This study provides a glimpse into the cultural history of this popular medium for the period 1944-2016. From the “golden age” of communist era television during which TV was hailed as a main cultural force for education and entertainment and simultaneously taunted as a tool of propaganda, censorship and political control, we will trace the unprecedented “boom” in commercial TV channels at the offset of the transition, with its often questionable quality, leading to the emergence of several serious contenders on the broadcasting scene, both in terms of their financial value and in terms of power over public opinion.

Gender ideologies were essential elements of the socialist project and provided important mechanisms to support the ideal of women's emancipation and equality between the sexes. Television content was seen as a critical tool to promote the new social order and was strategically used for its educational and cultural potential to mobilize and propagate an image of the woman as a producer of goods and reproducer of the labor force. In the West, TV has also been shown to support gender stereotypes aligned with the social expectations of men and women in a given period. A historical overview of the gender stereotypes on Bulgarian television during socialism and in the postsocialist transition illustrates that while portrayals of women in the early days of socialism focused on the “tough girl” female heroine who successfully manages the double burden of motherhood and work, as socialism began to falter, the image of the TV woman began to change, although never directly challenging the ideology of gender equality. Analysis of current Bulgarian female TV characters demonstrates that in the postsocialist period, a new heroine has emerged, stripped of socialist consciousness and fully immersed in the realities of the market, using her sexuality as a currency and actively retrenching from public life and political participation.

The stereotypical depiction of women in advertising has been a major topic of examination for the past four decades by scholars and more recently by policy makers, particularly in Europe. Exploring stereotyping in advertising along gender lines is important because gender has served as a key demographic variable in the creation and dissemination of advertising messages and scholarly research indicates that advertising often relies on stereotypical gender roles to promote products. Examining portrayals of women in TV advertising over time, from different theoretical perspectives and across different cultures, present a revealing look of how female identities are being engendered and constructed. Although there is some progress in Western countries, women portrayed in TV adverts across the world are still stereotyped across certain categories.

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