Südosteuropa 60 (2012), H. 1, S. 53-77 Schwerpunkt: MeDIenLAnDSchAFten VALENTINA GUEORGUIEVA Distorted Representation and Active Citizenship. Digital Media and Spontaneous Street Demonstrations in Bulgaria (2006-2010) Abstract. This article elaborates on the question of how ordinary Bulgarians understand par- ticipatory democracy, studying a range of street demonstrations organized via digital media during the period 2006 to 2010. It starts with a brief history of spontaneous street demonstra- tions in Bulgaria, followed by an analysis of the uses of digital technology in this context. The interpretation of data collected through in-depth interviews with activists and protest participants shows that the mainstream media offered a distorted representation of the protest events. Furthermore, the analysis of participants’ discourse reveals mistrust in the political system and a deterioration of the principles of political representation. The deficiency of the system, according to the protesters’ view, can be compensated with stronger acts of partici- pation (court and legal actions, petitions, artistic manifestations, street protests, other forms of contentious actions). In conclusion, spontaneous protest movements from the last years in Bulgaria are considered as an enactment of the changing patterns of political participation. Valentina Gueorguieva is an assistant professor at the Department of Cultural Studies of the University “St. Kliment Ohridski” in Sofia. She holds a PhD in sociology from Laval University, Québec city, Canada. Introduction The thesis that digital technologies have the potential to facilitate and pro- mote collective action and democratic uprisings, and thus bring about profound changes in the political structure of societies, has become a common place for media theorists and social scientists.1 Far from embracing the cyber-utopian view that new media create new forms of sociality and incite social change, this article argues that the emerging forms of protest activities facilitated by digital media have to face the problem of distorted representation. In the traditional media, coverage of spontaneous protests tends to highlight incidents of vio- 1 See, for example, Henry Jenkins / David Thorburn (eds.), Democracy and New Media. Cambridge/MA, London 2003. This thesis was put forth also on the occasion of the “Arab spring” and the Indignados/Occupy movements. 54 Valentina Gueorguieva lence in such a way as to de-legitimize the politics of dissent. Such spontaneous mobilizations also challenge the traditional views of political representation, searching for individual citizens’ expression and engagement that bypass traditional political party structures and civil society organizations. Protests without leaders or an organization, self-organizing pressure groups, informal gatherings or citizens’ movements could be considered as emergent patterns of contentious action that seek new tools for coordination and mobilization in digital technologies. By offering alternative channels of information, digital media can also help in the battle over meanings with the traditional news media. Nevertheless, overemphasizing the influence of new media on emerging social practices can obscure our understanding of what these practices stand for. This text advances the hypothesis that spontaneous citizens’ protests should be seen as an expression of an alternative understanding of political participation and the meaning of democracy. To test this hypothesis, I undertook a study of street demonstrations organized via digital media in Bulgaria during the period 2006 to 2010. Studying participa- tion in protests as a form of contentious action can lead us into a deeper under- standing of the meanings that ordinary Bulgarians attach to the effectiveness of their particular political actions, of their view of the political process or of the working of democracy in the country. More precisely, this article elaborates on the question of how ordinary Bulgarians understand participatory democracy through the study of a range of street protests, the organisation and the motiva- tion for protest actions, as well as the interpretations of the events offered by the participants themselves. Different methods of data collection were used in the study with regards to the points of interest outlined above. The various forms of protest actions, as well as the repertoire of technological tools used for mobilization, were reconstructed from interviews with activists and participants, in addition to internet inquiries into the specific platforms and their functions; such as Facebook events pages and Facebook groups, web forums, and video-sharing platforms. Ethnographic observations of the street manifestations were performed in 2009 through 2010. Two series of interviews with participants were held during two of the events at the venue sites.2 The first of these events selected for interviewing participants was the protest against internet surveillance on 14 January 2010. It was also announced as a commemoration of a major event, held on the same date the year before, remembered as the first rally in Bulgaria organised by a number of 2 I wish to thank the students Kristiana Georgieva, Tomislava Gesheva, Vessela Ibisheva, Radoslav Ivanov, Plamen Latunov, Anastassia Rahova, and Dessislava Simeonova, who performed the interviews during the protests on 14 and 31 January 2010. I also wish to thank my colleague Nia Neykova who coordinated students’ work on collecting and transcribing the interviews. Digital Media and Spontaneous Street Demonstrations in Bulgaria 55 citizens’ groups via Facebook. The second event selected for on-site interviewing took place on 31 January 2010, and was a part of the larger campaign against genetically modified organisms (GMO) initiated by the environmentalists whose first protest actions back in 2006-2007 established the pattern of spontaneous street protests. During these two protests, the interviewees were selected at random and were asked about their motivation to take part in the protest, their opinion on its potential effect and their participation in other protests. A total of 28 short interviews were collected during these two events. Another set of longer in-depth interviews with participants were conducted during later periods, aiming at their reflexive accounts of the events, and cover- ing a larger scope of topics such as the technology of organisation, their motiva- tion, their view of the media coverage, their political orientation and intentions to vote, as well as their overall evaluation of the effect of protest activities. The respondents for these reflexive interviews were selected among the group of younger respondents (mainly students), but also other members of activist groups. In total nine in-depth interviews were collected by the author of this text. The corpus of all the transcribed interviews was analysed, searching for recurrent uses of distinctive ideas or modes of thought in the participants’ dis- course. Such uses were then organised in a typology of respondents’ concepts, and from this typology the main points of the present analysis were outlined: the uses of technology, the vision of the political system, the understanding of active citizenship as well as of the process of democratization. This text sets out with a brief history of spontaneous street demonstrations in Bulgaria, focussing on the forms of action designed to respond and express opposition to government policies. The second part of the text is devoted to the use of digital technology for the spread of information and the mobilization of protest rallies. It also covers participants’ appreciation of the media coverage of protests and the use of alternative media channels for propagating divergent interpretations of the events. Finally, in order to assess transformations of the political culture, the third part of the text is devoted to the analysis of the partici- pants’ discourse about their intentions, opinions, attitudes toward the political process and the values they express. In this third part, their understanding of the existing political system and their view of active citizenship are outlined, as well as a vision of the process of democratization as an opportunity to exercise control over the decisions of political representatives in power. Chronology of Spontaneous Street Demonstrations in Bulgaria, 2006-2010 The birth of spontaneous civil activity in defence of different causes is asso- ciated with the actions of the group “Save Irakli” / “Da spasim Irakli”, named 56 Valentina Gueorguieva after a now famous wild beach on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.3 By 2006, the massive construction works on the seaside that had started in the early 2000s had eradicated the wild beaches and completely transformed the landscape. One of the last preserved sites – Irakli – was included in the plans for constructing a seaside resort by a major foreign investor, “Swiss Properties Ltd.”.4 To save their favourite beach, a group of friends decided to take action. Their first initia- tive was to deposit a big number of individual statements of interest regarding the area at the Regional Inspectorate for the Protection of the Environment, an entity of the Ministry of Environment and Water of Bulgaria. A statement of interest is a legal act by which an individual becomes an interested party and has to be informed of all the plans of the municipality and potential investors to transform the status of a natural area. By depositing more