Gazeta Wyborcza Research Articles

Wizerunek polityki zagranicznej kanclerza Olafa Scholza na łamach dziennika „Gazeta Wyborcza” w kontekście pełnoskalowej wojny Rosji w Ukrainie (2022–2023)

The aim of this article is to reconstruct the foreign policy press image of Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the period from 8.12.2021, i.e. from the day the politician was confirmed by the Bundestag as German Chancellor and on the eve of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine (24.02.2022), to the end of the conference on the future of Ukraine taking place in Saudi Arabia in Jeddah (6.08.2023). The research used a content analysis method, supplemented by elements of text hermeneutics. The image of Scholz in the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper in the area of his foreign policy in the context of the Russian Federation's war in Ukraine reflects conservative and prestige politics (according to Hans Morgenthau's typology). The media portrayal of German-Ukrainian relations furthermore highlights the German Chancellor's attitude of post-classical realism in Robert Gilpin's terms. In the journal analysed, the image of the head of the German government is that of a politician intent on maintaining businesslike relations with Russia and taking up a new business-as-usual policy with the Russian Federation. Scholz represents so-called Realpolitik and consequently does not realistically (apart from the declarative layer) support Ukraine's political aspirations related to its membership of NATO and the European Union. The article increases the cognitive value in the area of research on the media image of European political leaders in the context of the Russian Federation's war in Ukraine.

Sędziowie na pierwszych stronach gazet w 2022 r. Przyczynek do medialnego obrazu sędziego

The study fits within the scope of research on the media image of judges, which is part of a larger media image of the world. The relevance of the subject of research results from the position and significance of judges for the functioning of society and the state, as well as the interdependence between the functioning of the profession of judge, its prestige and the so-called public opinion. The aim of the article is a reconstruction of the image of the judge (its properties and relationships between these properties), the carrier of which are front pages of newspapers. Having found it reasonable to restrict the source base to paper issues of national daily newspapers representative for the Polish newspaper market, issued in 2022, the following three titles have been analysed: “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”, “Gazeta Wyborcza” and “Nasz Dziennik”. These analyses allowed to: identify the properties attributed to judges in each periodical and structure them; observe the identity of the linguistic measures and devices used in the newspapers in question to shape the image of the judge and concurrently the different nature of images of the judge shaped on the front pages of the newspapers under research; conclude that, in all the titles examined, the images of the judge as a personal embodiment of the court (which is not always properly differentiated) are not a reflection of reality, but an interpretation thereof, and are a collection of subjective and emotionally related characteristics.

The image of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on the front pages of “Rzeczpospolita” and “Gazeta Wyborcza” – an analysis of the framing of war photographs

This article aims to illustrate the initial weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as well as the preceding period, through press photography displayed on the front pages of two influential Polish daily newspapers, “Gazeta Wyborcza” and “Rzeczpospolita”, from February 1 to March 31, 2022. Research method: The study utilizes visual framing theory, a less commonly applied approach in visual research compared to classical framing analysis and not as extensively discussed in media studies. Results: The investigation reveals that “Gazeta Wyborcza” and “Rzeczpospolita” did not significantly differ in their daily visual representation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Both newspapers predominantly featured photographs highlighting the conflict frame. Frames focusing on political leadership and military aspects were less prominent. High saturation of photography with the frame of human interest was revealed. Originality/Cognitive value: This article contributes to the understanding of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is depicted in the non-verbal content of leading Polish dailies.

“They look better on the breasts”: Advertisement, sexuality, and the bra business in postsocialist Poland

This article examines the 1990s transition from socialism to capitalism in Poland through the lens of the changing market of underwear. Based on oral history interviews, archival research of bra production companies, as well as an analysis of contemporary press reports, I examine how the integration of the Polish economy into the global capitalist system post 1989 influenced its sexual culture. This article shows how the end of the public sector’s monopoly on the production of underwear and the rise of the private sector introduced new form of bras that were codified as sexual by the media and manufacturers themselves. These new types of products mimicked Western European brands, distancing themselves from the socialist era underwear, and incorporated new technology designed to model and discipline female bodies. Through a deep analysis of a 1996 article on the bra business from The Electoral Gazette [Gazeta Wyborcza], the biggest daily newspaper in Poland, I show how the liberal media were ambivalent to such changes and portrayed it as differences between generations of women in the face of calls for stricter censorship from conservative politicians and the Catholic Church.

Inwazja Rosji na Ukrainę w polskich dziennikach opinii Rzeczpospolita i Gazeta Wyborcza

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine in the Polish Opinion Dailies Rzeczpospolita and Gazeta Wyborcza The aim of the article was to reconstruct the image of the initial stage of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the time immediately preceding it, in the Polish opinion dailies Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita. It was verified which of the interpretive frame, as defined by Holli Semetko and Patti Valkenburg, was the dominant one, which tópoi (natural vs. cultural) dominated in the research sample and how the number and exposure of press texts were changing, alongside the intensity of press coverage regarding the Russia’s war in Ukraine. The content analysis method, the framing analysis concept, the priming concept and the locus communis concept were used in the research. The frame of conflict and the frame of human affairs were the dominant frames in Polish opinion dailies. Rzeczpospolita also noted a high degree of saturation of publications with the economic consequences frame. Cultural tópoi prevailed over natural ones. The most numerously represented natural tópoi were: the right to freedom and security, human dignity, the right to life, while the cultural tópoi were: the politics of superpowers, the economic consequences of war, migration and refugees. The greatest interest of Polish dailies in Russia’s war in Ukraine took place just after February 24, 2022, whilst the “freshness effect” decreased only slightly with the passage of time. The article increases the cognitive value in the area of research on the image of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the Polish opinion press.

Wizerunek współczesnej feministki w „Gazecie Wyborczej” w Kontekście Ogólnopolskiego Strajku Kobiet W 2020 Roku

The aim of the article is to define the image of a contemporary feminist in the context of Women’s Strikes based on selected articles of Gazeta Wyborcza. The method of content analysis and linguistic analysis were used in the research. The text increases the cognitive value in the field of feminism research in the world and in Poland.

Rodzicielstwo w Sieci w kontekście mediów olsztyńskich. Wybrane aspekty

This article is an exploratory study of online parenthood, combining research with popularization. The author has set two main objectives: 1) to present selected proparenting groups and foundations in Olsztyn that follow attachment parenting (AP) and nonviolent communication (NVC), and 2) to examine their image in the local press. Using publications from the Olsztyn edition of Gazeta Wyborcza, the author highlights the fact that attachment parenting and nonviolent communication are part of worldwide trends in parenting and that they are often the subject of negative media coverage. The study includes results from an uncategorized interview, and the author argues that local media plays a significant role in shaping public perception of the phenomenon.

Роль языковых средств при описании польско-российских отношений в текстах, посвященных теме Катыни (на материале „Газеты Выборча” за период 1989–1999 гг.)

In order to form a certain image, media employ various linguistic means, such as metaphors, comparative structures, etc. Based on the material from “Gazeta Wyborcza” concerning the topic of the Katyn massacre, the present study attempts to reconstruct the image of Polish-Russian relations and decide what role the linguistic means used in the articles play in creating the discussed phenomenon. As a result the author concludes that there are two points of view about Russia presented in “Gazeta Wyborcza”. On the one hand, Russia is a criminal country and a debtor that cannot fulfil its obligations. On the other hand, Russia is a state that is open for cooperation and capable of helping. There are also two different points of view about the Polish-Russian relationships. As stated by some experts, Polish-Russian relations in the analyzed period are characterized as negative. According to the other opinions (prior to the 2022 war), these relations are getting better and perhaps will continue to improve.

Barack Obama i Donald Trump w Polsce – obraz medialny wizyt amerykańskich prezydentów w polskiej prasie codziennej

Visits by American presidents in Poland are important, socio-political and media events. This fact was the motivation to conduct research on media presentation of the visits of two American presidents – Barack Obama in 2011 and Donald Trump in 2017 – to Poland which were presented in Polish daily newspapers. The content analysis was based on opinion-forming titles: “Gazeta Wyborcza”, “Rzeczpospolita” and “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”, and tabloids: “Fakt” and “Super Express”. The aim of the paper is to show the differences in how selected dailies cover two visits and explain where these differences might come from. The research hypothesis assumes that the ideological profile of chosen daily press determines media image of the American presidential visits in Poland, and that the significance of press materials may impact the formation of readers’ views and opinions about leaders of the USA. The author tried to answer the following questions: do the selected titles show bias against any of the presidents?, is the narration of daily newspapers similar to the tabloid press?, and do they undergo tabloidization? The article consists of five parts. The first part discusses the special relationship between Poland and the USA and the perception of American presidents’ visits to Poland. The second section describes agenda-setting, which is the theoretical framework for this study. The third part of the article describes the research methodology, which is based on content analysis. The fourth section is a description of the study of materials published in Polish daily press. The article ends with a summary of the study results. The bias was demonstrated in “Gazeta Wyborcza” (numerous articles, critical of Donald Trump), “Fakt” (numerous articles with positive attitude towards Barack Obama and Donald Trump) and “Super Express” (numerous satirical articles about Barack Obama). In the context of the discussed issues, daily newspapers did not make their narration similar to tabloid press and did not succumb to the tabloidization of media.

Uncovering Buried Historical Memory: A Conversation with Grzegorz Kwiatkowski

Uncovering Buried Historical MemoryA Conversation with Grzegorz Kwiatkowski Grzegorz Kwiatkowski (bio) and Peter Constantine (bio) Grzegorz Kwiatkowski is a new and dynamic poetic voice from Poland, with six volumes of poetry and several translations on the way, as well as the vocalist of the psychedelic postpunk band Trupa Trupa. His newest collection, Crops, translated into English by Peter Constantine, was published by Rain Taxi in November 2021. In this interview, Constantine and Kwiatkowski discuss the themes of his poetry and his endeavors as a musician and activist. [End Page 34] Click for larger view View full resolution HOLOCAUST CONCEPT JEWISH SHOES FOR REMEMBRANCE DAY, AUSCHWITZ BIRKENAU Peter Constantine: Several years ago a number of students at the University of Connecticut specializing in Polish began translating your work. One of the students, Michal Ciebielski, published his translations in New Poetry in Translation, which caused quite a sensation. Readers were drawn to the stark voices of your poems, the different narrators from a troubling past who tell compelling and often frightening stories in a minimal and distilled form. Grzegorz Kwiatkowski: On reflection I realize that was in fact the first time my work was translated and published outside Poland. I was delighted with the translation. It really hit the mark. The English was minimalistic and cold and very direct. As for the voices in my poems, I feel that an artist in some way has to be like a sponge, and for me that means hearing and absorbing different voices from the past and present. It was important to live with these voices for a while. I think this is the crux of my method: I strive to listen to others as much as I can and to be as open as I can. But I do make a selection from these voices, and this selection is usually very dark. I believe that this dark music that I am seeking and re-creating has its source in my family history, in which the Nazi concentration camp Stutthof played a very central role. Constantine: When I started reading your poetry, I came across an article in the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, and then later in the Guardian too, about your grandfather taking you to the Stutthof camp when you were a child, and about the gruesome and momentous discovery you made there more recently. Kwiatkowski: Yes, when I was a child my grandfather took me to Stutthof. It was the first time he’d returned there since World War II. It was a very traumatic experience for him. He tried to reconstruct what had happened to him, and his memories suddenly came alive—memories from when he was an inmate there. Both he and his sister. I was a child, and suddenly I saw my grandfather as a broken person. He was crying, shouting. He was in a state of trauma. It was a very powerful and very devastating experience for me, perhaps the most important experience in my life. My head was suddenly filled with so many questions, vital and simple questions: Why do people hate one another? Why do people murder one another? Why do such places as concentration camps exist? In some way from this time on I was lost, and yet perhaps quite the opposite. I began seeking a way to understand these horrors. Walter Stier by Grzegorz Kwiatkowski translated by Peter Constantine You never saw any trains? nonever we had far too much work to dowe never left the officewe worked day and night And yes, many years after this visit with my grandfather, my friend and Trupa Trupa bandmate Rafał Wojczal and I were walking near the fence of the museum of the concentration camp and found first hundreds and then thousands of shoes. It turned out that there were almost half a million shoes. The Stutthof concentration camp was a kind of shoe-gathering center for all the concentration camps in Europe; the Nazis collected the leather for manufacturing everyday leather items. And when the Red Army soldiers in 1945 “liberated” the camp, they counted the shoes. There were half a million. In 1967, when the Stutthof Museum was established, the director...

Ellis Island: A People's History

Ellis Island: A People's History

The Malaysian Palm Issue in the European Union Press Report

This article explores how the European media reports on the Malaysian palm oil to consumers in the European Union countries. The European newspapers allegedly mentioned that palm oil brings extensive damage and affects the environment, cutting down of forests, animal extinction and child labour. The consistent role and influence of the European media in reporting and giving a bad sentiment regarding the disadvantages of Malaysian palm oil to the European consumers have successfully launched an anti-palm oil campaign among the consumers. This matter has also caused a decrease in the export of palm oil into the European Union and indirectly affected the fate of 600,000 palm oil producers in Malaysia. This article uses the literature review approach on the resources such as the European Union newspapers which have a high number of readers in their respected countries such as the Guardian and BBC (United Kingdom), Gazeta Wyborcza and Super Express (Poland), The Brussel Times, Metro and Gazet Van Antwerpen (Belgium) to analyse the role of media in this matter. The results found that the issue of palm oil in the news reports propagated by the European media on the drawbacks of Malaysian palm oil did not happen as reported. In truth, the actual purpose behind their act was to ‘protect’ their real agenda, which is to replace palm oil with their soybean crops. The issues that were touted by the newspapers have given a bad image to the Malaysian palm oil industry. Keywords: European Union, Malaysian palm oil, MPOB, MPOC, biofuel.

Życie codzienne podczas pandemii Covid-19 w perspektywie współczesnej polskiej prasy

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected the professional and private lives of most societies around the world. At that time, traditional media began to play an important role as an intermediary in contact with the outside world. This article is a kind of calendar of events that took place during the successive waves of the coronavirus pandemic in Poland, and were noticed, recorded and analyzed by reporters of the contemporary Polish press. The main research method used by the author is a press analysis of materials obtained mainly from weekly magazines (Polityka, Newsweek, Do Rzeczy) and the daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

The Volhynian mass murders of 1943 in Polish-Ukrainian historical discussions in the 1990s


 
 
 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.
 
 

Dimension argumentative et narrative de l’information médiatique à travers des séquences bisegmentales

The present analysis is devoted to the discursive units that are activated at the moment by the media nomination as categoremes of the referent, Donald Trump, and shape the media narrative. These will be formulas, which appear in the headlines and imply labels, e.g. Donald Trump, agitateur en chef (‘Donald Trump, the troublemaker’; lemonde.fr, 5.10.2017). The research problem will be to determine their narrative and argumentative potential. Theoretical framework is provided by studies of the media information discourse (Arquembourg, 2011; Calabrese, 2009, 2013; Moirand, 2007; Veniard, 2013), as well as the argumentative discourse (Amossy, 2006). The corpus has been compiled on the basis of electronic version of two daily newspapers Le Monde (lemonde.fr) and Gazeta Wyborcza (wyborcza.pl), released between Jan the 1st 2016 and december 2020.

The making of the Bydgoszcz-Toruń partnership area as an example of a bipolar conflict

ABSTRACT The aim of the paper is to identify features and regularities pertaining to the process of cooperation between two cities under the conditions of a pre-existing socio-political conflict. The study covers the Bydgoszcz and Toruń Integrated Territorial Investments’ support area, the only example of a bilateral arrangement in Poland which includes two voivodship capitals. Due to the specificity of the region and the Toruń-Bydgoszcz rancor, the negotiations preceding the formation of the ITI were turbulent. The research was based on a discursive analysis of newspaper reports published by the regional issue of the country-wide daily Gazeta Wyborcza in the period of 2012–2020 and directly related to the making of the Bydgoszcz-Toruń Functional Area. The purpose of the conducted press search was to reconstruct how the bipolar functional area that had enabled the applying for EU funding was formed, and to identify the socio-political conflicts that had lain behind the creation of the support area. It has been evidenced that disputes rooted in the examined cities significantly hinder the creation of a spatially coherent and functionally complementary bipolar system. The functional area is divided due to the core cities' past and the history of mutual animosities deriving from the local ambitions.

Kreowanie wizerunku zawodowego nauczyciela religii w wybranej prasie internetowej

Współcześnie prasa internetowa, ze względu na szeroką dostępność, odgrywa znaczącą rolę w kształtowaniu opinii jej czytelników, w tym w kreowaniu wizerunku nauczyciela religii. Daje się zauważyć, że w prezentowaniu problematyki związanej z tą grupą zawodową, kluczową rolę ogrywają określone wartości, do których odwołują się, i które uznają autorzy doniesień prasowych w Internecie. W niniejszym opracowaniu analizie poddano zawartość treściową wybranych e-gazet katolickich („Gość Niedzielny”, „Niedziela”), prawicowych („Do Rzeczy”, „Sieci”) i o nachyleniu lewicowym („Gazeta Wyborcza”, „Polityka”) w okresie ostatnich pięciu lat, czyli od 2015 roku do numeru bieżącego (z listopada 2019 roku). Analiza ta pozwoliła dostrzec zarówno podobieństwa, jak i różnice zachodzące w prezentowaniu interesującej nas problematyki między wskazanymi grupami e-czasopism. W przypadku czasopism o nachyleniu lewicowym uderza jednostronność spojrzenia i subiektywizm. Zdaniem autorki opracowania, niesłusznie podnosi się m.in. słabe kwalifikacje zawodowe nauczycieli religii, marnowanie dwóch godzin zajęć lekcyjnych, nie dostrzegając roli wychowawczej nauczyciela religii i jego zaangażowania w holistyczny rozwój uczniów. W dużym stopniu taki obraz zapewne uwarunkowany jest negatywnym nastawieniem do Kościoła katolickiego i nauczania religii w polskiej szkole wynikającym z przesłanek światopoglądowych. Na tym tle pozytywnie wyróżnia się prasa katolicka, gdzie zauważa się troskę o rzetelność informacji m.in. w prezentowaniu kwalifikacji zawodowych oraz różnych rodzajów aktywności dydaktyczno-wychowawczej nauczyciela religii, dowartościowując jego rolę w misji wychowawczej szkoły. W e-gazetach o nachyleniu prawicowym nie publikowano artykułów na temat nauczyciela religii.

Unheard Voices: Discourse Analysis of Press Representations of People with Disabilities and Their Caregivers in Postsocialist Poland

The article is devoted to the issue of disability, embedded in the Polish - post-socialist - reality. The author focused on presenting both the political situation in the country and the media discourse around disabled people and their keepers. The background of the ongoing public discussion on people with disabilities is the topic of abortion, also widely present in the Polish media. The analysis of the press discourse (Gazeta Wyborcza) carried out for the purposes of this article not only provides a bitter summary of the situation of this neglected social group, but is also an opportunity to show the real life problems faced by the weakest representatives of Polish society every day life.

Mass Media as the Key Space for Preaching and Defending Christian Personalism

Since the invention of print, the media have been increasingly influencing individual and social awareness. They seem apt to undo, in a relatively short period of time, whatever good the upbringing and authorities of a high moral standard have instilled into a person. However, the media can also support the development of this good in a significant way. They are a powerful tool that everyone has to reckon with, they are a place to exchange all sorts of ideas – from the worst to the best. That is the reason why anyone who wants to proclaim the principle of Christian personalism in society should try to think through how to wisely use them to spread the message. However, this message will inevitably meet with strong opposition from people who have opposite beliefs and from the media they own, as they have made them a fundamental place for the struggle for power and dominion over human consciousness. This article, written on the basis of theoretical considerations, but also the rich media experience of the author, attempts to provide practical advice on these matters. The article explains the common structure of all such opposition that follows the pattern of the very loud media case of Fr. Krzysztof Charamsa (in which the author was himself deeply entangled), Tygodnik Powszechny and Gazeta Wyborcza which supported him. In this way, the article shows the mechanisms of manipulation of contemporary media, but also the remedies available.

Academics Know Better (?): Scholars and Politics in Major Opinion Dailies During the 2015 Presidential Campaign in Poland

What is the role of scholars when discussing activities of politicians during an election campaign? The article offers a study of articles and interviews conducted with academics in major opinion dailies Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna in the final weeks of the 2015 presidential campaign in Poland. Pielke’s categories of scientists – Honest Brokers of Policy Alternatives, Pure Scientists, Science Arbiters and Stealth Issue Advocates – are used as a point of departure to ask about the part played by scholars in media, to ‘enlighten’ and admonish readers they deem uninformed about what is good for them, or to serve a role closer to Burawoy’s Public Sociologist, who engages in dialogue with others. I conclude that given the election results, which surprised and disappointed most of these scholars, adopting the latter stance may prove a better strategy in convincing voters about the usefulness of scholarly expertise in their political choices.