Blokada INFO is a student-led newsroom and media infrastructure project combining participatory governance, ethical journalism, and technical resilience to safeguard public visibility and knowledge mobility during periods of social tension. It emerged during the student protests in Serbia, shaped by the movement’s motto “Institutions must do their work,” to provide reliable, on-the-ground public information amid widespread distrust in legacy state media.
We launched on 1 February 2025 in Novi Sad with a 24-hour live broadcast. Uninterrupted real-time reporting is both an editorial and a technological choice: it shortens the distance between citizens and events, hugely reduces space for misinformation, and creates an accessible public archive of what happened and when.
It emerged from cross-faculty collaboration among students at the University of Novi Sad. Students from diverse disciplines formed what we believe is Serbia’s first student newsroom dedicated to a live TV format distributed through digital platforms. From the outset, we adopted a plenary decision-making model, a characteristic of the broader student movement, where decisions and editorial responsibility are shared across the entire team.
Our work is entirely volunteer-based and funded only through citizen donations. With extremely limited resources, we developed low-budget, open-source solutions, including a device/workflow that bonds multiple cellular connections so that livestreams remain stable under network congestion.
Despite constant pressure in the field, Blokada INFO has endured. Our archive documents multiple incidents, including equipment theft and damage involving pro-government groups and, at times, police. Some cases were recorded on the EFJ/MFRR Mapping Media Freedom platform and hence we received the Marina Kovačev Award for integrity and perseverance.
Since 1 February 2025, we have covered all major protests in Serbia, multiple local elections, and the cyclists’ ride to Strasbourg.

Blokada INFO exists thanks to Serbia’s student movement and its direct-democratic plenary model, which inspired our collective way of working. We are grateful to the professors, mentors, journalists, and individuals who constantly help us learn and improve. Above all, we thank all past, current, and future volunteers who, despite growing pressure on journalists in Serbia, continue to give their time, skills, and courage to keep the public informed.

With support from: Blokada INFO is entirely volunteer-run and sustained primarily through community solidarity rather than institutional funding. Our work was made possible by early technical support from N1, a regional media outlet, which lent equipment and shared production advice, and from a local DJ studio, which introduced us to livestreaming basics. A local datacenter continues to provide free server capacity for internal systems and livestream distribution. We have also received financial, professional, fundraising, and equipment support from NDNV (Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina), NUNS (Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia), the trade union at RTV (Radio Television of Vojvodina), civic initiatives “Podrži Studente,” and “IT Blokada”. Above all, the project is sustained by citizens of Serbia and its diaspora through direct financial support and/or donated equipment.

Blokada INFO (RS) is a student collective from Serbia formed during 2024/25 student protests, when it became clear that major public events were not being made visible enough through traditional media outlets. Starting at the University of Novi Sad and later expanding through cooperation with students from other Serbian university centers, it brought together reporting, design, live production, communications, logistics, and engineering. Since its first 24-hour broadcast on 1 February 2025, it has produced 100+ livestreams documenting real-time events, reaching 320,000+ YouTube watch hours, 14.6 million Facebook views, and nearly 40 million Instagram views at the time of writing.

The Blokada INFO is a student-led newsroom and media infrastructure project launched at the beginning of 2025 in Novi Sad. It began with a 24-hour live broadcast of the dramatic events unfolding in Serbia. Its aim was to provide reliable, on-the-ground public information amid widespread distrust in legacy state media. The movement advocates participatory governance, ethical journalism, and technical resilience to safeguard public visibility and knowledge mobility during periods of social tension. Given the rise of Gen Z movements across the world, Blokada INFO deserves attention because it offers an educative case study of how to democratize broadcasting with a low-cost, but sophisticated and ingenious stack of DIY technologies. They demonstrate how high-quality, mobile streaming need no longer be an exclusive domain of major TV networks.