At the start of 2025, 2.73 million people in Bosnia and Herzegovina were using the internet, an 86.7% penetration rate to the Digital Report 2025. As young audiences continue shifting to digital news sources, their exposure to online disinformation is also rising sharply.
Produced by the Press and Online Media Council, the report, “Mapping of Informative Web Portals in Bosnia and Herzegovina delivers the most current snapshot of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s online news ecosystem. It responds to the explosive growth of web portals, many of which disclose little to nothing about their ownership or editorial structure and introduces a methodology that can be continuously updated.
Launched on 20 November 2025 at the UN House in Sarajevo before more than 30 outlets, media associations and international organizations representatives, the report highlights significant risks linked to this shift online especially for youth audiences navigating an increasingly polluted information space.
Grounded in criteria from the Press and Online Media Code, the mapping identifies informative web portals through evidence of organised journalistic work, editorial responsibility, regular news updates, diverse content, and the use of the .ba domain or local languages. These standards help separate legitimate news providers from blogs, vlogs and other peer-to-peer platforms.
Critically, the findings reveal serious systemic weaknesses. Nearly 200 of the 488 analysed portals (40%) have a full online imprint that includes the media name, address, contacts and responsible editor or publisher, among other data markers. Researchers note that only a smaller share of online portals imprint proactively, raising concerns over transparency and professionalism.
Authored by Lejla Turčilo (University of Sarajevo) and Vuk Vučetić (University of East Sarajevo), the report calls on state institutions and partners to urgently adopt the Law on Transparency of Media Ownership and the Law on Advertising, and to secure sustainable funding for Press and Online Media Council. Only 8% of analysed portals are currently members of the Council.
More than 60% of portals publish partial or no imprint at all. “This points to serious structural problems – from a lack of resources and professional capacities to ignorance of basic ethical norms, to potential deliberate avoidance of responsibility. Such portals represent a risky segment of the online space, especially in the context of the spread of disinformation, public manipulation and the absence of institutional mechanisms for user complaints”, the researchers warn.
The report outlines key steps for strengthening the sector, including the creation of a public register of informative web portals on the Council’s website; encouraging portals to complete their imprints and join the Council; and, simplifying and promoting the complaints procedure so that audiences access self-regulation tools.
This event was organised as part of the regional project ‘Building Trust in Media in South-East Europe: Support to Journalism as a Public Good’, funded by the European Union.