The state and perspectives of research of Polish media system

The subject of the article is the research conducted on Polish media system. The author notices that despite the isolation of the environment of Polish scholars from the mainstream of worldwide research on media, its output remains known to them. They have developed their own research paradigm invoking both social and human sciences to equal extent. After 1989, along with the logic of the evolution of Polish media system, the following phenomena were analyzed: pluralism, concentration and monopolization of media system. Furthermore, specific issues were raised, such as: economic aspects of media functioning, media law, public media, evolution of journalism as a profession, convergence and digital transformation. The author postulates that in the near future the following research should be continued or initiated: digitalization of media transfer, new media, especially social media and technological determinism. Such research should be inspired by global achievements but ought to be linked more strongly to actual problems of Polish media system. However, more public assets than currently channeled are required to conduct them.
 

Press Research Centre as a phenomenon

The Press Research Centre in Cracow is presented here as a phenomenon or something extremely unusual. The circumstances of its creation in the Polish People’s Republic in 1956 were already quite unusual. A small group of young people were allowed to set up a research laboratory within the framework of the big press publishing house. They were wise and modest enough to invite prominent and well-known university sociologists, psychologists, linguists, economists, historians, lawyers, etc. to cooperate with in the study of mass communication. After three decades, the small provincial laboratory became a research institute with a national range, recognizable globally among researchers of mass media and public communication. It has enriched with the significant publications almost every field of knowledge on periodic mass communication and, in particular, the history of the press (re-release of the first Polish newspaper from the 17th century), social and psychological factors of the reception of the media (based on opinion polls), descriptions of the content of periodic mass media (based on systematic content analyzes), linguistics (the first Polish frequentative dictionary of the language in newspapers and description of the propaganda language of the 1970s), the press law (compendium: law on the press), the economics of the periodical media (“Press as a commodity and enterprise”),

The Press Research Center in Cracow, as I remember it – ethos, pathos and logos

Three Greek words describe the features of the Press Research Center’s (OBP) activity. Some of its concrete content changed, but it always developed and strengthened the following characteristics, which had already been formed at the very beginning of PRC’s existence. Ethos – OBP was a child of the so-called Polish October 1956 (the first revolt of Polish workers and intellectuals) – and in that sense it was oriented on improving – through credible research – journalism and the press. Pathos (not pathetic!) means esprit de corps, engagement, identification with the team, strengthening identity, the spirit of companionship. For years a voluntary principle of the authority of the director had been adapted – at first, of the director Irena Tetelowska, and then Professor Walery Pisarek. Their ideas were influential and focused scientific and social consciousness of researchers. Logos, here means reason, knowledge, analysis, research. For the PRC, the empirical approach was the basis, in various dimensions – studying press readership and conducting public opinion research, first according to the French school of Jean Stoetzel, later to American Paul Lazarfeld, and analysis of content according to French designs by Jacques Kayser and American Bernard Berelson. Documentation is the basis of logos – the PRC library, the archives of research, not only its own, and annotated bibliography of Polish media research and from neighboring countries.
 

Activity profile of the Ośrodek Badań Prasoznawczych in Cracow in the RSW’s documents „Prasa-Książka-Ruch” during the years of political breakthrough (1980–1983)

The activity profile of the Press Research Centre (OBP) in Cracow in 1980–1983, which emerges from the content of documents located in the fonds of RSW’s „Prasa-Książka-Ruch”, allowed to define a general belief about a limited influence of the RSW leadership on a substantive work of OBP. Research topics realized at that time were a sign of peculiar sensibility of political administrators, including Wydział Prasy, Radia i Telewizji KC PZPR, to the challenges emerging from public space in terms of mass and social communication in 1980–1983. Another issue was the Party’s susceptibility to conclusions drawn from the prepared analyses. After the introduction of martial law, the activity of OBP was limited by new legal, political and economical requirements. The important element in the policy of the OBP leadership after
13 December 1981 was the preservation of OBP faculty after the staff verification in early 1982, which was necessary in this kind of institutions.
 

The Story Behind vol. 11 of the “Works of Inventiveness and Protection of Intellectual Property” (on History of the Co-operation between Press Research Centre and the Intercollegiate Institute of Inventiveness and Protection of Intellectual Property of the Jagiellonian University in 1970s)

The paper reports on the research that was undertaken in the years 1973–1975, concerning the press law of European socialist states. The research was conducted as the initiative of the Press Research Centre in Krakow and carried out in the Intercollegiate Institute of Inventiveness and Protection of Intellectual Property of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. The author reveals unknown facts and circumstances of the scientific investigation in some of the socialist countries.
 

The Impact of the Press Research Centre in Krakow on the way of shaping the media researchers community of the Journalism Unit at the University of Silesia

The establishment of the center for the academic education of journalists at the University of Silesia in Katowice. The way of shaping the media research community in the Journalism Unit at the University of Silesia. Characteristics of media research conducted in the Journalism Unit at the University of Silesia, selected research projects on local media as well as local

 

Mass Media Research and American Schools of Thought in Zeszyty Prasoznawcze (Media Issues quarterly)
 

The paper characterizes the presence of American tradition of the research on mass media and communication in Zeszyty Prasoznawcze (Media Issues) quarterly related to the Press Research Centre in Krakow. On the basis of the quantitative linguistic and computer assisted content analysis the author gives a brief account of the main configurations of names, ideas, concepts, notions and theories which indicate the main American mass media and communication research traditions in Krakow quarterly in 1958–2013. The author presents the graphical map of the American school of media research thought in comparison to other research traditions. Among the conclusions of that study one can find that the Krakow media researchers not only adopted the American model of science (and successfully popularized it) but also remained the staunch supporters of quantitative, empirical, inter-subjectively verifiable and pragmatically applicable media and communication research.
 

About some studies of historians of the Soviet press… The role of Zeszyty Prasoznawcze in the flow of ideas within the socialist community

The article presents Zeszyty Prasoznawcze as a forum for the exchange of ideas for writers representing various academic centers in socialist community countries. The author, from the perspective of a media historian, discusses the geography of the authors and various forms of dissemination of ideas in the form of: scientific articles, reviews, overviews and notes, reports, conferences, scientific journal. The author also draws attention to the most common issues undertaken and the participation of texts by authors from the socialist countries in the overall structure of the publication. All the issues of Zeszyty Prasoznawcze from the 60s, 70s and 80s were analyzed. The first part of the title of the paper refers to the text on the pages of Zeszyty Prasoznawcze in 1965.
 

Media and new epistemé in communication. The experience of Zeszyty Prasoznawcze

The article contains an analysis of the cognitive epistemé evolving under the influence of technological evolution of the next generation of media. The author believes that the study of the media must correspond with the changes in the epistemé. Based on selected texts published in Zeszyty Prasoznawcze some patterns of this type of transformation are shown in this study. Currently, the main task of the research methodology lies in an appropriate selection of quantitative and qualitative methods so that they correspond to one of the leading epistemé in the communication media.
 

How to research the underground press?

The second circuit press is one of the most important historical sources to describe modern Polish history. The studies call for a holistic approach, i.e. the overall research of individual newspapers or thematic exhaustive comparative analysis, carried out by selecting the broadest possible research sample. In the first stage there should be wide queries conducted in order to determine the actual state of research on the topic that interests us. In the second stage a detailed analysis of the content of a newspaper or newspapers must be undertaken, through which a thematic categorization key is developed. For each key-topic selected texts are assigned. Then we measure the area of individual texts on a certain topic by number of pages or cm2. We provide statistical reports serving as a starting point for substantive analysis of texts from the second circuit press. In press we also look for information on the origin of the newspapers, people or environments issuing them, organizational problems etc. The “conversation” of the researcher with the press becomes the preparation for interviews with its creators, authors. Then we start searching for editors or underground printers preceded by the preparation of a comprehensive and exhaustive questionnaire. The next step is to call the notation of sound or film with the people we were able to reach, and who are often (in the absence of archival materials) the only source of information enabling us to work on underground publications. The investigator becomes a mediator in the dialogue between the press and its creator. Another important link in the research on illegal publishing is the analysis of archival materials – primarily operational documents of the Security Service that are stored in the Institute of National Remembrance.
It is a specific research triangle: analysis of the content of the press, conversation with its creators and analysis of archival documents. It allows you to make a chronicle record of the past reality and to save an important part of the modern Polish history from oblivion.
 

The freedom of an individual ends where the freedom of the other person begins

This concept is especially important in the area of mass media. The author undertook an analysis of the assertion of the principle of freedom of speech and the freedom of the media in the Polish legal system, based on both international law and internal legislation based on the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. Further considerations have led to the conclusion that the natural situation is that in a democratic system, laws and freedoms cannot be absolute, so all legal acts, beginning from the highest placed international agreements, provide for various types of restrictions and exceptions, even to such overriding principles as freedom of speech. The author, apart from analyzing the legal status of these restrictions, also proves that besides the law, the boundaries of freedom are also determined by conscience, morality and ethical principles.
 

Information privacy in audiovisual services from the perspective of the new EU regulations (GDPR and EPR)

This article attempts to answer the question whether new and planned solutions for the protection of personal data and privacy are complementary to current media products and services. The analysis covers the approved scope of data protection in electronic communications and, in that context, information autonomy and information privacy. In the examined system of regulatory framework, i.a. electronic messages are protected, regardless of whether they relate to natural or legal persons, and any processing of electronic communications data will be subject to legal protection.
 

Issues Related to Image Protection in the World of Digital Media

The protection of image in the world of modern digital media is of utmost importance. Nowadays every mobile phone has an inbuilt digital camera which can take pictures and record a video and also – just with so-called one click – share them on social media or other websites. Because of various reasons the person in the picture might not want their image to be spread (for example during an accident, armed forces intervention etc.). Everyone has a right to decide in which situations their image will be published online. The paper aims to present the regulations about image protection as well as the basis to its protection according to current provisions of law, with special regard to the newest jurisdiction of the courts of common law in this realm. Social awareness of law is increasing and a bigger group of people want to actively pursue their rights. Because of this in the nearest future we can expect an increase in the number of legal actions in this scope. Constant development of the digital media is also of vital importance in this field. All the problems mentioned in the article are the reason why the interest of legal doctrine and jurisdiction will remain high for a long period of time.
 

In the Beginning There Was Jazz. 60 years of the music (jazz, rock) press in Poland

The 60th anniversary of Zeszyty Prasoznawcze and Press Research Centre coincides with the debut of the first – in the history of Poland, but also in the whole Eastern bloc – periodical devoted to the de facto banned Western music (jazz, rock), i.e. Jazz (1956), later renamed to Magazyn Muzyczny. Two years later, PR III had its inauguration, and then the Scouting broadcasting station, which for several decades were just a few means of mass communication which could to some extent promote culture, art and especially music from behind the “Iron Curtain”. The article is concerned with the description of the beginning and evolution of media dedicated to youth music fans (rock, jazz, pop).
 

Journalism at the time of the new media – a German case study

The strong development of the new media influences the quality of modern political communication and also the condition of modern journalism. This article analyses the consequences of the presence of the new media for journalism as a profession and the political communication as a system, particularly at the level of international communication. The results presented in this article are based on semi-structured individual interviews with German newspaper journalists.
 

Popular-science Journals in Poland: The State of Research and Future Perspectives

The article presents research on the Polish popular-science journals until 1939. A research project was carried out with the funds of the National Science Centre and it refers to a monographic approach of the history of the Polish popular-science journals until 1939.
 

Election advertising in Poland in the early 21st century: the transition from print media to the internet?

On the basis of financial reports submitted by the election committees to the National Electoral Commission (PKW) the author investigates the phenomenon of the changes in election advertising spending on traditional printed press (and other “traditional” media, primarily television) and on the Internet. The data on the funding of specific activities of campaign is clear and direct measures of popularity of advertising forms among election committees. Comparing this data will help to answer the key question about the changes of the share of press advertising (or paid TV advertisements) in election campaigns in Poland. There is also another question about the development of the campaign internet advertising market. Such changes may be crucial for the segments of the press (e.g. dailies, news magazines), which traditionally deal with political issues, and are read by people especially interested in politics. Any “transition” of election advertisers and readers from print to the virtual world may also result in the need to modify publishing profiles, pricing policies etc. This latter issue is, however, the subject for further research. This article will be limited to one element that could affect the development of the press: changes of incomes during election campaigns.