Television on the Borderlands

Dear all, I am very, very happy to announce that my first book has been published :) I had a great stage-fright when it came out in December but now I got used to its presence in bookshops. It is the end of a very long journey. I am particularly enthusiastic about the cover, which looks like this: .

. The funny TV set on the cover is the artwork by Erno Bartha The Triptych from the TV Mania series. I am happy that Erno allowed me to use his work. Firstly because I believe his work, the TV set opening itself is the metaphorical representation of the main argument I make: television by the act of letting in the Other and his own representation (even though within the narrow niche) into the broadcasted main stream communicates interculturally and opens itself and its viewers to the other point of view. Secondly I really enjoyed the TV Mania exhibition that I visited when in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I found it extremely funny on one hand and theoretically interesting on the other. It is a game with the object that is no longer used and lost its initial function. Now being an empty shell may be filled in with different content, different uses and roles. I have already written about this exhibition earlier on this blog. If you want to see more Bartha’s works visit his site. . The book itself is the shortened version of my Ph.D thesis defended in 2010. It is based on analysis and research conducted in 2008 and 2009 so as TV texts are rather ephemeral ones it is in fact it is rather historical book now. I treat it as a representation and critical analysis of a television scape in a given historical moment. . The main aim of the book is presenting various strategies the Others are presenting themselves in the main stream of television broadcasting. I was not interested in the images of the otherness created by the representatives of main stream television programmes (as travel series) but the selfportraits the representatives of the nondominant societies and groups are allowed to present – even though these representations can be found mostly in niches. In spite of that one can still perceive cracks on the monolith surface of the mainstream media. . The book consists of four chapters. The first one is a methodological one, where multimodal text analysis, content analysis and ethnographical methods are presented and justified. The latter three chapters are case studies of abovementioned cracks in the mainstream media ordered by the geographical scale. . The second chapter regards television texts moving in global scale above administrative borders of states and mental borders of nations: the country promotion spots. They are only one way of national branding but, as I see it, the most global and influential as transmitted by the worldwide news channels as CNN or BBC. I analyse them as Arjun Appadurai’s mediascape elements that has the power of setting in motion the human masses (tourists and investors) due to the stir of collective imagination. . The third chapter regards the phenomenon that I call the trasnborder television. These are the television programmes that are realized in co-productions by the neighbor states. All analysis in this chapter is based on programmes produced by Polish television in cooperation with German, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Byelorussian broadcasters. Some of them are stable and are still on air, some survived only two or three episodes (Ukrainian ones), some did not survive the political tensions (the case of Byelorussian series). . The last chapter is the longest and represents all the methodological equipment I have suggested in the first chapter. It is a monograph of the local scale otherness self-representation in television and regards the national and ethnic minority series in the local subsidiary of Polish Public Television in northern part of Poland Podlasie. It is the most culturally diverse part of the country with Poles, Byelorussians, Ukrainians, Russians, Lithuanians, Roma people and Polish Tatars live together, where three religions – catholic, orthodox and Islam – meet. The research I conducted covers the content analysis, ethnography of the Byelorussian viewers and the journalists creating the minority programmes. . Even though I am now so far away from these issues, into totally different groups and media really love this book :)

National and ethnic minorities in Polish media before 1989

Ethnic and national minorities have been present in polish public media sphere since we can observe such phenomenon. Polish public media sphere dates back 1918 when Poland regained independence after over 100 years annexation and became integral country with one media system. This early media public sphere covered press only and on this field minorities were extremely active. At that time ethnic and national minorities constituted the third part of Polish society and their participation in media fully reflected it. The most active minority group were the Ukrainians who published more than 800 titles which mean they covered 5% of publishing market (publishing 124 newspapers in 1937 only). Other active groups as Germans and Jews among others made Polish public and media sphere diverse and multilingual even if a large number of published by them magazines had temporary, political or religious character.

This situation dramatically changed after the WW2 when many regions inhabited by minority groups became part of Soviet Union and other active groups almost vanished from Polish demographical landscape due to war caused migrations (the Germans) and Holocaust. Those who remained had to deal with new communist reality under which all groups not matching the officially accepted ideal – with minorities among them – were doomed to media nonexistence. Minorities were not mentioned in an official diofficialy or were the subject of negative or missinformational discourse (their quantity was downsized, in some cases their existence was denied). The aim of the ruling party, which was the only one in fact, was to delete these groups from public sphere and due to that delete them from social consciousness. The media treated by the party as a powerful tool of propaganda was rajter normative than descriptive. The model of Polish society was simple: one nation, one ideology, one life style. For minorities the process of re-entering Polish media sphere was long and taken step by step. The access to media was restricted and depended on political situation. It was treated by authorities as a punishment or reward - just as many other goods as private telephone or passport.

After the thaw of 1956 the party allowed minority groups to create their own cultural societies - one for each group. They were the only permitted minorities’ activities and had to cover groups needs in all aspects. In late 1950’s those societies began publishing magazines (also one for each group). Although it was a big breakthrough publishing in native tongues did not mean presenting minorities’ own ideas or lifestyles. Those magazines were censured as well as Polish ones and had to represent the same rule of “national form, but socialistic content”. There were topics and people editors weren’t allowed to mention, there were also issues they had to present. Still there were some minority groups that were not granted the access to media: the Germans, Silesians and Kashubian people – all regarded as German and due to that dangerous element in Polish society - and the Roma people – the group stigmatised in the whole Eastern Europe.

All potentially dangerous, heteronymous content (as historical or social issues) was deleted from the minoritys’ magazines (as well as from minorities’public activities) – due to that the pattern of colourful, happy and folkloristic minority was shaped and is still very strong in both Polish minority and ethnic and national minorities, that rather organise another traditional-song-and-dance festival than ground political organisation.

In the late 1950’s two minorities – the Ukrainians and the Byelorussians – were allowed to create their own programmes on the radio. Those programmes were presented in local subsidiaries of Polish Radio. In Podlasie region the Byelorussians had access to five-minutes programme in national language a week. It may seem nothing, but in late 1950’s those several minutes was regarded as a mile step and concession made by the authorities. Just as on press market the content of those programmes was concentrating on issues as culture and education. No political or social topics were allowed at that time. With years the time amount devoted to Byelorussians programmes was growing constantly and reached thirty minutes a week at late 1980’s.

In case of the Ukrainians government was also quite open letting them ground association and press in Ukrainian language and even letting them teach the mother tongue at schools but such open policy was conducted in central Poland where the Ukrainians and Lemkos were translocated in 1947 from southern part of the country. The official reason for the relocation was to brake the groups of Ukrainians national insurgents for the anti-polish actions taken by the members of those groups. For Polish government radio programmes, Ukrainian language at schools were to prevent Ukrainians and Lemkos from coming back to their homes in the southern part of Poland.

Although the party was ready to accept minorities on the press market and in the radio, television was absolutely beyond minorities’ reach until the communism fell down. Power of television in creating reality was too important for the party to let minorities to it. Television’s message had to be monolith clear without the slightest taste of different ideology, lifestyle, language. It had to give the impression of one nation closed in one country. Television was one of the most important weapons in fight with potential (mostly imaginary) enemies.

Magazines or radio programmes for minority groups were not enough for their needs. They were not the means of their own expression, they could not cover hard, painful or difficult topics. They were by no means an alternative for stereotypes and prejudices spread by official media: minorities’ population was understated creating the image of monoethnicity. Two minority groups had even more difficult media (as well as social) situation. The Germans were the last to reach media representation and weren’t treated as a separate group till 1989. Roms (discriminated in all communist bloc) didn’t have media representation at all.

Few magazines and several minutes in local broadcasting stations were rather proves of government’s concession when minorities tried to fight for their rights, for the real and fair representation.

An interesting casus is the group of Byelorussians, that was active and determined enough to create its own non-official press market – as the only minority group in Poland. According to press historians in years 1981-1980 non-officially about fifty titles were published (regular titles, brochures, cards among them). In those publications mostly archival as well as social articles were published but some of them were the text that had no chances to get through the official censorship. In the late 1980’s the group of Byelorussian students was very active – they have contacted Polish political opposition a well as opposition organisation from Byelorussia. That dynamised the non-official publishing activity of the group.

Also Ukrainians saw the chance in the Polish opposition in the late 1980’s. In 1988 with the members of the other minority groups they have sent an open letter to Lech Wałęsa proposing the change of the minority’s mass media representation that spreads the negative stereotypes or even suggest that there are no minority members in the society. In 1989 an open report published by the Ukrainian association the cooperation with Ukrainian television as well as satellite transmission is suggested. They have pointed out that radio programmes in Ukrainian language are not reachable for many Ukrainians as being broadcastes on local subsidiaries of Polish Radio as well as proposed nationwide programmes to which minority members spread all over the city could listen to. On the petition regarding this ideas two thousand signatures were collected.

The 1989 brought complete change in almost all spheres of public life – it was a significant change for minority groups as well...

To be continued...