Page 169 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

158 COMMUNICATION AND CITIZENSHIP

Figure 1 The three public spheres in Poland

Szarzyński 1989). Since the introduction of martial law, some 500
underground publishing houses have released over 3,000 books (cf. also
Gajewski 1988). In trying to describe the media of the opposition public
sphere, Piotr Szarzyński (1989, p. 1) wrote at the beginning of 1989:

[They] are committed to fighting the Communists to a different
degree. Some openly call for a confrontation ‘here and now’; others
publish works of fiction not directly connected to the political
struggle. Some have adopted a clearly defined and comprehensive
political programme; others rarely go beyond a blanket rejection
of every aspect of contemporary reality and are interested mainly
in ‘socking it to the Commies’.

Thus, there were few basic differences between the alternative and
opposition public spheres in general orientation and attitude. However,
the former has been prevented by censorship, and probably by the
policy of the Church itself (oriented as it is to long-term survival and
expansion), from openly questioning the fundamental tenets of the
system or advocating its overthrow. The latter has sought to draw up a
blueprint for a new socio-political system for Poland. We believe that this
is a difference not of degree but of kind.
The three public spheres could be represented as in Figure 1.
The audiences of the media forming part of the three public spheres
are not mutually exclusive. Therefore the audiences of the three public
spheres can be represented as in Figure 2.
Both the alternative and opposition media can be said to have actually
assumed that most of their readers would also follow the official media
and to have concentrated on the kind of content which could not be
found elsewhere. And so, for example, in 1980–1, items and articles on
previously taboo historical issues took the second largest amount of
space in Solidarity periodicals.
Of course, these are schematic representations. The other two public
spheres do not begin to compare with the official one in terms of size