The ENCODE project has successfully completed an eye- and face-tracking study in Bulgaria, conducted on 20–21 November, as part of Work Package 4 (WP4). This research activity represents a key milestone in the project’s empirical investigation of emotional responses to political communication.

The Bulgarian study was carried out in collaboration with CSD, with the active involvement of Alexander Politov and Svetoslav Malinov. It followed the successful completion of the same experimental protocol in Poland and Austria, enabling comparative cross-national analysis across multiple European contexts.

During the study, participants first completed a short survey to capture baseline information. They then reviewed political content published on X, while researchers collected real-time biometric data through eye-tracking and facial expression analysis. Each session concluded with an in-depth individual interview, providing qualitative insights into participants’ interpretations and emotional reactions to the content.

By integrating biometric measurements with qualitative data, this multi-method approach allowed the ENCODE team to capture both immediate emotional responses and reflective assessments of political messages in digital environments. The findings from the Bulgarian round will contribute to a consolidated cross-country dataset and inform subsequent analytical work within WP4 and across the project.

The completion of this study marks an important step in ENCODE’s broader effort to understand how emotions shape political communication and democratic engagement in online contexts.