objectives have been achieved. In the years
immediately following the takeover, the government was consistently
distressed by continued Bulgarian feelings of friendship with the West
and the continual influence of the West upon the country. Although the
propaganda efforts of the communist government were tireless, radio
broadcasts and printed materials from the West continued to pour into
Bulgaria.

As the government's control over both the formal communications media
and the informal means of communications widened, the external threat
was perceived to be less, and governmental attention turned to the
assessment of the relative popularity of the various branches of the
media. In a recent study 3,294 people were questioned as to their
favorite source of domestic and international information. The vast
majority--64.8 percent--of those polled stated that their preferred
source was daily newspapers; 24.6 percent preferred television; and only
2.7 percent preferred radio. Although the newspapers were the favorite
source of information, they were frequently criticized by the people,
who expressed a basic lack of confidence in the press. In a second study
dealing with people's attitudes toward the press alone, 48.1 percent of
the 900 people polled said they disliked the press, and 52.1 percent
complained of the primitive quality of Bulgarian newspapers.

Young people, especially students, appeared to be even less stimulated
by the mass media than their elders. A study performed in the 1969/70
academic year indicated that students were indifferent to both domestic
political events and international developments. The pollsters concluded
that generally Bulgarian students take little advantage of the mass
media as a source of information. Unlike the broad public, whose primary
source of information was the press, students tended to see television
as their preferred source and the press and radio as secondary sources.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

The 1947 Constitution, known as the Dimitrov Constitution, established
the stated rights of citizens as well as the nationalization of all
private property, including the mass communications network. Regarding
the so-called freedom of citizens, Article 88 of the 1947 Constitution
claimed: "The citizens of the People's Republic are guaranteed freedom
of the press, of speech, of assembly, of meetings and demonstrations."
At the same time, Article 10 and Article 17 prohibited the unrestric