“Enthusiasts, Not Professionals”: Journalists’ Experiences of Precarity in Serbia’s Hybrid Regime

Abstract

Precarity has become a defining feature of the contemporary journalistic labor market worldwide. Drawing on 20 in-depth interviews with journalists in Serbia, we explore the tension between precarity and professional journalistic aspirations. Although participants understood precarious working conditions primarily in economic terms (e.g., low wages and limited job opportunities), their accounts suggest that labor (in)security is distributed according to political rather than market logic. Some respond to these pressures by adopting nondemocratic journalistic practices or by adjusting their professional values, while others embrace precarity as a mark of professional integrity and a condition for practicing journalism in a hybrid regime.