Iliya Valkov
University of National and World Economy
E-mail: valkov@unwe.bg
Abstract: The competition and confrontation between publishers, the diminishing confidence in the leading democratic institutions and political representation, the increasing political and economic dependence of the media, are factors which lead to politicization of the media environment in Bulgaria. More and more parties are creating their own media, some journalists are becoming politicians; another process also takes place: some politicians take on the role of journalists. The assumption is that there is a reason to speak of a process of substitution, which in turn has an impact on the decline in confidence in the media environment. This process of politicization is investigated in the current paper and the analysis is based on examples selected from Bulgarian media. The aim is to determine if there are grounds to speak of such a process of transformation on the Bulgarian media market.
Keywords: media, journalism, social change, public interest, journalist, politicians, changing roles.