The ruling bloc pushed a series of coordinated messages through all major media outlets, at times using identical wording across several outlets on the same day. The opposition had only a handful of messages, mostly reactive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second week of election campaign monitoring covers September 14-20. We collected 28,371 articles from 25 monitored online media outlets. On social media, we analyzed 120,190 posts from the feeds of ten simulated personas on TikTok, Instagram, and X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The week was marked by an imbalance in both the volume and coordination of messages. Some opposition messages could not be read in their original form at all, appearing only as quotations in media outlets close to the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In online media, the main topic was the first-instance judgments against former KLA leaders before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, with coverage peaking around September 16. At the same time, attacks on the student movement and the opposition intensified compared with the previous week. Ilija Srdanovi\u0107, the lead candidate on the Student List, was the individual targeted most often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The picture on social media was different. Kosovo was virtually absent from the feeds of pro-government accounts, while attacks on students were almost the only political content. In the same week, nsinfo.rs and Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s official account dropped out of the group of most prominent accounts in this cluster; Sputnik Serbia and an Instagram profile labeled by the platform as AI-generated entered it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the area of rights and freedoms, two Instagram accounts were suspended, at least temporarily: those of the satirical outlet Triugao and Ilija Srdanovi\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Words That Defined the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The week\u2019s vocabulary points to a campaign centered on one name and one date. The most frequent words were European, president, Serbian, Vu\u010di\u0107, and election. Foreign-policy lingo followed closely behind: Russian, Russia, Ukraine, American, attack, and war. These appeared more often than any domestic election-related term other than election itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The word student ranked 43rd, behind Red Star, Partizan, match, and sport. This finding echoes SHARE\u2019s analysis of the 2023 campaign<\/a>, when entertainment, sports, and crime news pushed the election to the informational margins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n