Part 22 (2/2)
As the government's control over both the formal communications media and the informal means of communications widened, the external threat was perceived to be less, and governmental attention turned to the a.s.sessment of the relative popularity of the various branches of the media. In a recent study 3,294 people were questioned as to their favorite source of domestic and international information. The vast majority--64.8 percent--of those polled stated that their preferred source was daily newspapers; 24.6 percent preferred television; and only 2.7 percent preferred radio. Although the newspapers were the favorite source of information, they were frequently criticized by the people, who expressed a basic lack of confidence in the press. In a second study dealing with people's att.i.tudes toward the press alone, 48.1 percent of the 900 people polled said they disliked the press, and 52.1 percent complained of the primitive quality of Bulgarian newspapers.
Young people, especially students, appeared to be even less stimulated by the ma.s.s media than their elders. A study performed in the 1969/70 academic year indicated that students were indifferent to both domestic political events and international developments. The pollsters concluded that generally Bulgarian students take little advantage of the ma.s.s media as a source of information. Unlike the broad public, whose primary source of information was the press, students tended to see television as their preferred source and the press and radio as secondary sources.
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
The 1947 Const.i.tution, known as the Dimitrov Const.i.tution, established the stated rights of citizens as well as the nationalization of all private property, including the ma.s.s communications network. Regarding the so-called freedom of citizens, Article 88 of the 1947 Const.i.tution claimed: ”The citizens of the People's Republic are guaranteed freedom of the press, of speech, of a.s.sembly, of meetings and demonstrations.”
At the same time, Article 10 and Article 17 prohibited the unrestricted freedom of private property and provided for its nationalization under the authority of the National a.s.sembly. More specifically, Article 80 of the const.i.tution dealt directly with the system of ma.s.s communications: ”The state cares for the development of science and art by establis.h.i.+ng ... publis.h.i.+ng houses, libraries, theatres, museums, public reading clubs, ... film studios, [and] cinemas....”
In 1956 the premier of the communist regime, Vulko Chervenkov, emphasized the ultimate control of the party over all inst.i.tutions of the country. He stated: ”No inst.i.tution, organization, or person can be above the Politburo and the Central Committee ... those guilty of deviation from the Bolshevik rule must be held responsible and punished.” Under his successor, Todor Zhivkov, a slight liberalization regarding freedom of the media ensued (see ch. 9). For a brief period writers and scholars were given greater lat.i.tude of expression. When some writers dared to openly criticize the government, however, Zhivkov was unable to tolerate this criticism and reimposed restrictions on the media. The ultimate authority of the party was again made manifest. In an article in 1969, Georgi Bokov, chief editor of _Rabotnichesko Delo_ and chairman of the Union of Bulgarian Journalists, flatly rejected the notions of freedom and independence for the ma.s.s communications system.
The stated goals of the Union of Bulgarian Journalists in the late 1960s were ”to promote the development of ma.s.s information and propaganda media as first-rate ideological weapons in the struggle for the victory of socialism and Communism ... the Union must constantly work to turn the press, radio, and television into effective ideological instruments for the Party.”
In 1971, a new const.i.tution was promulgated, but the basic clauses of the 1947 doc.u.ment, regarding so-called individual freedoms and state owners.h.i.+p, remained essentially intact. It was restated in Article 54 that ”citizens enjoy freedom of speech, press, meetings, a.s.sociations and demonstrations.” Article 46 again provided for state development of, and control over, the ma.s.s communications system.
The results of the policy regarding the media are witnessed by numerous examples of party control and the repression of dissidents. All newspapers must provide s.p.a.ce for the official news of the government, and all Central Committee directives must be printed without alteration.
No dispatches sent out by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (Bulgarska Telegrafna Agentsiya--BTA)--the official news agency of the country--are allowed to be revised. No criticism of government policies is tolerated. Dissident individuals and groups are singled out for criticism by the Politburo. In 1972 a Politburo member, Todor Pavlov, accused certain writers of rejecting Socialist Realism in favor of more bourgeois literature and art. Other writers were criticized for their so-called subjectivistic interpretation of Bulgarian literature and were branded as pseudoscientists.
ADMINISTRATION OF THE Ma.s.s COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM
Administrative Units
As the system has evolved, the broad outlines of propaganda have been dictated from the Politburo, the party's chief policymaking unit. From there policy is transmitted to the Agitation and Propaganda Department (Agitprop), which is a major operational unit of the Central Committee.
Agitprop, in turn, is responsible for the transmission of guidelines down to the lowest levels of party organization. Simultaneously, the same dictates are transmitted throughout all cultural inst.i.tutions by the Ministry of Information and Communications. Under this ministry's jurisdiction are the arts, the film industry, radiobroadcasting, television, book and pamphlet publis.h.i.+ng, printing, all cultural or educational inst.i.tutions, and all so-called independent artists. Still a third channel for the transmission of the original propaganda are the ma.s.s organizations that function in the propaganda field under direction of either Agitprop or the Ministry of Information and Communications (see ch. 9).
The administrative center for all media is Sofia, the capital. Eight daily newspapers are published in Sofia and distributed throughout the country; there are also seventeen major publis.h.i.+ng houses in Sofia. The National Film Board, which oversees all aspects of film production, is in Sofia, as is Radio Sofia, which is the radio station for the entire country. The Cyril and Methodius Library--also known as the Bulgarian National Library--is within the confines of the city, as are the Union of Bulgarian Writers; the Union of Bulgarian Artists; and the Union of Composers, Musicologists, and Performing Musicians (see ch. 7).
The exportation of propaganda is under the auspices of the Sofia Press Agency. This agency was founded in 1967 with the express purpose of disseminating Bulgarian propaganda to other countries. Its three major tasks are to publicize Bulgaria's achievements and successes actively to the world; to attempt to counter anti-Bulgarian propaganda; and to provide the various communist parties of the world with rationale in their struggles against capitalism.
In 1972 the Sofia Press Agency was in the process of negotiating agreements with the BTA and the Committee for Television and Radio.
Agreements had already been established with book publishers, photographic artists, and the film industry. In early 1972 over 500 people--the majority of whom were editors and translators--were working for the Sofia Press Agency, and contracts had been signed with approximately 120 foreign countries. Nine magazines, translated into eleven languages, had been published each year in 2.5 million copies. A dual language newspaper has been published each year in 500,000 copies, and 400 books had appeared in approximately 4 million copies. Some 15,000 articles had been written, 30,000 photographs taken, and dozens of television motion pictures and doc.u.mentaries had been filmed.
News Agency
The BTA was founded originally in 1898 in Sofia. It is the official news agency of the country and the sole source of both foreign and domestic news. It receives most of its foreign items from the Soviet Union news agency but also maintains exchange agreements with Reuters, a.s.sociated Press, and the a.s.sociated Foreign Press as well as a host of lesser known foreign news agencies, although it tends to be more discriminating in terms of the items selected from these sources.
In the 1960s the BTA had twenty-three correspondents posted throughout the nation, as well as foreign correspondents in Moscow, Peking, East Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Tirana, Belgrade, Ankara, Paris, Bonn, New York, Vienna, Cairo, and New Delhi. Correspondents are sent on special a.s.signments to investigate news that is considered to be of interest to Bulgaria. Domestic news is reproduced in Russian, English, French, German, and Spanish, and international news is reproduced in Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian. In an average day the BTA receives approximately 800 foreign newspapers, magazines, and bulletins and itself produces over 125,000 words.
THEMES OF THE MEDIA
The predominant theme of the media remains the expression of friends.h.i.+p with the Soviet Union. In 1971 a leading member of the party's Central Committee informed members of the media that one of their primary functions was to champion the feelings of ”fraternal love, trust, and grat.i.tude” of the Bulgarian people for the ”heroic Soviet people,” at the same time demonstrating ”clearly and convincingly the unbreakable ties linking our present and future with the present and future of the Soviet Union.”
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