Page 171 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

160 COMMUNICATION AND CITIZENSHIP

– loosening the power structure’s grip on the media and allowing some
opposition media openly and legally to compete with the official one for
the attention of, and influence on, the population;
– reforming the official media so as to enable them to regain
credibility and have at least a sporting chance in this competition.
As we will see below, these policies began to be put into effect.
However, then the unimaginable happened. At a stroke, the whole
political alignment became transformed and from a system of
Communist Party hegemony Poland changed into a parliamentary
democracy, with Solidarity as the senior partner in a new ruling
coalition. This, however, did not so much invalidate the forecast as
extend it much beyond its original compass: the social costs of
maintaining not only broadcasting monopoly, but also the monopoly of
power, had become unacceptable. Change was imperative and
unavoidable—and it happened. At the time of writing, the new
Solidarity-led government has yet to be appointed and only the first
glimmers of change in the public sphere can be discerned. Below, we
will look primarily at the situation as it has been so far, but will also try
to divine the directions of change in the future.

THE OFFICIAL MODEL OF THE NEW PUBLIC
SPHERE

New communication policy
This is summed up in a policy document published by the Party in May
1989. It said that freedom of speech coupled with respect for the law
bolsters civil liberties. So, all forces active in the country’s social and
political life have ‘an inalienable right’ to the expression of their views
and political standpoints, as well as to receive comprehensive, fair and
objective information. Therefore they should be free to publish their
own newspapers and periodicals and to have clearly defined access to
what the document called ‘the organizationally uniform state system of
broadcasting’. As was stated in another official announcement,
broadcasting was to ‘perform general social functions in the nation with
its considerable variety of views and standpoints’ (‘Konferencja
prasowa…’, 1989:6)—meaning that it was meant to play an integrating,
centripetal role in society.
This approach prefigured the outcome of the media debate during the
round-table conference between the ruling coalition of political parties