For many newsrooms in South-East Europe, publishing a story is no longer enough. Whether that story reaches the public now depends heavily on social media feeds, search results, recommendation systems, and platform rules – mechanisms that are often difficult to understand, predict, or challenge.
A new study sheds light on how these dynamics are reshaping the media landscape across the region. Published by the South-East European Network for Professionalization of Media (SEENPM) and supported by UNESCO, within the framework of EU-funded project ‘Building Trust in Media in South-East Europe: Support to Journalism as a Public Good’, it examines this shifting reality in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Türkiye.
The publication, ‘Governance of Social Media Platforms and Regulation of Online Media’, offers a regional analysis accompanied by detailed country annexes (available in English and local languages), as well as national risk assessments on digital platforms and media regulation.
The research draws on interviews and questionnaires with 71 small, medium, and large media outlets across the region: 10 in Albania, 10 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 8 in Montenegro, 14 in North Macedonia, 12 in Serbia, and 17 in Türkiye. Among them, 32 outlets are members of press and media councils, reflecting a strong commitment to ethical and professional standards.
Findings reveal that platforms have become essential gateways to audiences, especially for digital-native, local, and public-interest media, helping media reach new communities, but also creating new dependencies. Newsrooms increasingly adapt headlines, formats, posting times, and visual content to platform logic. Media outlets, however, often lack the staff, technical skills, and financial resources to keep pace with algorithmic changes or pay for visibility – challenges that intensify during electoral periods.
There are moments, especially when an electoral campaign starts, that you disappear from the feeds; everyone starts sponsoring content and political content prevails.
Lorin Kadiu, Editor-in-Chief, Citizens.al (Albania)
Across the region, the study documents cases where journalistic content is removed, downgraded, demonetised, flagged, or restricted. This sometimes happens because automated systems fail to understand local language, context, or the public interest value of the reporting. Media outlets also report weak appeal mechanisms and limited communication with platform companies.
The study further reviews legislative frameworks for online and social media, as well as regulations addressing illegal and potentially harmful content. It analyses how these frameworks may affect freedom of expression, access to information, and media freedom in the region.
For small and local outlets, the challenge is often more structural. Limited resources make it difficult to invest in platform strategies, even when newsrooms recognise their importance.
While we plan to take social media more seriously, limited time, financial resources, and staff prevent us from doing so at the moment.
Suzana Nikolikj, Editor-in-chief, Kumanovo News (North Macedonia)
The study recommends a set of measures to address these challenges. Among them, stronger transparency and accountability from platforms, effective appeal mechanisms, better recognition of verified journalistic content, and important local language and contextual capacities. It also calls for a stronger support for self-regulation, media and information literacy, and rights-based dialogue among authorities, platforms, media, civil society, and academia.
The EU-funded project ‘Building Trust in Media in South-East Europe: Support to Journalism as a Public Good’, aims to promote a rights-based and multi-stakeholder approach to digital platform governance, while strengthening journalism as a public good in the region.
READ MORE: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/how-digital-platforms-shape-access-news-south-east-europe-and-turkiye?hub=701
