The social network Facebook was among the main sources of information on the recent protests against the amendments to Bulgaria’s Forestry Act.
This is one of the findings of a recent study of the Institute for social studies and marketing, quoted by the Darik national radio.
According to the study, 7% of those polled followed the story mainly through Facebook, where the internet media as a whole were preferred by 22% of the respondents. 91% were watching TV, 17% read traditional newspapers and 5% followed the story on the radio.
The poll was carried out between July 5 and 10 among 502 residents of Sofia and the other major cities, over 14 years of age. A hundred journalists from Sofia and regional media were also polled.
A total of 47% of the respondents said they followed the protests with great interest and 65% said they supported them.
According to the director of the institute Mira Radeva, the fact that the internet was the main source of information is a major shift: “Facebook is not even a medium, but a social network”, Radeva said, quoted by Darik. “Yet here it is – being nearly as important as influential media outlets like the televisions.”