Political communication is the process of exchanging political messages between political actors and citizens thanks to the available communication channels. The first scientific research appeared before World War II in Anglo‑Saxon countries. The development took place in the late 1960s. The leading topics are: political actors and their activities (election campaigns, political marketing, public relations, advertising), voters, mass and social media. The research dedicated to political communication in Poland began in the 1990s at the universities, mainly in Katowice, Krakow, Lublin, Poznan, Warsaw and Wroclaw.

The aim of the article is to analyze the achievements of Krakow researchers associated with the Institute of Journalism, Media and Social Communication of the Jagiellonian University from the historical perspective of the development of research on political communication in Poland. The authors present research traditions derived from the legacy of the Press Research Center and scientific discussions published in Zeszyty Prasoznawcze, indicate key authors whose works have contributed to expanding the field and research perspective of political communication as a sub-discipline of communication science and map the current spectrum of their interests and methodology used by them based on the literature review.

New opportunities for creating and exchanging messages between political actors, the media and the audience/voters are to some extent the effect of the dynamically developing technological sphere. The advent of online media (including social media) has changed politics. At the same time, political communication is also changing. On the one hand, this is an inspiration and, on the other hand, a challenge for the scientific exploration of this research area. The interdisciplinarity of media science, which includes the study of political communication, prompts researchers to look for new research tools, especially in the field of data collection, analysis and visualisation. This leads to the incorporation of previously non-specific methods into the field of media studies. The aim of the article is to present social network analysis (SNA) as a method popular in American and European research, although still rarely present in Polish analyses of political communication. The article presents the characteristics of the method, its main indicators and the current state of research in Poland.

The article’s main objective is to reconstruct the media ecosystem of the Polish extreme right on the Internet. The starting point was 15 websites of the most recognisable Polish far-right organisations, which were indexed using the Hyphe tool to identify other websites with the same ideological profile, this identified 312 websites. These were then further analysed using social network analysis methods and tools in order to answer the following research questions: 1) how dense is the network of connections between the different sites; 2) what is the diversity and dominant ideological orientation of the far-right Internet; 3) what types of sites are used to disseminate far-right content? The research results show that far-right websites are poorly networked but that a few sites act as opinion leaders and content distributors linking different communities. At the same time, despite the ideological diversity, two communities – radical nationalists and autonomous nationalists – are critical in the reconstructed media ecosystem. While the different types of sites function as important media sites for each milieu, each milieu uses the different types of sites in slightly different ways.

The aim of the article is to identify the social campaign used as a tool for government crisis communication in social media in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland and to attempt to analyse and evaluate the information provided through advertising spots dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic in the light of Internet users’ opinions. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used, including source studies, media content analysis, desk research and case study. The authors put forward the thesis that by means of selected spots aired as part of the social campaign conducted by the Ministry of Health, during the first year of the pandemic in Poland (from March 4, 2020, to March 4, 2021), this Ministry tried to inform and educate the public about safety and public health measures implemented to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The results of the research showed the government’s lack of experience in using new media channels in crisis communication, which caused a fierce public discourse in social media, for which the rulers were not prepared. The discourse in Polish society, emerging from the comments of users of selected social media on the information provided through advertising spots dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic, stimulates and encourages action, arousing anxiety due to the disruption of the established information order. We can discuss its potential to generate changes, on condition that social information campaigns are carefully prepared.

The aim of the research was to reconstruct the communication strategy of the Confederation Liberty and Independence [Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość] party during the internal crisis that began after the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine. The research period covered the period from February 24, 2022 to February 13, 2023. The subject of the research were statements and publications published in the official media of the Confederation [Konfederacja], as well as social media of party leaders and interviews they gave. Content analysis was used in the research. Research has shown that a multi-community party such as the Confederation [Konfederacja], in order to solve the internal crisis, was forced to implement a consensus strategy in the field of discussion about the war in Ukraine and the marginalisation of activists who undermine the integrity of the group. As part of the pursuit of consensus, a communication strategy was implemented, which can be described as searching for a community of values by expanding the field of reference to the problem. The marginalisation of the Libertarians [Wolnościowcy] resulted in their withdrawal from the party, thus stabilising the internal situation in the Confederation [Konfederacja].

The digital revolution has brought social media into the space of politicians’ activities, the most widely used of which is Twitter. This platform fosters special participation of users and informing the audience about the most current events in almost real time. It can also be understood as one of the most effective tools of modern political communication. The proposed article provides a comparative analysis of the communications of Antoni Macierewicz, who is associated with Poland’s ruling camp in 2022, and Robert Biedroń, one of the opposition leaders. The analysed communications concern the first month of the war in Ukraine. Both quantitative methods, including elements of statistical analysis, and qualitative analysis, based mainly on content analysis, were used to conduct the study. The aim of the study is to identify differences in communications and to show their twitter statements about the war in Ukraine in the context of a broader political communication strategy in line with the program of the party represented and relating to activities on the political scene (Polish or European). The analysis also points to the diversity of messages communicated through the social medium and the general polarising tendencies developing despite public voices calling for unity to help the victims of Russian aggression.

The aim of the analysis conducted is to show how motherhood was portrayed in four Polish weekly opinion magazines Gazeta Polska, Newsweek Polska, Polityka and Wprost, during selected periods, over the years 2000-2019, and how the role of the mother projected media images of women in the world of politics. Preliminary assumptions were made that motherhood is politicised in the publications and that the editorial line of the surveyed weeklies influences the way they write about it. In addition, an attempt was made to test the validity of the claim that wives of politicians were more often portrayed in the role of the mother than female politicians, and the role of the mother was more strongly exposed in the portrayal of Polish female politicians than foreign ones. The research method used was a content analysis of selected publications, sourced from weekly opinion magazines, which was carried out based on the author’s categorisation key and with the support of the IBM SPSS program. In the course of the conducted analyses, the research objectives were achieved and the adopted research hypotheses were confirmed.