Media consumption and voter political behavior in Serbia

This paper examines the relationship between media consumption and voter behavior in Serbia during the 2023 parliamentary elections, taking into account the specific characteristics of the media system. Drawing on an approach that conceptualizes media as institutionally and politically embedded actors, the analysis integrates the concepts of mediatization and political parallelism. The empirical part is based on logistic regression analysis of data collected from a sample of 1,525 respondents, modeling political preferences in relation to patterns of media consumption. The results indicate that television consumption is associated with support for the ruling option, while online news portals and social media are more strongly associated with opposition voters, particularly those on the right. These findings are interpreted as context-dependent rather than as universal effects of media types. The paper further emphasizes the bidirectional nature of the relationship between media and political behavior, highlighting the role of selective exposure in shaping political preferences.