Abstract: Pre-election campaigns of the candidates for municipal elections in 2015 used social media as a platform for campaign promises. The purpose of the proposed analysis is to follow both visual and verbal messages posted on Facebook by political parties, organisations and associations. The presence or absence of modern political rhetoric is taken into account in order to mark the specifics of digital variations of political agitation. The main thesis of the paper is that the political, economic, social, cultural and technological features determine the pre-election rhetoric of most candidates running for local government in Bulgaria. Unfortunately, the digital political communication between e-politicians and e-citizens does not respect basic canons of the rhetoric science.

Keywords: visual rhetorical analysis, pre-election political rhetoric, social networks, municipal elections.

Rhetoric and Communications E-journal, Issue 20, November 2015, rhetoric.bg/, journal.rhetoric.bg, ISSN 1314-4464

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