Critical Junctures of Five Digital Parliamentary Campaigns in Bulgaria (2021–2023)

On June 9, 2024 Bulgarians are facing early Parliamentary elections together with the European vote. Prior to that the citizens went to the polls seven times - for one local (October 29, 2023), one presidential (November 14, 2021) and five national parliamentary votes (four early ones – on July 11 and November 14, 2021; October 2, 2022; and April 2, 2023 followed in quick succession the regular election of April 4, 2021). In accordance with the fast ICT developments the politicians embraced the increasingly popular channels of social media and especially of social networks to pass their messages to voters. The aim of the study focuses on the critical junctures of meaningful discussion and deliberation during the Parliamentary pre-election campaigns in the Facebook profiles of the political party leaders. The methodology is an empirical study and comparative analysis. The scope of the survey includes those political forces that have passed the 4% electoral threshold. The results have been presented to audiences interested in political communication, such as: legal and regulatory specialists, academia, media industry, telecommunications, media literacy experts, as well as to general publics. The study has been developed within the framework of the MEDIADELCOM research project of the Horizon 2020 EC program.