social networks have indeed made faster information possible and opened space for voices that previously did not easily reach the public, but at the same time they have weakened traditional control over the flow of information. The problem is that speed and the availability of information are not the same thing as its accuracy.
This problem is particularly pronounced in Serbia. According to a 2025 Reuters Institute study, 67% of respondents in Serbia used social networks to follow the news, which placed Serbia first among the European markets covered by that research. Among young people aged 18 to 24, social networks play an even greater role: almost half use TikTok to follow the news, while a similar percentage used Instagram for that purpose. At the same time, trust in the news in Serbia was only 27%.[1]
These two pieces of data are important when observing the position of contemporary journalism in Serbia. Citizens increasingly use social networks to get information, but at the same time they have relatively little trust in the media. Therefore, the question arises whether social networks represent merely a new channel for the distribution of journalistic content or whether they have changed the very nature of journalism.
In this paper, I will try to show that the answer is more complex. Social networks have not simply “replaced” traditional media. It is more likely that they have created a hybrid media space in which television, portals, journalists, citizens, influencers, and the platforms themselves influence one another. This can be seen especially clearly in the case of the student protests in Serbia that began after the tragedy in Novi Sad on November 1, 2024.
From Traditional Gatekeeping to the Digital Environment
In the traditional model of journalism, the newsroom had a very important role in deciding which information would become public. Editors and journalists chose topics, verified sources, and determined the order and significance of information. In journalism theory, this process is often described by the term “gatekeeping,” that is, control over the passage of information through certain “gates” toward the audience.
The digital environment has seriously changed that model. Today, information does not have to pass first through a journalistic newsroom in order to become publicly available. A citizen who is at the scene of an event can publish a photo or video on Instagram, TikTok, or X. Other users can share, comment on, and spread that content. Only after that can the newsroom react and begin verifying what happened.
Axel Bruns connects this change with the concept of “gatewatching.” Instead of journalists being the only ones who decide what will pass through the “gates” toward the audience, a large number of users begin to monitor, select, and forward information they consider significant.[2] Bruns therefore believes that social networks create a networked environment in which professional journalists are no longer the only intermediaries of information.
In my opinion, this does not mean that gatekeeping has completely disappeared. It has only shifted. Previously, an editor decided whether a certain piece of information would be published, while today part of that decision is practically taken over by platform algorithms, users, and their mutual interaction. In other words, the question is no longer only “Will the journalist publish this news item?” but also “Will the algorithm enable a large number of people to see that news item?” This is a very important change because the quality of information and its visibility are no longer necessarily the same thing.
Social Networks and the Change in Journalistic Work
One of the biggest changes that social networks have brought is speed. Today, a journalist can receive information several seconds after an event occurs. Photos, recordings, and statements can appear on the internet before a news crew arrives at the scene. At first glance, this represents great progress. However, speed at the same time increases the risk of error.
Alfred Hermida points out that social networks change the traditional understanding of journalistic verification. In the classical model, the journalist had a relatively clear role as the person who gathers information, verifies it, and then presents it to the audience. In the digital environment, the verification process can become collective and take place practically in front of the public.[3]
This can be explained with a simple example. If a recording of an alleged event appears on social networks, today a journalist cannot simply take it and publish it. It is necessary to verify when the recording was made, where it was made, who made it, whether it was previously published, and whether it shows the event being described.
Here one of the important changes in the journalist’s role can be seen. Previously, the journalist was often the first to bring information. Today, the journalist is often not the first, but they should be the one who can explain whether the information is accurate and what it actually means. I believe that this is precisely where professional journalism still has its greatest value.
If a citizen can publish a video within a few seconds, a professional journalist does not make much sense if they merely repeat the same video. Their value lies in determining the origin of the recording, finding other sources, contacting the actors in the event, verifying facts, and placing the event in context. For this reason, digitalization has not necessarily reduced the need for journalists. I would rather say that it has changed the reason why they are needed.
Who Determines Today What Is News?
In the traditional media system, the editor had great power. They decided what would be on the front page of the newspaper, which news item would be first in the evening news, and how much space a certain topic would receive. Today, that function is no longer performed only by editors.
Philip M. Napoli warns of the emergence of “algorithmic gatekeeping,” that is, a situation in which platform algorithms participate in determining which information a user sees. In his interpretation, social platforms have taken over some functions that previously belonged to journalists and editors.[4]
The problem is that the algorithm does not necessarily ask the question “Which information is most important for the public?” It is more interested in what will provoke a reaction from users. A click, video view, comment, share, or longer stay on a content can influence its visibility.
This can lead to a paradox: the most important news item does not have to be the most visible news item. For example, a serious article about economic reforms may be socially more significant than a short video of a famous person, but if the other content provokes many more reactions, the platform can distribute it much more intensively.
Here the question arises whether digital platforms are actually changing the criteria by which society decides what is important. Journalism traditionally speaks of the public interest, social importance, the consequences of events, and the relevance of sources. Social networks, however, often function according to the logic of attention. This is one of the greatest dangers of digital journalism.
Journalism in a Hybrid Media System
It would be wrong to conclude that social networks have completely replaced television, radio, and newspapers. Andrew Chadwick develops the concept of the “hybrid media system.” According to his approach, older and newer media do not function completely separately, but adapt to each other and use each other.[5]
This can be seen very well in Serbia. For example, a television program can broadcast a politician’s statement. A portal then publishes a text about that statement. That text is published on Instagram. Users then comment on the post, some make a TikTok video, and the next day television can report on the reactions on social networks.
Therefore, information no longer travels in only one direction:
television → audience
It can go:
television → portal → Instagram → TikTok → audience → comments → new journalistic text → television
For this reason, I believe that the notion of the “disappearance of traditional media” is too simplistic. Traditional and new media increasingly function together.
Serbia – Why Is the Situation Specific?
The influence of social networks cannot be understood without the context in which the media operate. Aleksandra Krstić, in her work on the digital transformation of journalism in Serbia, warns that digital transformation was not merely a technological change. It was connected with the political, economic, and institutional circumstances in which the media operated.[6]
This is very important because it would be wrong to assume that the same technology will have an identical effect in all countries. If in a certain country there is high trust in the media and strong professional institutions, social networks can primarily represent an additional channel of communication. If trust in the media is low and political polarization is high, social networks can have a much stronger role.
According to the Reuters Institute, overall trust in the news in Serbia was 27%, while 58% of respondents expressed concern about the possibility that on the internet they cannot easily distinguish accurate from inaccurate information.[7] At the same time, Serbia is characterized by very high use of social networks for news.
This combination is interesting: citizens trust social networks relatively much as a place where they can find information, but at the same time there is a high level of concern about disinformation. In my opinion, this means that social networks in Serbia have a dual function. They are at the same time an alternative to traditional media, but also a space in which the problem of unreliable information can be further increased.
Case Study: Student Protests in Serbia 2024/25
The best way to see the real influence of social networks is to analyze a concrete event. For this reason, I take as a case study the student protests that began after the collapse of the canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad on November 1, 2024.
The tragedy caused great public dissatisfaction, and from November 2024 students began organizing protests and faculty blockades. Over the following months, the protests grew into one of the largest social movements in contemporary Serbia.
In its 2025 report for Serbia, the Reuters Institute specifically notes that social networks played a significant role in the ongoing crisis, because student activists used them to spread uncensored information and mobilize citizens.[8] This example is very significant because it shows that social networks were not only a channel for transmitting journalistic texts. They became the infrastructure of the social event itself.
Through social networks, students were able to publish information about blockades, gathering times, protest locations, demands, and changes in organization. This enabled very rapid spread of information. In the traditional media system, an organizer would have to send a statement to the media, journalists would decide whether the information was relevant, and it would then appear in a program or text. On social networks, that process is much shorter: information can be published directly to the audience.
This is precisely where Bruns’s idea of gatewatching can be seen: citizens are no longer merely an audience waiting for professional media to publish something, but themselves participate in the selection, spread, and commenting on information.[9] However, this model also has a serious problem. If information spreads directly from user to user, who is responsible for its accuracy?
If a media outlet publishes inaccurate information, there is journalistic and institutional responsibility. With an anonymous account on a social network, that responsibility can be much smaller. For this reason, the speed of social networks should not be equated with the quality of information.
What Happens When Traditional Media and Social Networks Come Into Conflict?
The student protests show another important thing: traditional media and social networks do not have to represent the same versions of an event. In its analysis of Serbia in 2025, the Reuters Institute pointed to high political control and polarization of the media space, while social networks enabled young people access to other kinds of information.[10]
In such a situation, a user can see on the same day:
- a television report about the protest;
- a video by a protest participant on TikTok;
- an influencer’s comment on Instagram;
- a text from an independent portal;
- a politician’s post on a social network.
Each of these contents can represent a different interpretation of the same event. Here the problem of audience fragmentation appears. Two people can follow the same event while practically receiving completely different information because they use different platforms and sources.
This is especially dangerous in political crises. If a user follows only sources that confirm their existing position, social networks can contribute to closure within an information bubble. However, it would be too simplistic to say that only algorithms are to blame for this. Users themselves choose whom to follow, what to share, and what to react to. Therefore, I believe that responsibility is not only on the platforms. There is the responsibility of the platforms, the responsibility of the media, but also the responsibility of the audience.
Speed and Accuracy – the Main Conflict of Digital Journalism
One of the biggest problems of contemporary journalism is the pressure to be first. In traditional media, there was more time between an event and publication. Today, journalists are expected to publish news almost immediately. This creates a situation in which a journalist must choose between two values: speed and accuracy.
The problem arises when speed becomes more important than accuracy. If one portal publishes unconfirmed information, other media can take it over, and social networks can then spread it to thousands of users. A later correction does not have to have the same reach.
For this reason, perhaps one of the greatest paradoxes of digital journalism is that technology makes it possible to correct an error faster than ever, but at the same time makes it possible for the error to reach an enormous number of people before correction. This is directly connected with Hermida’s understanding of verification. In a networked environment, journalism increasingly becomes a process in which information is verified, supplemented, and corrected through the interaction of a larger number of actors.[11]
In my opinion, this does not mean that journalism should be slowed down to the point where it loses out to social networks. The solution is rather to clearly distinguish between the speed of publication and the degree of certainty of information. If information is not confirmed, this should be clearly stated.
The Economic Influence of Social Networks
Digital transformation has changed not only journalistic work but also the business model of the media. Traditional media long depended on newspaper sales, television advertising, and other classical sources of revenue. The digital market has increased competition for the audience’s attention.
The Reuters Institute states that the Serbian media market is very saturated and that the number of registered media is very large in relation to the size of the market. At the same time, digital advertising occupies an increasing share of the market.[12] This creates additional pressure on newsrooms.
If revenue depends on site visits, there is a strong incentive to produce content that attracts clicks. This is where “clickbait” emerges. A headline no longer has to be formulated only to accurately describe an event, but also to provoke curiosity.
For example:
“Students held a protest in Belgrade”
may attract less attention than:
“NO ONE EXPECTED THIS: Look at what happened at the protest.”
The second headline may get more clicks, but that does not mean it provides better information. Here I see one of the greatest dangers of the digital business model: what is most profitable is not always what is most useful for the public.
Are Social Networks Bad for Journalism?
After all that has been said, it would be easy to conclude that social networks mainly harm journalism. I do not think such a conclusion would be justified. There are situations in which social networks enable information to reach the public precisely when traditional channels cannot do so quickly enough.
The case study of the student protests shows this well. The Reuters Institute states that social networks were particularly significant for students, who used them for organizing, mobilization, and spreading information.[13] This means that social networks can have a democratic function.
A citizen no longer has to wait for television to decide whether their problem is important enough to be shown. They can publish a recording themselves, find people with a similar problem, organize an action, and attract the attention of journalists.
However, democratic potential does not automatically mean a democratic result. The same system that enables an individual’s voice to be heard also enables the spread of manipulation, false information, and political propaganda. Therefore, social networks in themselves are neither democratic nor undemocratic. They are infrastructure. Their social effect depends on who uses them, how they use them, how the algorithms are set, and what kind of political and media system they function in.
Discussion – Where Is the True Value of a Journalist Today?
On the basis of the analyzed literature and examples from Serbia, I believe that the role of journalists has not decreased as much as it has changed. Previously, the main advantage of a professional journalist was access to information. Today, a large number of citizens have access to information. Previously, a journalist could be the first to announce something. Today, that can be anyone with a mobile phone.
For this reason, professional journalism must offer something more. I see that “more” in four things:
- fact-checking;
- context;
- responsibility;
- the ability to make a meaningful story out of a large number of information items.
Social networks can show what happened. A journalist should explain why it happened, who is responsible, what different sides say, and what consequences the event has.
This is precisely why I do not think the future of journalism lies in competing with TikTok over who will publish a video first. A journalist who tries to beat social networks only through speed will probably lose. A journalist who offers what social networks themselves cannot reliably offer – verification, context, and professional responsibility – has a much better chance of retaining their role.
What Is Specific About Serbia?
The Serbian case shows that technology cannot be separated from social context. Aleksandra Krstić shows that the digital transformation of Serbian media was connected with broader political and economic changes, and not only with the emergence of the internet.[14]
This means that it is not enough to say: “Social networks have changed journalism.” It would be more precise to say:
Social networks have changed the way in which information is produced and distributed, but the consequences of that change depend on the political, economic, and institutional environment.
In Serbia this is especially visible because of the combination of high use of social networks, low trust in the news, political polarization, and a large number of media outlets. For this reason, social networks have an unusually important role. They can be a way for citizens to reach alternative information, but they can also be a space for disinformation and additional polarization.
Conclusion
Digital platforms and social networks have not only changed the way journalism is distributed. They have changed the power relations between journalists, editors, the audience, citizens, and technology companies.
The traditional model in which the journalist and editor represent the main intermediaries between an event and the audience is no longer sufficient to describe the contemporary media system. Citizens can themselves produce and spread content, while platform algorithms decide a large part of its visibility. However, this does not mean that professional journalism has lost its purpose.
On the contrary, the greater the amount of information available to the public, the more important the ability to verify information, place it in context, and explain it becomes. The case study of the student protests in Serbia shows both sides of this process. Social networks enabled students to quickly inform citizens, organize protests, and bypass part of the traditional media filters. On the other hand, the same digital space opened the possibility for the spread of unconfirmed information and different interpretations of events.
For this reason, I believe that the question of the future of journalism should not be posed as the question of whether social networks will “destroy” journalism. A much more important question is:
Will professional journalism succeed in finding a new role in a world in which anyone can be a source of information?
My conclusion is that journalism will survive precisely if it stops competing with social networks in what they are strongest at – speed and quantity of content – and begins to emphasize even more what professional journalism is indispensable for: fact-checking, responsibility, context, investigation, and the ability to present different sides of an event to the audience.
In other words, the problem is not that there is too much information today. The problem is that there is too little verified and explained information. That is precisely where I see the greatest future role of journalists.
Bibliography
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Bruns, A. (2018). Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere. New York: Peter Lang.
Chadwick, A. (2017). The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hermida, A. (2012). „Tweets and Truth: Journalism as a Discipline of Collaborative Verification“. Journalism Practice, 6(5–6), 659–668. DOI: 10.1080/17512786.2012.667269.
Kleut, J., & Drašković, B. (2014). „Participacija publike i novinarska praksa u Srbiji: stavovi novinara i urednika“. U: Menadžment dramskih umetnosti i medija – izazovi XXI veka, 335–348.
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Notes
[1] Snjezana Milivojević, „Serbia“, u: Digital News Report 2025, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, 2025. Za Srbiju se navodi 67% korišćenja društvenih mreža za vesti, 45% korisnika uzrasta 18–24 koji koriste TikTok za vesti, kao i ukupno poverenje u vesti od 27%.
[2] Axel Bruns, Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere, Peter Lang, New York, 2018, posebno poglavlja o društvenom kuriranju vesti i gatewatchingu, str. 59–104.
[3] Alfred Hermida, „Tweets and Truth: Journalism as a Discipline of Collaborative Verification“, Journalism Practice, Vol. 6, No. 5–6, 2012, str. 659–668.
[4] Philip M. Napoli, Social Media and the Public Interest: Media Regulation in the Disinformation Age, Columbia University Press, New York, 2019, esp. chapter „Algorithmic Gatekeeping and the Transformation of News Organizations“.
[5] Andrew Chadwick, The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 2017, str. 1–9 i 49–69.
[6] Aleksandra Krstić, „Digital transformation of journalism and media in Serbia: What has gone wrong?“, Journalism, Vol. 25, No. 5, 2024, str. 1014–1030.
[7] Snjezana Milivojević, „Serbia“, Digital News Report 2025, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, 2025.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Axel Bruns, op. cit., pp. 59–104.
[10] Snjezana Milivojević, „Serbia“, Digital News Report 2025.
[11] Alfred Hermida, nav. delo, str. 659–668.
[12] Snjezana Milivojević, „Serbia“, Digital News Report 2025.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Aleksandra Krstić, op. cit., pp. 1014–1030.