COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY ICONS

Abstract

This article unites theories of framing, collective memory and a sociological concept of icons in order to examine how icons can represent a frame of a historic event over time in journalism. Focusing on the central Hungarian communist daily Népszabadság's 30 years of coverage of the 1956 Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union, the article argues that the newspaper—in alliance with the party—constructed iconic persons, iconic objects, and iconic places of what the regime called a “counterrevolution.” These icons as symbolic condensations served as powerful journalistic tools that represented the framing of the event as counterrevolutionary and furthered the regime's desire to erase the vernacular memory of the revolution. From November 1956 until February 1957 the coverage was inchoate. Thereafter until November 1960 Népszabadság engaged in active icon construction. Népszabadság focused on a few hours of October 30, when protesters murdered several defenders of the Budapest party headquarters. Journalists constructed iconic personalities of this event: the martyrs, their mourning families, the few survivors and also the heroes, who saved lives. Republic Square, where the murders occurred, became the iconic place of the counterrevolution and the victims' bodies were presented as iconic objects. Thereafter until September 1981 Népszabadság restricted the memory of the event to the already established icons providing only rote coverage of official commemorations. Finally, until November 1986 Népszabadság stressed factual achievements of the government's victory over the counterrevolution, while the power of icons was fading.