Two countries that citizens of Serbia perceive as Serbia's greatest friends are Russia and China. On the other hand, support for the European integration process is relatively small, while the influence of the United States on Serbia over the years is generally perceived as negative, although a research shows that relations between US and Serbia are improving. Also, citizens often mistakenly believe that the Russia and China are among the biggest donors in Serbia of the past 20 years.
This attitude of the public has been built for decades and assumption is that there are two key sources of promotion of such narrative. Firstly, the biggest (mainstream) media are generally more favorable towards Russia and China than towards the EU or the United States. While certain mainstream media openly promote these two countries and criticize the EU and the USA, others do the same but indirectly - through critical analysis of Western countries and their policies and key social trends, but avoiding these issues when it comes to Russia and China (for instance the character their regime, social, economic and health issues, the state of civil and minority rights, etc.). The second key source of promotion of the above-mentioned narrative are the public appearances of the public/state officials. While the EU and the US are mostly seen as "ATMs" and business partners, Russia and China are being dominantly presented as traditional friends and “brothers” with particular positive impact on Serbia.
While most of our findings and narratives are not so new, their context is. Covid-19 pandemic have had a huge impact not just on health or everyday life of citizens, but it strongly affected public opinion when it comes to international actors’ influence on Serbia as well as state policies (including foreign policy) and rhetoric. Such rhetoric was prominent even at the beginning of the pandemic, when state officials especially praised and emphasized China's (and to a lesser extent Russia's) assistance, calling the Chinese president a "brother" and referred to these relations as a "steel friendship." At the same time, the EU was initially the subject of public criticism for "insufficient solidarity", and the later aid was received with completely neutral and unemotional statements. Aim of the research is to do an indepth analysis of media coverage and state officials’ narratives regarding international actors (China, USA, Russia, EU and NATO) in a new context, one year after the start of the pandemic.
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