“Balm for the Soul”: Serbian Political Satire as a Critical Hub for Citizens
“Balm for the Soul”: Serbian Political Satire as a Critical Hub for Citizens

Summary/Abstract: With the global rise of the right wing and an increase of authoritarian and semi-authori-tarian governance, political satire has flourished in the recent years. During the last several years, political comedy has gained a foothold in the Western Balkans as well, including Ser-bia, with the creation and development of the Njuz.net website and the 24 Minuta weekly political satire show. This article explores Njuz.net and 24 Minuta (the latter so far not tack-led by scholarship) via audience research conducted by a mixed method (mostly qualitative) survey of 475 people who follow the website and the show. The research shows that contem-porary political satire in Serbia serves as a critical hub for political participation, as well as the opposition to the government in Serbia; Doona’s recent 2016 volume on political comedy has been taken as a significant foundation for a theoretical background.

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