The aim of this paper is to present and discuss theoretical background for media events studies that have been conducted since the 1980s. The paper collects all major perspectives and studies in order to provide a complete picture of a theoretical approach to research on the media events. First, the paper reviews concepts developed by E. Durkheim and so called neodurkheimists, including E. Rothenbuhler and W. Shils. These concepts provided the background and led to a deeper understanding and an explanation of symbolic dimensions of social relations, contemporary ceremonies, rituals (including political ones), and the role of the media in creating the social and political reality. One of Durkheim’s fundamental concepts distinguishing sacrum and profanum provided the background for a concept of media events developed by E. Katz and D. Dayan. While the classic version of this concept included just three main types of the media events (conquest, coronation, and contest), the more recent one is extended and includes six types. Based on the empirical studies conducted by T. Liebes, E. Rothenbuhler, and G. Weimann (to name just some of the scholars), three more types have been added, namely: coercion, disaster, and war. They share a disruptive character (instead if integrative one) and they describe relations between the organizers of an event, media organizations, and the audience in a different manner than the classic version of the concept. For this reason, the idea of including them into a classic concept seems to be criticized by some scholars, including E. Rothenbuhler. Instead, he proposes that a concept of ritual  communication as a broader frame for studies on media events should be used.

• Nowe media w ofensywie (Igor Mostowicz)

• „Mediatyzacja życia, kultury, polityki” – III Kongres Polskiego Towarzystwa Komunikacji Społecznej (Agnieszka Całek)

• Zbigniew Bauer (4 grudnia 1952 – 11 kwietnia 2014) i jego myślenie o kulturze medialnej (Henryk Czubała)

apart from TV digitization the Internet and local press have been the most important events in the Polish media in the recent years. The former has been developing very intensively, the latter, which exists in the traditional form, for many years has been said to be bound to fall due to the Internet itself. But it is still doing quite well and has more and more in common with the Internet. Local communication as well as regional or national ones seem to be exceeding the limited territorial environment more and more and getting transferred to the global network with better and better results. Many publishers offer subscriptions and e-copy sales releases. On the other hand, the local printed press has still priority over the virtual media in many communities. These are the theses which the author tries to prove through the analysis of the selected local newspapers. Among them there are both local weeklies-the best-selling in the country, and short-run periodicals, especially popular in smaller towns and villages. Some of them are still very traditional and they use paper as the only carrier transfer. It mainly concerns the press of a very small range. One can clearly observe that the smaller the community, the greater the role of the traditional print media. However, it is difficult to notice the relationship between the time of launching the new titles and their form. The recent ones are not necessarily the most multimedia ones.

The article discusses ethical and legal conditions referring to media management. The following thesis is discussed: tendency for manipulative behaviors in the media is conditioned primarily by needs. Their expressions are rather independent from socio-economic system. For the purpose of proving the thesis the case study analysis was applied, including Watergate scandal, being the most substantial one and perceived widely as acknowledgment of the power of American democracy. The author proves that it is a faulty belief. An alternate element that proves the rightness of the assumed thesis is the analysis of legal documents referring to media institutions and deontological codes accepted by journalist associations.

On November 5th, 2009, the Polish Parliament passed an amendment to the Penal Code, introducing a new preventive measure against pedophilia perpetrators, commonly known as chemical castration. The amended Article 95a, section 1a of the Penal Code concerns, among others, a mandatory referral of the perpetrator of rape of a minor under the age of 15 to outpatient treatment or placement in a closed institution, where they will undergo pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatment aimed at reducing sex drive. The amendment has been widely criticized by professionals; doctors, sexologists, and criminologists, who underlined ineffectiveness and possible adverse health consequences of the so-called chemical castration, not to mention how its mandatory nature violates the basic rights of the individual.

Nevertheless, this law has an extremely large popular support: according to a Millward Brown SMG / KRC survey lab, 79% of Poles approved of the amendment. It is also worth noting that the first announcement of the introduction of the above-mentioned Act took place on September 9th, 2008, and thus on the same day on which the media revealed the so-called Polish Fritzl case, whose perpetrator, Krzysztof B. is currently held imprisoned for sexual abuse of his daughter. The topic of this paper is to answer whether and to what extent the introduction of the so-called ‚chemical castration act’ was infl uenced by the phenomenon of penal populism, and what the role played by media was in this process. It is a research attempt to determine how the Polish media report the allegations of pedophilia crimes and whether the manner of reporting could have infl uenced the public opinion about this kind of crimes and the political decisions about the employed ways of combating it.

The purpose of the article is to point out the outlook of Local Censorship Office in Poznań to articles about political changes in Poland in 1956, which were published in Gazeta Poznańska. The previous research on the attitude of the press and censorship during the “Polish October” focused primarily on newspapers which were considered revisionist. Gazeta Poznańska was edited by Regional Committee of the Polish United Workers` Party and presented an official conservative point of view. The article was based on the documents from State Archive in Poznań. The basis of arrangements presented in the article were the result of the analysis of source documents created by Local Censorship Office in Poznań. They made it possible to create a category of texts which were consistently excluded from publication. This group included articles on the increase in wages and focused on the movements of Soviet troops in Poland. Censorship also blocked opinions that evaluated the earlier period of the Communist Party governments too critically and suggested dissatisfaction with the ongoing changes. The activity of censorship in Gazeta Poznańska in the year 1956 also indicates what type and level f criticism of the Communist Party at that time was considered to be admissible. The outlook of Local Censorship Office in Poznań to Gazeta Poznańska in the period of 1956 changes in Poland showed what type and level of criticism was acceptable in the Polish United Workers’ Party’s press.

The aim of this article is to analyze the manner in which the chosen Polish weekly news magazines – Newsweek, Polityka and Wprost – presented Africa in the years 2001–2010, mainly the problems of its current situation and prospects for the future, as well as the issue of the most prominent leaders of the continent. Using two research methods – content analysis and discourse analysis – the author establishes that none of the magazines published articles about Africa in a systematic planned manner. The magazines focused mainly on political and security issues. Economy, societies and religions were also on the agenda but to a lesser extent. The problems of the continent were often presented through the activities taken by the dictators – Muammar Gaddafi and Robert Mugabe. As far as the perspectives of Africa for the future are concerned, the most critical and pessimistic was Wprost, whereas Newsweek and Polityka took a more optimistic approach to the issue.

• Agnieszka Hess: Społeczni uczestnicy medialnego dyskursu politycznego. Mediatyzacja i strategie komunikacyjne organizacji pozarządowych (Teresa Sasińska-Klas)

• Olga Białek-Szwed: Voyeuryzm medialny w kontekście współczesnej prasy w Polsce (Maria Narecka)

• Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov (red.): Studia z dziejówtrójjęzycznej prasy żydowskiej na ziemiach polskich (XIX–XX w.) (Sabina Kwiecień),

• Krzysztof Liderman: Bezpieczeństwo informacyjne (Krzysztof Tlałka)

• Rocznik Historii Prasy Polskiej zeszyt 2012, nr 2 (Adam Bańdo)