scholarly journals Transformation of Communist Media Content and Public Space According to the Discourse ‘39Pact: Exiting the “Labyrinth” as an Act of Communication

2020 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 53-79
Author(s):  
Andrius Vaišnys

This text is about one of the longest processes of political communication, which, decades on, influences politicians of various generations of the Central, Eastern and Western Europe, contents of media and self-awareness of the audience. The process isn’t over yet, this is obvious not only from the document adopted by the EP but also from an international political rhetoric. Analysis of consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on 1939 in media (D’39Pact) and related national and international decisions is the axis of information conflict between the East and the West concerning thousands of fates. Those thousands of people had and still have different historical narratives – some people justified the Pact and implemented it, others were fighting for the elimination of its consequences, yet others fell victims to it, with a death toll estimated in the millions. But not everybody’s narratives are based on true arguments.Let’s look at the way the system of propaganda collapsed and the public opinion was transformed in countries of Central and Eastern Europe in 1988-1989. Moving from a lie to (hopefully) the historical truth. Review of consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the main axis of such transformation (protection of environmental and cultural valuables, choice of one’s viewpoint, legislative requirements and other rights were contextual aspects of this axis). During this period in the previously mentioned region the control of public space was on the decline.This view will be based on a single thematic discourse: the provision of consequences of the 1939 Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and criticism in communist model media of Lithuania and neighbouring countries. It may be called D’39Pact.D‘39Pact in general has several narratives (it may also be seen from the EP Resolution), but taking into consideration the interpretation of Jurgen Habermas’s Communicative Action, the analysis of transformation of 1988-1989 two of them would suffice, one of which is that of the authorities of the USSR and the other one – that of its opponents. Let’s call opponents USSR dissidents, protestors, underground press (samizdat) and press of public movements which was published legally.Narrative of the USSR authorities: the treaty was the inevitable and no annexes (secret protocols) exist.Narrative of the opponents: based on secret protocols of the treaty, the USSR and Nazi Germany divided the countries and destroyed their political, military, cultural elite and finally – their population of various social layers.Medias, as the main participant of the public space, most clearly disclose the collision of such narratives and transformation in D‘39Pact. The purpose of the article is to discuss the circumstances of transformation of MMPT from the historical perspective and of the public space and come across the factors, which influenced the strongest role of MMPT interpretative accomplishments. Considering the way out of the “labyrinth” regarding the D’39 Pact, we see some similarities with the situation that now exists in Russia.

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Accornero

“Certain sounds, even when they are loud or heard from close by, conjure small sources.” Small sounds, as Chion (2016) describes them in this quote, usually appear in intimate or contained settings, where their relatively low strength will not be spoiled by the masking effects of a noisy public sphere. What happens, however, when they are shared with an audience in a concert venue? Privileging a distributive understanding of agency, I explore the interactions of instruments, techniques, and processes through which the composer Clara Iannotta (b. 1983) brings small sounds to the public space of the concert hall in the first minute of her composition Intent on Resurrection – Spring or Some Such Thing (2014). By articulating the technological means harnessed to allow for the qualities of small sounds to emerge, I reveal the conditions that are required for sound to be recognized and experienced as intimate. Along the way, I draw connections between the amplification aesthetics of Iannotta’s work and Hyperrealist art, and theorize the concept of the “grain of the instrument” drawing on ideas from Roland Barthes, Pierre Schaeffer, and Brian Kane.


Author(s):  
Alison Morgan

The sixteen ballads and songs within this section fall into two camps: elegy and remembrance. Whilst a central feature of elegiac poetry is the way in which it remembers or memorialises the dead, the dead a poem which is one of remembrance is not necessarily an elegy. Several of the songs herein use the date of Peterloo as a temporal marker – with an eye both on the contemporaneous reader or audience and the future reader. Included in this section are broadside ballads by Michael Wilson and elegies by Samuel Bamford and Peter Pindar. These songs display a self-awareness in their significance in marking the moment for posterity and in their attempts to reach an audience beyond Manchester and ensure that the public knew what had happened on 16th August as well as preserving the event in English vernacular culture. It is also a quest for ownership of the narrative of the day; the speed with which so many of these songs were written and published not only suggests the ferocity of emotions surrounding events but also the need to exert some control over the way in which they were represented.


Author(s):  
Daniel Toscano López

This chapter seeks to show how the society of the digital swarm we live in has changed the way individuals behave to the point that we have become Homo digitalis. These changes occur with information privatization, meaning that not only are we passive consumers, but we are also producers and issuers of digital communication. The overarching argument of this reflection is the disappearance of the “reality principle” in the political, economic, and social spheres. This text highlights that the loss of the reality principle is the effect of microblogging as a digital practice, the uses of which can either impoverish the space of people's experience to undermine the public space or achieve the mobilization of citizens against of the censorship of the traditional means of communication by authoritarian political regimes, such as the case of the Arab Spring in 2011.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 65-72
Author(s):  
Tetiana Banakh

The article analyzes the first public discussions of the last decade of the 20th century about mass murders of Polish population in Volhynia in 1943. The author explores the emergence of the topic of “Volhynia” in the public space and Polish-Ukrainian historical debates about these mass murders in the 1990s. The research is based on the published sources and interviews with the participants in the Polish-Ukrainian dialog. The article focuses on the first mentions of the Volhynian events in the post-communist period, on the way this issue was discussed at seminars of Polish and Ukrainian historians, and in the leading Polish newspapers “Gazeta Wyborcza” and “Rzeczpospolita”. Particular attention is paid to the discussion about the mass murders in the “Gazeta Wyborcza” in 1995. The Volhynian issue appeared in the public space after almost fifty years of silence initiated from the Polish “kres” and veteran circles which represented the victims of the mass murders. This topic was arousing interest gradually. It did not immediately take a lead- ing place in Polish-Ukrainian historical debates. In the 1990s, the discussion about “Volhynia” took place primarily between historians and within the groups to which this topic was important. There was only one discussion about the Volhynian events in the press, namely in the “Gazeta Wyborcza”. This newspaper, which appeared as an organ of Solidarity, pays attention especially to the relationship between Poland and its neighbours, particularly Ukraine. In the Ukrainian central media, the Volhynian issue remained completely without attention. Although the debates about “Volhynia” were not actively conducted in the 1990s, certain tendencies were established during this period, which remained characteristic in the following years. In Poland, these events were perceived as one of the most traumatic episodes of the national history, so it was the Polish side who initiated the discussions about this topic. The Ukrainian side was forced to respond to these initiatives.


2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 187-196
Author(s):  
Martin Mayer

The digital age has changed the way we consume information and left organizations struggling to adapt to new technologies and information exchange mechanisms. Civic crowdfunding is one such new technology that has the potential to redefine what local government means from an individual and administrative perspective, but there remains little knowledge about what it is and where it fits in the public space. This research attempts to unravel these questions by providing an overview of the field of civic crowdfunding and explaining what types of projects are undertaken, what projects are successfully funded, and what factors lead to successful projects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Ştefana Ciortea-Neamţiu

"Fake news are a big concern for media, audiences and governments. Some journalists are engaged in finding fake news and disclose them. Fake news is also a concern to the researchers and journalism professors, but they should not focus only on the way fake news work, or how to teach future journalists about them, a big challenge would be to teach the audiences, the public to make the right choices and identify fake news. Tackling this problem of the popularization of science and teaching the public should actually be one of the key-concerns of the journalism professors today in Romania. It is the purpose of this paper to propose a list of criteria to identify fake news, by using critical thinking, a list that could be easily explained to people from the public, so they can make good choices. The core notion used hereby will be quality. A large discussion on quality in journalism raised at the end of the 1990s in Western Europe, not so in Romania. Therefore, it seems more than appropriate to start it now. Keywords: fake news, media, critical thinking, education, public, criteria. "


TERRITORIO ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 116-122
Author(s):  
Roig Xavier Monteys ◽  
Gianluca Burgio

The Meridiana greyhound track is one of the most original works of architecture of the ‘second' Spanish modern period. Its particular nature lies in the form of the roof and the structural conception which resolves the spatial idea of the building. The way the steel beams fan out, the variation in the slope of the lower wings and the curve of the façade onto the street generate a spectacular play of perspectives. The view towards the track is in fact the result of an optical effect produced by the cross panels of the brise-soleil, which appear, when seen, as if drawn on a plane surface. The objective of the ‘repair' work was to restore the spatial significance to the building which it had originally, posing the problem of converting the terraces into a large open balcony over the public space of the old track and its new use as an art centre.


Stage rights! ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 82-106
Author(s):  
Naomi Paxton

This chapter explores how members of the Actresses' Franchise League displayed their support for the suffrage movement in public space, and how such displays were an important and highly visible public and private strategy that encouraged collective action and activism and saw League members campaign directly on the streets, particularly through processions and the selling of suffrage newspapers. The plays and articles that emerged as part of this visibility give a new perspective on how actresses interacted with the public and how they reflected upon it themselves, and this chapter looks in detail at how interactions between the public and suffragists were absorbed into the performative strategies of the campaign, both on stage and in print. This chapter also details the way the theatrical newspaper the Era represented the campaign and the League to its readership.


Author(s):  
João R. Caetano ◽  
Alexandra F. Martins

Politics is a field of interaction between a multiplicity of actors—both individual and collective—with different interests operating in the so-called public space and trying to influence the outcomes of the state’s (or groups of states’) action, typically public policies. In politics, people do not defend their interests alone but within groups and in relation to other groups, which presupposes a communication strategy and tactics. The diversity of political and social groups has not ceased to grow in recent decades throughout the world, particularly in democratic systems, with implications for the way politics and democracy are depicted by the media, as well as the way the make-up of public policies is analyzed. This important issue gets at the essence of politics and of society, in relation to communication processes, and is subject to new interdisciplinary approaches and developments in social science, particularly in political communication (the study of the connections between politics and citizens and the interactions connecting groups). Political and social groups are groups composed of two or more people who interact and maintain relations of interdependence in order to obtain power, stay in power, or influence policy makers, in their own interest. Every day, people see the action of political and social groups when they watch television, listen to the radio, access the Internet, or simply talk with other people, in different situations. In fact, an isolated person would not need politics. Only the necessity of regulating relations between people in society explains the creation of politics and the action of political and social groups through the use of communication tools. Political and social groups can be categorized in different ways, according to their structure, functions, and types of activity. According to a structural perspective, political and social groups can be classified as political institutions, political and social (nonstate or public) organizations, and social movements. One can distinguish between permanent and nonpermanent groups, depending on their expected or usual time of duration, and based on function there are: public and private groups, interest aggregation groups, and interest articulation groups. Lastly, according to their activities, there are institutional and noninstitutional groups, taking into account their role in political decision-making processes. During the early 21st century, the use of technology has revolutionized the way people conceive of politics. Networks brought with them new social demands and forms of public scrutiny. As a result political and social groups have been experimenting with new ways of doing politics as they break with the past. These new facts require social scientists—facing a new and demanding scientific challenge—to rethink the politics of today in relation to society. Communication is important because it relates to many of these political dynamics.


2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Riedel

AbstractEuropean church-state relations are the result of a long democratisation process. The immigration of the Muslim population during the second part of the twentieth century to Western Europe and the democratic transition of the Eastern European political systems after 1990 raise questions on the importance of religious bodies in the public space and their influence on existing church-state relations. This article analyses whether these developments would continue the traditional separation of church and state or put the clocks back towards a new sacralisation of politics.


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