Polish Media Research Articles

Development of fiber flow finishing (FFF) process for polishing hip prostheses

In this paper, a new polishing process has been developed based on a smart polishing media called fiber flow finishing (FFF). The proposed polishing media included styrene butadiene rubber (SBR), coarse sisal fibers, and naphthenic oil. During the process, the rheological behavior of the polishing media changes intelligently due to severe mechanical disintegration and chemical treatment. This intelligent behavior is very similar to the behavior of pseudo-plastic materials. To evaluate the polishing performance, experiments were performed on the femoral head of hip prostheses grade ASTM F138 (SS 316L) for the different number of finishing cycles to investigate its effect on the percentage change in surface roughness (%ΔR a ). The experimental results clearly showed that the %ΔR a of the femoral head is low in the initial finishing cycles (i.e., up to 200 working cycles), while the %ΔR a increases to 72.54% with an increase in the number of finishing cycles up to 1000. Moreover, the surface morphology of the specimens well substantiated that the FFF process performed a kind of surface modification on the surface texture of the femoral head, resulting in a smooth and uniform surface finish without surface defects that is as a mirror. • The fiber flow finishing (FFF) process is first developed for polishing hip prostheses. • The surface finish of the femoral head was improved by 72.54% using the FFF process. • The FFF process performed a kind of surface modification on the femoral head surface. • The FFF process has a better performance than the abrasive flow finishing (AFF) process. • The FFF process has a promising future to improve surface integrity of industrial parts.

Mediated emotions: shame and pride in Polish right-wing media coverage of the 2019 European Parliament elections

This paper proposes that the emotion of shame is key to understanding the appeal of Poland’s ruling populist right-wing party, Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, or PiS). PiS employs shame in its strategy of emotion regulation in mediated party communication in pro-government media outlets. We suggest that there are two pillars of shame that underpin support for PiS: (1) the collective shame that originates from the perceived cultural inferiority of Poland in relation to the West/Europe, and (2) the individual shame of failing to achieve material prosperity in the context of the post-communist economic transformation. We examine how shame and pride have been instrumentalised in the coverage of the 2019 European Parliament elections by the right-wing media outlet wPolityce.pl. The paper demonstrates how wPolityce.pl consistently invoked both economic and cultural shame and highlighted the antagonism between PiS and the opposition by identifying the latter with a ‘pedagogy of shame.’

Adolescence as a “critical period” in the heritage language use. Polish in Germany

Abstract In the article, we consider the impact of adolescence upon the usage of Polish in Polish-German bilinguals raised and living in Germany and demonstrate how adolescence surfaces as a socially based “critical period” in this usage using results from a survey and interviews conducted with 30 teenagers. In the quantitative part of the study, we seek to establish whether adolescents’ age affected the pattern and quantity of their usage of Polish in the media and contacts with age peers, whether the latter two facets of growing up with Polish were interrelated, and which other factors affected peer-relevant activities in Polish. Both age and peer contact turned out to significantly affect the use of the media in Polish, while peer contact in Polish was affected by the parental use of Polish in parent-child communication. The qualitative part presents the context and motivation for using Polish by the youths in peer-relevant activities. We integrate the results with insights provided by child development psychology from the perspective of language socialisation theory and interpret the age-related decline of interest in the Polish media as an effect of a diminishing role of parents and the increasing role of age peers as role models in personal development.

Gender stereotypes in the information picture of the world (on the example of Ukraine and Poland)

The article defines the concept of "gender". Women's gender stereotypes in the Ukrainian and Polish media environments are analyzed. Based on the obtained results, comparisons were made and conclusions were made.

Wpływ pandemii COVID-19 na wizerunek osób z niepełnosprawnością w kontekście kreowania postaw społecznych

Every crisis ruins the activity of an individual, an organization and the whole society, carrying certain changes as well as the necessity of undertaking specific actions. In a situation of a crisis, communication plays a huge role among all engaged in fighting the effects. The COVID-19 pandemic being an example of such a society wide crisis has an influence of messages in the media as those are a form of communication in society. Then, the article touches on the aspect of creation of social attitudes towards people with disability using social campaigns in Polish media during pandemic. The author assumes, that during COVID-19 pandemic the way of creating social attitudes may have changed comparing to the picture of this minority built before. The aim of the article is therefore to identify the image of people with disability shaped before and during the pandemic in the context of the change in perceiving this group. The study includes the analysis of video and graphic materials of social campaigns published in Polish media between autumn 2019 and summer 2020 as well as the analysis of interviews carried out with authors of those campaigns. Moreover, initial conclusions and recommendations for further actions and studies in this area are suggested.

What Arguments against COVID-19 Vaccines Run on Facebook in Poland: Content Analysis of Comments.

Social media allow anti-vaxxers to quickly spread misinformation and false statements. This situation may lead to an increase in vaccine hesitancy. We wanted to characterize what arguments against COVID-19 vaccines run on Facebook in Poland. We analyzed Facebook comments related to the five events of the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines—announcements of the efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech (09.11.2020), Moderna (16.11.2020), and AstraZeneca (23.11.2020) vaccines, registration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the European Medicines Agency (21.12.2020), and the first vaccination in Poland (27.12.2020). We collected the comments from fanpages of the biggest Polish media and then established their main anti-vaccine themes. We found that the negative arguments about COVID-19 vaccines can be divided into 12 categories. Seven of them are universal and also apply to other vaccines but five are new and COVID-19’ specific. The frequency of arguments from a given category varied over time. We also noticed that, while the comments were mostly negative, the reactions were positive. Created codebook of anti-vaccine COVID-19 arguments can be used to monitor the attitude of society towards COVID-19 vaccines. Real-time monitoring of social media is important because the popularity of certain arguments on Facebook changes rapidly over time.

An overview of magnetorheological polishing fluid applied in nano-finishing of components

Surface quality is the most crucial factor affecting the product lifespan and performance of any component. Most earlier technologies display accuracy in the micrometre or submicrometre range, surface roughness in the nanometre range, and almost no surface defects in the production of optical, mechanical and electronic parts. Such finishing methods incorporate a magnetic field to control the finishing forces using magnetorheological fluid as the polishing medium. Magnetorheological fluid (MR) consists of ferromagnetic and abrasive particles. It is a type of modern intelligent fluid. An optimum selection of magnetorheological fluid constituents and their volume concentration plays an essential role for the ultra-fine finishing of newly developed engineering products. Rheological characteristics of magnetorheological fluid can change rapidly and effortlessly with the support of an activated magnetic field. Traditional finishing methods are comparatively inferior in finishing complex freeform surfaces, due to the lack of controlling finishing forces and limitations of polishing tool movement over the complex freeform contour of the components. There are different types of processes based on the magnetorheological fluid including magnetorheological finishing, magnetorheological abrasive flow finishing, rotational magnetorheological abrasive flow finishing and ball end magnetorheological finishing. This article discusses the development of different types of magnetorheological-fluid-based finishing processes and their modes of operation. The MR fluid devices developed in the last decade are thoroughly reviewed for their working principles, characteristics and applications. This article also highlights the study of rheological characterization of magnetorheological fluid and its applications in different polishing methods appropriate for finishing various complex freeform components.

Manipulated memory. Right-winged media narratives about homosexual prisoners of concentration camps

The article offers a critical interpretation of the chosen online activity of right-wing journalists and Internet users that seem to sympathize with this political option. Selected Tweets and articles are understood as exemplifications of either intentional, unconscious or ignorance-caused manipulations of memory, its object being homosexual prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps. Placing selected Tweets in a broader social, political, as well as historical context, the author shows the discursive exclusion of this group of the Nazi’s “forgotten victims” in the Polish media sphere, (re)producing the negative only image of homosexual prisoners and the tendency to falsely identify camp homosexual violence with camp homosexuality as such.

DIVISIONS of Polish Media and Journalists as an Example of Polarization and Politicization

ABSTRACT The study aims to describe the main lines of political division between Polish media and journalists characterized by a high degree of polarization and politicization. My research makes use of content (quantitative) and discourse (qualitative) analysis of two profiled web portals: wPolityce.pl (right-wing) and naTemat.pl (liberal). The focus is on publications addressing the topics of media and journalists (metajournalism) from 2016 to 2019 (with the conservative government’s ascension to power marking the turning point). The main research interest centers on the following particular elements of the analyzed texts: discussions about polarization, the assigning of political and party affiliations to the media, the framing effect applied to the media and journalists, thematic frames used against the “hostile camp”, and language demonstrating Polish media polarization. The present analysis contributes a cognitive insight into the political and ideological discourse that the Polish media are currently involved in.

Wpływ mediów informacyjnych na zakres partycypacji politycznej użytkowników serwisu Twitter w Polsce. Struktura i działanie

Celem artykułu jest określenie wpływu mediów na kształtowanie struktury partycypacji politycznej w serwisie Twitter, która przybiera formę obserwowania przez użytkowników profili wybranych polityków. Koncepcja i metody badań: głównym założeniem analizy jest uwydatnienie bipolarności procesów komunikacyjnych, będących jednocześnie odbiciem interakcji społecznych i politycznych w Polsce, oraz przedstawienie określonej koncepcji analitycznej, pozwalającej wskazać pozycję mediów w kształtowaniu i przenoszeniu aktywności użytkowników. Proces badawczy polegał na dwupoziomowej analizie. Na poziomie pierwszym skupiała się ona na określeniu rangi mediów informacyjnych oraz ich roli i pozycji w strukturze sieci tworzonej przez odbiorców. Na poziomie drugim prowadziła zaś do stworzenia modelu klasyfikatora binarnego oraz oszacowania jego możliwości predykcyjnych w odniesieniu do mediów i wybranych polityków. Stworzona koncepcja analityczna opiera się głównie na danych ilościowych, a w ich pozyskaniu, obróbce i analizie wykorzystano język programowania R oraz protokół Twitter REST API, umożliwiający dostęp do publicznych danych. W ramach projektu przeanalizowano struktury relacji charakterystyczne dla 8 366 926 użytkowników. Wyniki i wnioski: badania uwydatniły podział opinii publicznej widoczny w sieciach komunikacji tworzonych przez użytkowników. Przeprowadzona analiza wykazała siłę poszczególnych mediów, które mogą wpływać na decyzje publiczności o obserwacji danego polityka w przestrzeni serwisu Twitter. Eksploracja unikalnych sieci relacji użytkowników, oparta na statystycznej analizie korelacji oraz regresji binominalnej, potwierdziła tendencję użytkowników obserwujących media uznane za konserwatywne lub prawicowe oraz lewicowe lub centrowe do obserwowania odpowiednio profilu Andrzeja Dudy lub Rafała Trzaskowskiego. W ramach przeprowadzonych badań oszacowano również siłę predykcyjną stworzonego modelu. Oryginalność i wartość poznawcza: projekt, którego wyniki prezentowane są w niniejszym artykule, stanowi wstęp do badań nad tworzeniem struktur komunikacyjnych w serwisie Twitter. Wykorzystanie większości liczących się polskich mediów dostarcza wiedzy nie tylko na temat rangi poszczególnych nadawców i wydawców mogących mieć wpływ na wybory podejmowane przez użytkowników, ale również prezentuje niewykorzystaną dotychczas koncepcję modelu klasyfikatora binarnego w określaniu sieci relacji medialno-politycznych w polskiej wersji serwisu Twitter.

What is Media Assistance and (Why) Does It Matter? The Case of Polish Foreign Aid to the Media in Belarus and Ukraine

The paper offers an analysis of media assistance, as a specific form of foreign aid, that Poland offers to strengthen media development in Belarus and Ukraine. It shows if Poland tailors media assistance according to the local context and existing challenges for democratic changes of recipient countries’ media systems. The study builds on the literature concerning the media, development and democratization, in particular looking at media assistance as both democratic aid and public diplomacy. It reveals that Poland’s approaches to media development in Belarus and Ukraine do differ: Poland mainly provides autocratic Belarus with technical support for media established outside of that country, while clearly focusing on media capacity development in democratizing Ukraine. The findings show that Polish media assistance, however, is unlikely to boost media freedom in Belarus as is usually expected as an outcome of democratic aid and is under-financed in the case of Ukraine.

Paradoks opłacalności. Stronniczość polityczna na polskim rynku medialnym – próba syntezy

The study includes an attempt to synthesize the basic trends of political bias of 14 relevant media entities appearing on the Polish media market in a context of their readership and viewership. Searching for an intersubjectively consistent analytical perspective, the authors use critical and comparative analysis of the results of empirical research contained in the literature of the subject, as well as the content of specialized institutional reports, with a respect to the methods of critique of sources. Due to the processual nature of the development of the media market in Poland, some of the results of empirical research cited goes back to year 2010 but the vast majority concerns year 2015 and the next ones. In the introduction, the authors refer to the universal agreement of researchers of the quality of Polish public debate regarding its critical assessment. The first section of the article contains a description of the methodological assumptions made. The next three contain an attempt to synthesize the basic bias trends of relevant media titles within each of the three segments of media activity: [1] the press sector of nationwide dailies; [2] the weekly sector of opinion-forming magazines; and [3] the 24-hour news television sector. The last part of the study contains conclusions and reference to the research results of the political parallelism concept.

The Image of Chechen Separatists in the Polish Media

The Image of Chechen Separatists in the Polish Media

Media as a Vehicle for Social Memory: A Case of Władysław Turowicz, the Polish Godfather of Pakistan’s Space and Missile Programs

The main purpose of this study is to explore the role of media as a vehicle for social memory in building social identity. The concept of social memory used by historians and others is to explore the connection between social identity and historical memory. In this research, the authors ex­plore the role of media in the formation of social memory. The first part of the article explores the term of social memory in the light of literature. In the second part, the authors discussed the role of media in the formation of social memory on the example of Air Commodore Władysław Turowicz, a Polish Pakistani Engineer who was known as “The Rocket-Missile Man of Pakistan”. The research­ers present the social memories of the Polish Godfather of Pakistan’s Space and Missile programs in the light of Pakistani electronic media. The authors have explored the role of Polish Engineer Władysław Turowicz in SUPARCO, his personal and professional life that has been widely discussed in Pakistani electronic media vs mere mention in Polish media. From the knowledge perspective, this research highlights some of the forgotten memories of Turowicz.

Anti-Russian rhetoric on historical topics of contemporary Polish mass media

Anti-Russian rhetoric on historical topics of contemporary Polish mass media

Polish Thematic Media on Video Games 1990–2020

This article presents the history and contemporary state of Polish media on the theme of video games. Media about video games emerged on the Polish market after the country’s political transformation of 1989 and quickly became very popular. The ever increasing multitude of players led to demand for information and reviews on games. During 1990’s there were many more or less significant magazines about video games in Poland. Almost all of them perished. Currently, there are only three of them on the Polish market. TV programmes about video games appeared during the 90s which effectively showcased them in action. The media landscape has changed as the internet has become widely available and largely overtaken the information and entertainment function of the press and television in regards to video games. Today thematic websites about games are still important but youtubers and Twitch streamers are taking advantage. Their broadcast is especially important for younger generation of gamers. Presenting video games in action and live commentary is a very popular way of communication. Many online content creators have built great audience and income doing so.

Ukrainian Historical Issues in Polish Media in the Context of a Hybrid War: Between Myths and Post-Truth

Ukrainian-Polish relations have been rather controversial in terms of historical policy lately, and it has a negative impact on interstate relations. On the one hand, in the foreign policy discourse Poland is considered to be one of the leading advocates of Ukraine in the collective West, along with Lithuania, and on the other hand problems of historical and humanitarian character permanently arise in bilateral relations, which form a negative background, become a subject to manipulation by third countries, and exacerbate relations both at the interpersonal and inter-institutional communication levels. The additional factor that complicates the understanding of historical policy issues is media of both countries, where the old and new myths, elements of post-truth and emotional subjective evaluations of the non-professional level penetrate beyond the historical corporate society. Populist politicians of the left and right ideological flanks try to take advantage of it, but it becomes an obstacle to political understanding, and complicates the investment development of a large subregion of the countries of Central, Southeastern Europe and the Baltic States. Historical policy has become a part of an information security, and some third countries, in our case it’s the Russian Federation, use this factor during the implementation of hybrid war tasks against Ukraine and the countries of the European Union. The article assumes that only the change of political rhetoric, the avoidance of populism regarding historical relations of two neighboring nations, the strengthening of corporate responsibility of national media in matters of historical policy’s coverage are able to neutralize the influence of radical political trends inside the countries, and outside - the influence of other states which are not interested in overcoming the tragic plume of history in Poland and Ukraine. Authors of the article do not aim to study or compare purely historical positions. This is about media tools and their role in the historical policy discourse.

Varia: Миграционный кризис в Европе в польском медиадискурсе: беспокойство, страх и гнев

Migration is an objective process that promotes the global development and integration. At the same time, migration contains a lot of contradictions, the chief being the problem of social inclusion of one group and exclusion of another. Thus, migration is a process that has a strong potential for conflict. Modern mass media play a key role in this migration process. Media construct images of social groups and thus influence the formation of tolerant or intolerant attitudes in the society. In the media discourse, we can observe the cyclic arousing of the atmosphere of increased social anxiety and the focus of media attention on events defined as significant social problems. There are two discourse models of the migration process in mass media: the model of migration crisis (subjects of discourse are locals, journalists and authorities) and the model of pragmatic tolerance (subjects of discourse are employers and authorities). The article presents an analysis of the media discourse regarding the refugee crisis in terms of the structure of arguments and narratives of the parties involved in the media discussion. The aim of this article is to reconstruct the debate strategies appearing in the Polish media discourse concerning the problem of migration. The migration crisis of 2015 in Europe, and the accompanying media panic, have drastically changed the prevailing image of refugees among Polish people from stable positive to clearly negative. The Polish weekly magazines covers were analysed. This procedure enabled to recognise the argumentative strategies which had been applied in researched weekly magazines and to describe the differences between them when it comes to developing the migration problem. Extreme opinions are clearly seen particularly in Polish weekly magazines a cyberspace. Analyses of the „key moments” in the media discourse (fear, cursory knowledge of the foreign culture, emotionality, unreliable press reports, aggression towards Europeans, statements of politicians) facilitated the recreation of the phenomenon of media’s creating social fear around the subject of the migration crisis, and pointed to the nature of its irrationality, characteristic of moral panic. In an attempt to answer the question whether the media reporting on the problem of immigration create an effect of “simulated reality,” the author refers to rhetorical aspects of constructing images with persuasive features.

Is COVID-19 on the Covers of Socio-Political Magazines an Example of Media Polarisation? Case Study from Poland

Abstract The main purpose of this paper was to explore the media image of the COVID-19 pandemic through the perspective of Polish media polarisation. In order to achieve this, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the content of covers from 10 socio-political magazines, representing different ideological inclinations [left-wing, liberal, conservative, right-wing and Catholic] was conducted between January and June 2020. The study focused not only on the scale to which the coronavirus appeared on the covers, but also on the textual and visual representation of it. Additionally, the contexts in which COVID-19 appeared were analysed. As it turned out, apart from the medical context, the pandemic was mostly presented through political, social, economic and religious perspectives, of which the first was the most visibly connected with polarising media content, indicating clear links between the ideological bias of the magazines and the ways they described reality.

Three-Dimensional Perspective of Organization’s Process Maturity Towards Company`s Exploration and Exploitation: A Research Study

Purpose: The main goal of this paper is to present research results of organization’s process maturity in terms of shaping of exploration and exploitation activities. Survey covers 400 Polish medium and large companies functioning during period of 2015-2017. Design/Methodology/Approach: In literature there are numerous propositions of organizational process maturity. Major part of them based on attributes-oriented models like CMM, CMMI, PEMM, D.M. Fisher or Gartner. Findings: Based on this framework and carried out research some conclusions can be formulated. Surveyed companies have an average value of process maturity of 5.82 (on a scale of 3-15), which ultimately translated into achievement of the second of the five levels of process maturity, i.e. “process definition”. The values achieved by respective dimensions can be considered relatively low, although similar to each other the strategic dimension of maturity was estimated at 2.03, the operational dimension of maturity at 1.86, and the process maturity effects at 1.93 (on a scale of 1-5). All of the dimensions have positive correlation on both exploration and exploitation activities with exception of the strategic dimension. Practical Implications: This paper is intended for researchers and managers dealing with concept of operationalization of business process maturity, especially in managerial perspective, that set a new challenge as well as unfold new opportunities of utilization for this phenomenon. Originality/Value: The article explores an original concept based on managerial approach of implementing organization’s process maturity. It consists of three logical bonded aspects characterizing this phenomenon strategic dimension, operational dimension, and effects.