ENG: The Pro-Russian Propaganda Machine in Bulgaria, and the Russian Style Representations of North Macedonia (original) (raw)
Related papers
ENG: Summary of Report "Russian Propaganda in Bulgarian Media Online (01.01-31.12.2022)
Summary of Report "Russian Propaganda in Bulgarian Media Online (01.01-31.12.2022), 2023
In the last year (2022), Russian propaganda has spread virulently in Bulgarian online space. Compared to the previous year, 2021, by the end of 2022 it had increased by almost 20 times. The narratives of Russian propaganda have not changed significantly since they were introduced and began to be disseminated in Bulgarian-language online media in 2013. In this report, we show the slight transformations of the propaganda narrative compared to the previous studies of the Human and Social Studies Foundation – Sofia. At the beginning of the year, Russian propaganda clichés entered Bulgarian online space literally as direct translations of reports in Russian media or as statements of official spokespersons of the Russian Federation. It must be noted that there was a radical change in the dissemination of propaganda in the summer of 2021 1 – that was when Russian propaganda finally merged with Russian politics, i.e., the official spokespersons of the Russian Federation became the disseminators of propaganda. This approach has led to a broadening of the scope of propaganda (it entered Bulgarian mainstream media, which inevitably quote Russian spokespersons) and to an increase in the number of propaganda articles. It is also noteworthy, however, that Bulgarian speakers and signed articles have become lost in the overall ϑlow of propaganda. New technological solutions have also contributed to the spread of propaganda. At the beginning of 2022, a network of aggregators was formed to amplify the Russian perspective on events of the day. At the end of the year, Russian propaganda began to use a new technological means of influencing social media – a powerful Machine of Mushroom Websites that amplifies the dissemination of messages with absolutely identical content, which are generally unrelated to reality, by up to about 400 times. Russian propaganda also influences public opinion in Bulgaria. Of course, objective information sets the pillars of public perception: since the start of the war of aggression against Ukraine, Putin’s approval rating in Bulgaria has fallen by three times, while his disapproval rating has risen by three times. Approval of Russia has declined as well, albeit not so sharply – Bulgarians seem to lay the blame on the master of the Kremlin. After Russia’s losses on the front, confidence in the power of Russian weapons is also decreasing – the majority of Bulgarians either do not believe in, or are undecided about, their power. Still, Russian propaganda has had its breakthroughs: The pro-Kremlin propaganda messages identified in this study that can be said to have achieved their purpose are: 1) that Bulgaria is siding with Ukraine because those in power in Bulgaria are dependent on the Euro-Atlantic partners (and not because Ukraine is the country under attack); 2) the claim that the West has dragged Russia into war, and 3) that providing military aid to Ukraine means involving Bulgaria in the war. The present study builds on the large-scale collective study on “Anti-Democratic Propaganda in Bulgaria” within which an analysis was conducted of national-populist and (pro)Russian propaganda in Bulgarian online media for the 2013–2017 period. 2 It focuses on the year of the hot war against Ukraine (2022), but it also covers the years before it (2018–2022). Thus, it cumulatively operates with data for a ten-year period (2013–2022) and analyzes all Bulgarian-language online media and blogs. The quantitative measurements were conducted with the SENSIKA automated media monitoring system. 3 Additional measurements of the spread of propaganda on Facebook in 2022 were conducted with CrowdTangle. The social reception of propaganda narratives was tested in early 2023 through face-to-face structured interviews.
Report "Anti-Democratic Propaganda in Bulgaria. Part Two. Online Media in 2017: Frequency Measurement and Content Analysis", 2018
Human and Social Studies Foundation – Sofia (HSSF) The new Report on Anti-Democratic Propaganda in Bulgaria. Part Two. Online Media in 2017: Frequency Measurement and Content Analysis has just been published (http://hssfoundation.org). From it you will learn that: In 2017 anti-democratic populist propaganda in Bulgaria continued, albeit more slowly, to gain momentum. As in the 2013–2016 period, it was anti-US and anti-NATO, Eurosceptic and pro-Russian. There was an especially sharp increase in the use of propaganda vocabulary – “Sorosoids”, “un-Bulgarians”, “tolerasts”, “liberasts”, “grant-spongers”, etc. – for discrediting domestic political and economic opponents. The circle of media and speakers systematically disseminating anti-democratic populist propaganda remained the same, with insignificant changes. A measurement of the frequency of use of propaganda epithets in more than 3,500 Bulgarian-language websites and blogs in the period from 1 January to 31 December 2017 was conducted with the SENSIKA automated system. The frequency measurement was conducted by the same method as that described in the Report on Anti-Democratic Propaganda in Bulgaria. Part One. News Websites and Print Media: 2013 – 2016. Quantitative Research. It covered the four main topics (talking points) of Bulgarian populist propaganda, identified in the previous study through semantic analysis: 1. “The Decline of Europe”; 2. “Bulgaria’s Venal Elites”; 3. “The US/NATO as Global Hegemon/Puppet-Master”; 4. “The Rise of Russia”. The frequency measurement was based on the same keywords and phrases identified for the previous period, which allows strict comparability of the results. They are the following: In 2017 there was a relatively low overall increase in publications containing keywords and phrases from the propaganda vocabulary as compared to 2016. Whereas in 2016 their total number was 35,292, in 2017 it grew to 37,636, or by 6.6%. The increase in the total number of propaganda publications, however, was accompanied by a significant change in the dynamic of development of the different thematic fields of propaganda. Compared to the previous year, the number of propaganda publications on the topic of “The Decline of Europe” decreased sharply (–52%), while, conversely, that of publications on the topic of “Bulgaria’s Venal Elites” increased sharply (+46.5%). There was also an increase in publications on the topic of “The US/NATO as Global Hegemon/Puppet-Master” (+17.7%). The topic of “The Rise of Russia” also underwent development depending on the evolution of its sub-topics. The number of publications on the sub-topics of “Russia’s Increased Political and Spiritual Might” and “The Power of Russian Weapons” grew significantly (by +46% and +44%, respectively). Conversely, that of publications on the sub-topics of “Crimea and Ukraine” and “Russia’s Enemies” fell (by –45% and –20%, respectively). Publications on the sub-topic of “The Sanctions against Russia” were comparable in number to 2016, and even increased slightly (+5%). In addition to the frequency measurement, a content analysis was conducted of the most-reprinted publications on peak days of use of the propaganda vocabulary. The combination of frequency measurement and content analysis enabled assessing not only the overall increase in populist propaganda in 2017 as compared to the previous years but also the change of focus of propaganda strategy – intensification or weakening of activity on the separate talking points and changes in the content of each one of them. The general conclusions are the following: 1. Open geopolitical propaganda is giving way to propaganda for “domestic use” – Bulgarian anti-democratic propaganda is aimed mostly against domestic political and economic opponents, its preferred targets being the reformist political parties and reformist policies such as the judicial reform. In 2017 the number of publications vilifying “venal Sorosoids and un-Bulgarians” in Bulgaria (16,703 articles) almost equalled that of publications on all other topics (a total of 20,933 on the other main talking points in the same period). For comparison, in 2016 there were 23,898 publications on the other three main talking points and 11,394 publications using the vocabulary of the talking point about “Bulgaria’s Venal Elites” – that is, in 2016 the foreign-political publications were twice as many as the domestic-political ones. 2. There was a slight decline in overall propaganda activity on geopolitical topics (the total number of such publications decreased from 23,898 in 2016 to 20,933 in 2017) and, at the same time, serious internal shifts in activity on the separate geopolitical talking points: 3. The attacks against the EU decreased sharply – obviously because of the continuing high popularity of the EU among Bulgarian citizens (propagandists do not want to confront public opinion directly) as well as because of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU; 4. As regards Russia, there is a radical change in propaganda priorities in favour of direct positive propaganda praising Russia’s political and spiritual might and Russian weapons, rather than using defensive propaganda rhetoric to malign Russia’s enemies or justify the annexation of Crimea. The number of publications on the sanctions against Russia remained roughly the same as in 2016, but their focus shifted pragmatically onto the negative consequences for all of Europe; 5. The US, NATO and the West continue to be the global Arch-Villain. Propaganda activity on this talking point increased, too, although this study found certain changes in the image of the US after Donald Trump’s election as president: the tendency is towards turning NATO and the Pentagon into the privileged enemy (while keeping open the option of portraying Trump as a “friend”). These general conclusions are presented in detail in the Report: time charts of propaganda activity on each topic are shown, the tactical changes in the content of each topic are analyzed in detail, and concrete examples are given.
ENG Coopting discontent: Russian Propaganda in the Bulgarian Media.pdf
Russian propaganda co-opts western grassroots criticism of liberalism and globalization, recasting both left and right populism in nationalist terms. Vice versa, local actors borrow the Russian propaganda package and use it for their populist purposes. An analysis of Bulgarian media discourse 2013–2016.
Debating Populism vs Democracy in the Bulgarian Media Ecosystem
2018
Transformation processes in the technological, economic, and social spheres characterize the contemporary developments of mankind. These transformations impact the political environment and the media ecosystem as well. The challenges of the economic crisis, as well as the migration processes strengthen the positions of Euro-skeptics and revitalize the development of populism. Populism as a political concept and rhetorical style is nowadays an object of multifaceted social discussions. The strong critical attitude of populists towards the status quo is generally intertwined with the function of the media as a corrective factor of government authorities. The paper is focused on the developments of political populism in Bulgaria and their media reflections and it includes the results of in-depth interviews conducted with Bulgarian politicians and journalists with regard to their perception of populism. The aim has been to compare the opinions of the interviewees on five key areas: thei...
Populism in Bulgaria Between Politicization of Media and Mediatization of Politics
Mediatization Studies
Populism as a political position and rhetorical style is nowadays an object of comprehensive research and multi-faceted social discussions. The strong critical attitude of populists towards the status quo, towards what they regard as the chimera of democracy, is generally intertwined with the function of the media as a corrective factor with regard to government authorities. The development of mankind in the present is characterized by transformation trends in technological, economic, and social spheres. These trends impact the political environment as well. The challenges of the economic crisis, as well as the migration processes are strengthening the position of euro-skeptics and revitalize the development of populism. The present text is focused on the developments of political populism in Bulgaria. The political environment in the country is characterized by almost permanent merge of political entities, which gradually escalates the use of populist approaches, styles and rhetori...
en. Propaganda Clichés, Fear-Mongering and Resentment in Bulgarian Society, 2016-2017
Issue 10 CENTRE FOR ADVANCED STUDY SOFIA ADVANCED ACADEMIA PROGRAMME, 2018
Over the last two decades, the entire liberal democratic world has seen voting behaviours and the rise of political actors which can be grouped in a common phenomenon: cultivation of anti-systemic/anti-establishment attitudes. The rise of these movements has been concomitant with the replacement of the deliberative forms of interpretation of collective identities and social living-together by collective myths and propaganda clichés. Thus the paper first presents the anti-liberal propaganda clichés in Bulgarian print media and news websites with the aim to find out who is scaring whom with what in Bulgaria today. The most important objective of the research, however, is to find out how those messages resonate with the diffuse attitudes, social feelings and stereotypes in Bulgaria, that is, how the propaganda effect arises. Therefore, the second part of the paper presents and analyses interview - and focus group discussion data. They are designed to generate a hypothesis about how the circulating clichés resonate with people’s attitudes, a hypothesis about what makes those clichés effective and about the interactive mechanisms that enact those clichés.Anti-liberal propaganda reworks and packages the aspirations of homegrown populism. Sociologists in Bulgaria have long since pointed out one typical effect of the sense of social injustice: the accusation of parasitism against the Roma minority, a condition that is claimed to be “inborn” and which the political elites use in order to stay in power. The homegrown populist moment here is in the notion that Roma rights are not rights but privileges imposed on “us” by the EU, privileges that deprive the rest of the population – that is, the non-Roma population thus presented as the true “us” – of rights. Here, propaganda resorts to the classical time-tested techniques of creating moral panic about a minority, adds to its image that of the refugees and migrants, and declares hate speech towards all of them to be a civic virtue. The effect of this transformation of civic resentment (the populist moment) into a virtue goes far beyond inciting the public against minorities. It above all promotes the thesis of national sovereignty as the prime European value – one which is being systematically destroyed by the EU, a conduit of American hegemonic interests. Which, exactly, is the populist resentment that is cultivated by this propaganda scheme? That we – Bulgarians – are “second-hand Europeans” and that they – Westerners – “come on all-inclusive package deals to Bulgaria on their welfare payments, while we care for their old people and clean their houses.” Judging from the reactions of the people in the interviews and the focus groups, it’s not that people in Bulgaria are afraid – yes, there is anxiety, especially among some types of people, but it hasn’t taken an objective form, a form of fearful reaction to a threat. In fact, we have a normalization of threat, and the propaganda effect is achieved less through fears than through the feeling of having been wronged, through incitement of resentments.
PRIZREN SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL
In the conditions of a technological transformation of the media, professional credibility and reliability in information are fading due to the manipulative role that the media have taken. This paper, among other things, highlights exactly the editorial lines of the media, which do not build them on principles based on professional cause, but rather on the causes of political-media oligarchies. The fake news industry in the world is currently the most profitable product, and this is the most serious threat to democracies, which cannot be properly consolidated without a regulation in the dense "traffic" of online communication. In this industry Russia leads with its Sputnik, which has created a widespread establishment in the media space of Central and Eastern Europe. Preventing of this media "pandemic" is extremely complicated and costly, because this type of information is camouflaged in various forms and the public needs a proper media education to identify and...
Manifestations of Populism in Post-communist Democracy in Bulgaria
2020
Abstract : Populism has had its specific manifestations over the past 30 years of Bulgarian society changes. The assumption is that these changes are the result of political, social, and media factors. On the one hand, the changes determine new manifestations of populism on personal, party, institutional, national, and supranational levels. On the other hand, Bulgarian political spokespersons present the desirable as real and make unrealistic promises from different ideological standpoints: left, right, liberal, nationalistic, etc. The aim is to identify the features of populism through the methods of discourse and rhetorical analyses. Keywords: populism, political rhetoric, media, Bulgaria, post-communism