Transformation of Bulgarian 1990s Print Media Cultures: Technology, Cultural Representations, Piracy, and Identity Formation on a Crossroad between the East and the West

Abstract

The article investigates the transformation of Bulgaria’s print media culture in the 1990s, a period of profound political, economic, social, and cultural change in Eastern Europe. The paper’s contribution is two-fold. Firstly, it focuses on the convergence of selected Bulgarian newspapers with established and emerging media formats alongside Bulgaria’s position between the East and the West. Secondly, the representations of and discourses about technology during the transition period are analysed and their link with identity formation is explored. I compare two tabloids (Trud and 24 Chassa) with two business-focused broadsheets (Cash and Capital) issued in 1997. Adopting a non-Western perspective by focusing on a case of transitional Eastern Europe, the article offers a snapshot and a reflection on the cultural representations of technologies, discursive identity construction, and media practices of the 1990s. The emergence of the free market and the influx of electronics in Bulgaria affected identity formation as technologies related to notions of modernity, Europeanness, globalisation, entertainment, power, gender, and social status.