Since the end of World War II the film industry has grown to a great extent. Like other instruments of the media, films are chosen for their propagandistic value; however, since the advent of television, fewer people have attended films.
The press--composed of newspapers and periodicals--was the most developed of the Bulgarian media in the first half of the twentieth century. Radio, which was introduced in the 1920s, was under the aegis of what was then the Ministry of Post, Telegraph, and Telephone. The production, importation, and sale of radios were unrestricted. The least developed communications system of the day was the film industry, which was privately owned and operated. Television was not initiated in the country until the mid-1950s.
In the years immediately after the takeover, a strong pro-Soviet policy was established for the media, which was still in effect in 1973. While the new government restricted individual freedom and initiative within the media, it demanded total support by the media of all policies of the Soviet Union. Despite the fact that Bulgaria has never deviated from the policy of complete commitment to the Soviet Union, after the invasion of Czechoslovakia various media conferences were held in which calls for stricter adherence to the Soviet line were sounded.
The government has certain distinct perceptions as to how the media must serve the state. Propaganda permeates every aspect of life from formal education to membership in unions and clubs to the publication of books and pamphlets. The Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP--see Glossary) is the main political force. It both creates the appropriate condition for the expression of public opinion and forms public opinion itself.
At a recent conference on the mass communications system, a leading member of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party delineated the principal tasks of the media. The major task of the media was "to work for the broadest possible propagation of the congress decisions and for the mobilization of the people's physical and mental powers to make their decisions materialize...." The second vital task of the media was to "help form a socialist outlook on life among the peoples and educate the new man--active fighter for the developed socialist society, ideologically convinced, morally durable, physically tempered, with profound awareness of duty and responsibility." The third task was to promote the economic awareness of the people and to train managers, specialists, workers, and farmers for the greater economic good of the country. The fourth main task was to continue in the active struggle against "bourgeois ideology ... and the ideological subversion of imperialism."