The radical transformation of life on the planet caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the convergence of social and private spaces by internet technologies. Big Tech companies have grown into key market and social life players. The article presents the key findings from the debate conducted by the American think-tank Pew Research Center in early 2021. The hypothesis concerns the necessity to adopt a new model of internet platforms accountabilities in the era of “dual convergence”, in the context of searching for a new paradigm of human-technology relations, more comprehensive reflecting the individual and social costs of using new technologies.

The article is a media studies analysis of the mechanisms and processes related to the COVID-19 pandemic causing the displacement of dignity by “the sting of harm”, they consist in the fact that harm breaks the resistance of its dignity, replaces internal self-recognition and causes dignity to be questioned and fall silent. The research aim of the article is to answer the following questions: (1) Wwhere does the vulnerability of a person to be injured as a result of harm caused by the media come from? (2) Why is dignity a good that proves to be so fragile? (3) How to explain the process in which an internal change takes place, subordinating the victim’s personality to the fact of media harm? This complex problem, in the form of a metaphorical acronym – “the sting of harm” – is the subject of research in this publication.

The outbreak of the pandemic in the first months of 2020 significantly affected the social, political and economic life of Poles. It also substantially impacted the media and journalists themselves who, following the “infodemy” – the initial confusion caused by the excess of information – gradually shifted their focus towards informing about the statistics of illnesses, the situation in hospitals, the restrictions imposed by the government or on the unfreezing of subsequent segments of the economy. The purpose of this article is to show how the changes related to the pandemic and the resulting significant restrictions in communication have affected the content of news programs, the functioning of the media and the journalistic environment in Olsztyn. The analysis covered activities of the regional public television, TVP3 Olsztyn. Selected results of own and published research were presented.

The article is an excerpt from a wider research project carried out by the author in October– December 2020, concerning advertising materials used by WHO and selected countries (Poland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) in social campaigns during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This text presents one case study – a campaign used in Poland, comparing its messages with WHO advertising materials. The main thesis was taken from the thought of Ivan Krastev, who claims that the pandemic made everyone realize that all people are inhabitants of “One World” in the face of a global threat. The entire study used the triangulation of two research methods – case study and compositional interpretation by Gillian Rose. Roman Jakobson’s model of linguistic communication was used to examine the verbal layer of messages. In the linguistic layer of the messages, their considerable persuasiveness was assumed. In the visual layer, due to the simplicity of the form, it is limited to the compositional modality, with particular emphasis on colors and iconic signs. The text shows how important a role in communication, especially in times of a pandemic, is played by social advertising campaigns. Paradoxically, a pandemic that threatens humanity may also open up new, comparative areas of research on the effectiveness of mass communication means used in some countries, which can be successfully used in others.

This article aims at examining the use of the potential of media in the urban space in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic on the example of the largest city in Poland – Warsaw. The author analyses the so-called new media, which were created on the basis of information and communication technologies, paying attention to both the channel (soft infrastructure) and the medium (hard infrastructure). The main research method is the case study of the mentioned city, which allows identifying good and bad practices in the use of new media in the city and the strategic objectives of the analysed cities. The study is based on the analysis of literature, strategic documents, brochures and websites. The research hypothesis is that the city authorities of Warsaw, adapting the smart city strategy during the pandemic, develops a communication system based on the Internet platform. The research results show that the municipal authorities in Warsaw are implementing the smart city concept by using new forms of media and technology as both targets and tools for its implementation. During the pandemic, the city’s various digital media were developed with content dedicated to COVID-19, and activities dedicated to informing and communicating with residents are undertaken through Warszawa 19115 platform.

The post-pandemic world of adolescents is a kaleidoscope of many changes. The research area of problems and challenges faced by adolescents during the pandemic, emerging from numerous studies, undoubtedly requires in-depth research, even extremely demanding and rarely conducted in sociology so-called longitudinal studies. The starting point for further research in this kind of diagnosis, however, is a preliminary review of the research available worldwide on the problems faced by youth during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in its first and second waves. After researching and analysing the most important, interesting and conducted on a large population of empirical research findings in Poland and around the world, those that are symptomatic for the diagnosis of problems and challenges were selected to be mapped for further observation and study. The article is exploratory in nature, outlining the problem phenomena that clearly emerged in the youth population during the pandemic period. The purpose of the article is to review the studies, their comparative analysis, and then to identify the most important phenomena and issues worthy of investigation in the adolescent population during and after the fourth wave of the pandemic, during the pandemic era.

The presidential campaign in Poland in 2020 took place during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the article is to try to answer the question to what extent the pandemic problem was exposed in candidates’ entries in social media. The subject of the research were messages published on Facebook and Twitter. Particular attention was paid to the content disseminated by Andrzej Duda and Rafał Trzaskowski. The main methods used in the research were content analysis and secondary analysis of existing data. The research proved that the candidates became campaigners like the previous ones, clearly emphasizing the important role of reports from direct meetings with voters. The pandemic thread, especially at the end of the campaign, was only incidentally mentioned in the messages.

This article describes the narratives about refugees and migrants as well as information about the COVID-19 pandemic, in the context of mutual understanding, solidarity with others, community-building in a crisis, all presented through the media of photographs. This article is the result of an analysis of visual images on the internet. These two crises reveal different attitudes to solidarity in Europe, both among the citizens as well as politicians of different countries.

The women’s magazine segment in the UK accounts for a significant part of the publishing market and has the highest readership in the country. Despite its popularity, women’s press faces many problems caused by the expansion of new types of media. Media researchers and insiders report about a crisis and stagnation of this publishing branch. The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020, has compounded problems within the women’s press market, but also accelerated the development of existing trends. Moreover, it has sped up the digitization of previously printed content. The COVID crisis has also taken its toll on the organization of editorial work. Under current restrictions related to COVID, magazines which previously were not as popular, have come to the fore – periodicals on cooking.

Women’s press has been analysed as an element of the Polish media system by representatives of various fields of research. There have been studies of press content, formal features of individual magazines, ownership and definition issues, and internal segmentations, amongst others. This research attempts to fill a gap in the study of women’s press content; it aims to show how the COVID-19 was presented in women’s press. As an introduction to the main research, this article examines a carefully selected study sample with individual sub-segments of women’s press each represented by a leading magazine. Research objectives include determining the ways in which COVID-19 is presented in certain women’s press titles belonging to different sub-segments, analysing the selection and presentation of information to potential readers in regards to their needs, and establishing the functions of COVID-19 guidance in women’s press.

The aim of the article is an attempt to estimate the changes that took place in the press in the last year, directly or indirectly related to the coronavirus pandemic. Some publishers experienced its effects painfully, losing readership and advertiser clients, which caused financial losses that are difficult to counteract. Hence the decisions to close press titles, suspend or abandon the printed version to the electronic version. In the latter case, we will have to wait for the gains to offset the losses. But digital editions are gaining in importance. The information provided before the end of 2020 by the press giant – the New York Times – about generating more revenues from sales of digital editions than from printed ones (sic!), should encourage publishers to develop this form of sales. This is a historic moment for the world press. The abandonment of printing press, announced years ago, may now accelerate even more. Not because of a pandemic anymore, but because electronic newspapers may generate higher revenues than traditional ones. Thus, the last arguments for staying in print may lose their raison d’être.

The article presents an analysis of the contents of news stories broadcasted by the news services of two leading Polish TV stations dedicated to the social protests sparked by the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal of 22 October 2020 on tightening the law on abortion in Poland. Moreover, a closer look was taken on the frequency and method of connecting the coverage of the protests with the matter of COVID-19 pandemic. The obtained results were set in the context, of the theory of the framing and agenda-setting. The outcome of the analyses presents essential differences in the methods in informing the public of the social protests used by the newsroom of ”Wiadomości” TVP and ”Fakty” TVN.

The fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is another significant confession for European societies. Despite extensive efforts, a safe level of population resilience has not been achieved in most countries. Previous actions and government programs aimed at persuading as many people as possible to accept vaccinations. Full availability of free vaccination has brought different levels of participation in fully vaccinated people across the European Union. This article presents the preliminary results of research on the role of the media in shaping pro-vaccination attitudes in Poland, based on a critical analysis of the literature on the subject, statistical data and an empirical research. The differences in attitudes towards vaccination against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in individual European Union countries have multifaceted conditions. These include factors of a social, political and cultural nature. Information plays an important role, shaping social attitudes in the discussed issue. One of the primary sources of this information is media – both traditional and digital. It is therefore worth defining the strength of media in the fight to build population resilience in the face of a pandemic.

The aim of this article is to discuss the attitudes exhibited by internet users to vaccines during the pandemic. It is assumed here that the activities of internet users fall within the general category of the activity of media users, while memes are a way to manifest the users’ attitude to specific issues. The article employs the active audience theory and elaborates on the phenomenon of internet memes as a key category of research. The research material comprises messages posted on Demotywatory.pl that are subject to content analysis. The material is first categorized on the basis of its connection to the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, the internet users’ attitudes are determined – whether they support or reject vaccinations – and the implications of particular messages are analysed. The research results make it possible to pinpoint the attitude of a given group to the issue of vaccination. Further, they show that health issues are often a starting point for a broader discussion (and critique) on the level of political communication.