Denník N

Je slovinský generálny prokurátor posledný bojovník za slobodu slova v Európe?

Učia ruské žurnalistické školy niečo úplne odlišné než si eticky-profesionálne cenia ruskí žurnalisti? Je medzinárodná mediálna pomoc len mrhanie zdrojmi? Sú hlavné teórie mediálnych systémov založené na nesprávnych predpokladoch? Je politika EÚ založená na princípoch slobodného trhu alebo férového trhu? Sú komunikační vedci zo strednej a východnej Európy odsúdení zostať na periférii svetovej vedy? Toto je len výber (vrátane spoločného názvu tohto príspevku) z niekoľkých (zjednodušených) tém, ktoré boli diskutované na konferencii v Ľubľane v júni 2017.

CEECOM 2017 Conference, Ljubljana

Do Russian journalism faculties teach something totally different than practice and what are the values Russian journalists cherish? Is international media aid by and large wasting a money? Are major theories of media systems based on wrong presumptions? Is Slovenian prosecutor general the last and the utmost freedom of speech fighter in Europe? Is EU media policy free market or fair market-based? Are media scholars from Central East Europe destined to remain on the periphery of science? These are, just simplified examples of issues discussed this year at the CEECOM 2017 confererence in Ljubljana, Slovenia which attracted the interest of specialists and policy-makers under the title “Critique of/at/on/ periphery?”

Every year in the last decade experts from Central and Eastern Europe, or those following the developments in this region from a communication dimension, gather under the CEECOM umbrella (Central East European Communication Conference) at different places to discuss their most recent research achievements, research publications, research plans or ongoing investigation projects research.

The ECREA CEE Network and CEECOM conferences have proven instrumental for cultivation and maintenance of a dialogue between scholars and practitioners from the region. Consequently the CEECOM conferences have traditionally maintained a strong regional focus – Central and Eastern European media and communication issues, but they have also posed global themes and provided conditions for a vast debate and original solutions. As mentioned, the place chosen for conference this year was lovely Ljubljana, Slovenia.

For two days, on June 15-16, 2017, about 30 participants (a quarter from Poland – although the official list included almost 60 participants, many of them participated only for one day) presented and discussed various research topics related to media, communication and journalism.

Although abstracts from presentations are available online, these abstracts usually present preliminary ideas and frameworks but not findings, and sometimes even presentations are rather different from abstracts. Anyway, some presenters did not show up. Moreover, there are no minutes covering follow-up discussions. Therefore, the aim of this critical summary is to present the main (the most interesting and most controversial) aspects of this conference, focusing primarily on discussion and then on the key findings. Obviously, we are sorry but were not able to cover everything.

KEYNOTE ADDRESSES: PERHAPS MORE FOCUS ON THE MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION WOULD BE WELCOME

Zlatan Krajina from the University of Zagreb based his keynote address on his co-edited book EU, Europe Unfinished. Mediating Europe and the Balkans in a Time of Crisis. Although it fitted into the overal general thematic framework of the conference, perhaps his presentation would be more interesting to cultural studies than to media studies. The presentation was not so much about geography, although this also was an important issue. The key focus was on the semi-visibility of periphery, periphery seen as a process. There was not much talk about the media either – only the flow of communication on Facebook among the Balkan countries could somehow attract the attention of media scholars. This flow showed two findings. First, people communicate most often within the region (for example, there was obvious online communication noted between Slovakia and Hungary). Second, politicians communicate and claim that there is more important audience further abroad, in the West.

 

John Downey from the Loughborough University (UK) presented findings that showed that G.Mazzoleni´s widly accepted theory about political communication does not apply to the British press. First, there was more dominant political logic instead of media logic in the British cases (referendum on Brexit and two last parliamentary elections). This happened when the Electoral Commission decided, based on the elections‘ results for the EP, that the UKIP should be treated by the media as a major political party. Second, in contrast to theory, the British press was not divided in the case of Brexit along the lines quality vs. popular, but certain parts of both types of the press supported respectively argued for/against Brexit. There was also discussion how to explain the fact that immigrant news topics were actually at the top in 2005, and at high point in 2015. In general, pro-EU coverage was provided by The Financial Times, The Mirror, The Independent and The Times. This division, but also the full support of some media for Leave’s campaing, question G. Mazzoleni´s thesis about „unwilling supporters“. In discussion, the difference between the calls of „return to the past“ was compared between Poland and the UK. While in Poland the past is seen by the government positively and by the critics negatively, in the UK it is mostly seen positively (post WWII period). There was interesting point raised with respect to the role of Brussels correspondents and foreign correspondents in general. While the majority of the Brussels correspondents seem to get their job because they are „anti“ EU (or at least anti-Brussels), or some outlets have „anti“ editorial policies, foreign correspondents are usually unbiased.

The most interesting/controversial and challenging contributions

Among the most interesting/controversial and challenging contributions (not necessarily best, although there appears to be a strong correlation) were those of Marina Berezhnaia and Sergey Korkonosenko from the St. Petersburg State University in Russia, Snježana Milivojevič from the University of Beograd (Serbia), Andrej Školkay from the School of Communication and Media,n.o. in Bratislava (Slovakia), Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska (the guru behind CEECOM) from the University of Wroclaw (Poland), Márton Demeter from Karoli Gaspar University (Hungary), Andres Joessar from Estonia and Rok Čeferin from Slovenia, EppLauk from the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) and Georgeta Drula from the University of Bucharest (Romania).

 

Marina Berezhnaia and Sergey Korkonosenko put accidentally into contrast theoretical approaches as allegedly used at about 150 faculties/schools of journalism in Russia and a practical focus and values of journalists, based on opinion surveys. While the presenters claimed that objectivity no longer matters as a concept in theory/education, the survey presented actually showed that for Russian journalists it matters most. The following discussion tried to identify the sources of this value gap. It was assumed that perhaps journalism faculties understand the concept of objectivity in a more philosophical way (when terms and their meanings are understood differently), while Russian journalists understand them in more practical terms (such as avoidance of deliberable misrepresentation of the facts, display of all opinions on the issue). In background, there seemed to be an attempt to develop new Russian communication theories and to reject or at least to adjust dominant, mainly US theories at Russian schools (Russia as not a unique but a special case). At a more practical level of the content of education (curriculum), the Russian presenters highlighted a long-term key features of Russian journalism: the common person as a hero (portrait genre, feature story, scetch, interview), the creative skills of journalists and journalism poetics (fiction literary impact on journalism) and the practical results of production.

The above mentioned presentation was supplemented by Olga Logunova (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia) who presented research on journalist’s professional roles in regions. It was carried out in 2013 – 2014 as a part of the project “The Journalistic role performance around the globe” in which 28 countries, including Russia, participated. The key question was how journalists see their role and the way they perform their duty. For the survey two general interest printed media outlets with national circulation were chosen: Moskovskiy komsomolec (MK) and Rossiyskaya gazeta (RG). The research team studied 1,397 articles of both newspapers: 840 in RG and 557 in MK. Results showed the highly politicized nature of content as the leading topic was the activities of the government. Almost two thirds represented issues of national importance and 38% of local importance. The most popular was the watchdog model, followed by the disseminator model. Other possible models comprised the facilitator model, the civic oriented model, the service journalism model and the infotainment journalism model which were not preferred by Russian regional journalists.

Snježana Milivojevič from the University of Beograd (Serbia) discussed the forms and impact of international media aid (such as providing training, direct support and helping to improve media environment) in Southeastern Europe. Her findings are not very encouraging for future donors. First, she differentiated between two key analytical dimensions: Normative approaches vs. Systemic approaches. While the former see media freedom as conducive to freedom in general, the latter identify various individual regulatory arrangements and behavioural patterns that are conducive to media freedom. In general, media aid is an extremely small part of general foreign aid – for example, some 0.5% within the OECD funding. The media aid is based on some fundamental (but questionable) axioms, typically, good governance and positive developments must happen when there is an independent free press and widespread access to the media (for example, the UNDP Human Development Report, 2002). Snježana Milivojevič pointed at the paradox, that we need first to fullfill these two conditions in order to further change a society. Yet, as findings from the Balkans demonstrated, in some cases (Croatia), freedom of the press is not improving, but there is backlash after joining the EU, there is no clear correlation between press freedom and economic performance (Serbia), and there is no clear correlation between enabling environment and democratic consolidation (Bosnia and Hercegovina). In discussion, highly relevant Mathias A. Färdigh (University of Gothenburg) contribution to this topic was mentioned.

Andrej Školkay from the School of Media and Communication, n.o. in Bratislava (Slovakia) based his presentation on two critical contributions to methodologies (the case studies approach and the political economy of the media). The argument that the explanatory framework for the ownership impact on the media work based on the dichotomy foreign-domestic is more relevant than the currently used explanatory framework in the Worlds of Journalism Study (based on the various forms of ownership such as public, private, mixed, etc) was not accepted unanimously among participants. Some argued that there is a negative impact of foreign owners too, such as currently the Russian media involvement in the Baltics. Yet there seemed to emerge consensus that the currently used explanatory framework perhaps should be expanded. For example, some agreed that the currently used criteria do not provide a sufficient explanatory tool.

In the case of pointing at the case study approach issue, this seemed to be too complicated topic to explain in the allowed short-time. Or, perhaps, more time is needed to change the dominant paradigm.

Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska from the University of Wroclaw (Poland), dealt with the typologies of the media systems in the region. This key scientific effort – to make sense of various raw data – pointed at historically geography based approaches to this issue. Yes, as the presenter showed, it is more politics and not geography (or destiny) that determines, sometimes rather unexpectedly, to which the „type“ a country (for the time being) belongs. Moreover, there may be explanatory inconsistency among various indices. For example, while Poland got worse in both democracy index and freedom of the press index, Lithuania improved its standing significantly in the latter. How relevant are then geography based typologies when they can change after the elections?

Rok Čeferin argued that the Slovenian office of the prosecutor in certain cases treated the authors of hate speech less severely than it should have according to the standards set out in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case-law and even less severely as provided for the Criminal Code. Specifically, the Slovenian prosecutors did not consider it as a crime when a person who wrote that refugees should be killed or when another person denied holocaust on the Internet. This approach is very much seen as controversial in Slovenia. This is somehow strangely related to personal stance of prosecutor general who publicly proclaimed that until he is in office no one will be criminally prosecuted for verbal offences.

 

Andres Joesaar from Estonia dealt with problems of national and European media policy. He argued that the Estonian government’s ‘idealisation’ of market forces supported by the European Union media policy, which is – in his words – driven by a common market ideology – did not take into account the market’s limitations and media companies’ actual capability to provide a large range of media services. However, the follow-up discussion questions the premise of „free competition“ and one could wonder whether this policy is not more about „fair“ competition? As a result, maybe the Estonian governments adopted free instead of fair market competion and media policy? The author himself said that the EU did not provide any concrete guidance. It is also interesting and telling that there is no nation-wide independent regulatory body in Estonia (there is one which is under the ministry). On a positive side, new Russian language programmes seem to attract attention of this ethnic minority in Estonia.

(After publication, we received this feeadback from Andres: „I have tried to show that European liberal media policy does not take into account market failures in smaller member states. From the view point of ‚fairness‘ all players on the market have the same rights. They are treated fairly  = equally.  Meaning that the rules / regulations are the same for all. But the problem is that players have different resources. And this is not a question of being fair or not. My point is that EU media policy is driven by economic interest of telecommunication sector and the free common market approach is not supporting development of local/national media industries/institutions.“).

Márton Demeter from Karoli Gaspar University (Hungary) provoked great interest tackling the issue of equality of science through the prism of the opportunities for publishing in a particular scientific field. He explained his methodology with the so called “Matthew effect” known in sociology as the maxim “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”. The central topic in Demeter’s presentation was to analyze the existing possibilities for media scholars from Central and Eastern Europe to present their research in high quality journals. The author tried to answer the questions: ”Are CEE Countries the ‘Matthew Countries’ of Communication and Media Studies?” and “what are the necessary conditions for leading publication and cooperation of the field”. The observations made on the basis of the most recent 620 articles written by 1456 authors and published in 63 SCImago Scopus Q1-ranked journals in communication and media studies were factually rather depressing. The US and China give 60 % of publications while the CEE contribution is very sparse – Poland 3, the Czech Republic – 3, Slovenia – 1, etc. The CEE contribution comprises 3 % and generally there are no better prospects for the future. One of the explanations for this sad situation is the lack of effective cooperation pattern. While active collaboration is in force among some countries (predominantly from Central Europe), others are absolutely disconnected (from South Eastern and mostly Eastern Europe). In this respect one can speak about centre and periphery of scientific publication and research. Concluding that in reality equality in science is a myth the author sees the setting up of a high quality journal targeting CEE researchers (it is worth here asking the question: „Isn´t Central European Journal of Communication a sufficient platform?“) or the acceptance of a quota principle in worldly renowned scientific journals as possible solutions of the problem.

Epp Lauk from the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) presented controversial reporting practices and their reflection in the normative values of journalists from the Nordic and some CEE countries and Russia. The figures were drawn from the Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS) project (2012 – 2015). The aim of the paper was to detect how the four ethical orientations – absolutism, situationism, subjectivism and exceptionism – appear among the journalists in selected countries. It also asked what kinds of ethically controversial reporting practices were more tolerated among the journalists and which of them were not tolerated. The data showed that one can speak about regional normative clusters in a normative descending order (Nordic countries, CEE countries and special case of Russia). The statistics also showed that for many journalists it is unaccetable to use deceptive practices although codes of ethics allow them such practice under certain conditions. Comparison of the general ethical orientations showed that journalists in both groups of countries regard the adherence to the ethical codes as their most important principle of professional practice and thus, can be seen as absolutists. However, Russian journalists are exception in this regard, as they lean more towards situationism (adherence to the codes of ethics depends on situation) and exceptionism (deviation from the ethical principles is tolerated in exceptional cases). When tested against democracy index, it appears that there is no direct relationship between high democracy index and high evaluation of ethical behaviour. Only in case of an authoritarian regime (Russia) there is a strong correlation between low democracy index and the agreement with situational position. A common tendency for all the countries is that strongly not tolerated are the practices of paying for information and accepting money from sources. Also, publishing unverified information and breach of privacy and coercion were not tolerated among the majority of the respondents. An interesting fact is that although the non-tolerable practices are the same in both groups pf journalists, the Nordic journalists are much more unanimous in their attitudes towards controversial practices. The CEE journalists are far less unanimous in assessing the unethical practices. This may reflect difference in professional cultures and the role of accountability mechanisms. Following the codes of ethics is a strong convention in the Nordic countries, but it is not so in the CEE countries. Again, Russia makes an exception, where 55% of journalists see paying to the sources as acceptable on occasion, and 14% regard it always acceptable.

Georgeta Drula from the University of Bucharest (Romania) presented the process of news selection for Facebook in a comparative analysis between online media in Romania and Poland. The final conclusion shows that the selection of news is based more on audience interests. The hypothesis was that the process of news selection can influence the users‘ participation and brings audiences to the news sites. The paper assumes that in the online environment, the users are participants in the news information cycle – they create, disseminate and discuss the news. In discussion, a question was raised how reliable is primary data set based on socialbakers.com data, when the Polish participants objected selection of their media sample.

 

A WORKSHOP and A ROUNDTABLE

During the CEECOM 2017 conference a workshop “Mapping research funding in CEE” was organized – chaired by the ECREA president Ilija Tomanič Trivundža. Participants exchanged views on research opportunities in their native countries, common research initiatives and sources for financing. Some of them presented information about the condition of media education, research and funding at a national level. In some countries national associations of media and communications specialists are very active and strong and may serve as a model for other countries (Poland). However, not everywhere such mode of collaboration is effective. In Hungary, for instance the association acts as a group of one professor. Colleagues from St. Petersburg State University also expressed reservations about the practice of establishing national communications associations everywhere across Europe and argued for sustaining diversity of approaches and traditions. They underlined that in Russia funding is channeled through the universities not through NGOs. By and large the message of the workshop was national communication associations to be set up and they have to strive further to get autonomy and credibility. These organizations should be institutions that can voice problems and formulate solutions. ECREA will assist experts and researchers from different countries in the process. Participants agree on the proposal issues related to national research and funding to become standing on the CEECOM agenda and the ECREA task force to report on the progress towards the creation of more transparent databases and an efficient platform for cooperation during the next conference.

The Roundtable included Slovene participants who discussed cultural censorship as a recent event in the city of Maribor. The Turkish Embassy in Slovenia put some successful pressure on organisers of an exhibit of photos about Kurdish militia fighting in Syria. The photos and screenshots (used for contextualisation) were taken and selected from Facebook, Instagram and Flicker. The pressure on organisers was successful due to the fact that the cultural centre had had some cooperation with Turkey, including having a local branch and having Turkish interns in Slovenia. In addition to a short article in the local newspaper DELO, the Kurdish TV reported about this conflict, too.

What specific programmes do the schedules in former Yugoslavian countries have in common?

Antonija Čuvalo (with some colleagues) from the University of Zagreb (Croatia) presented content analysis of television schedules of national televisions in six independent states that were once republics in Yugoslavia. The results showed some continuity and discontinuity betweem years 1979 and 2016. For example, Slovenia and Croatia typically provide the highest number of programmes for children, while reality shows are popular in Serbia, soap operas in Bosnia and Hercegovina. The current affair programmes seem to be of importance for Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. In general, similar patterns of programmes in 2016 could be found in pairs: Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia and Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro.

The Mediatisation Approach is imperfect!

Jernej Amon Prodnik from Slovenia critised the mediatisation approach used in communication studies. He argued that the mediatisation approach represents a sort of techno-determinism and does not fully take into account the economic organization of the media, the changes in the political sphere and other contextual issues.

Perihpery and Feminism – a problem of methodology?

Valerija Vendramin from the Educational Research Institute in Slovenia discussed the issue of the “peripherying” in the feminist theory. It was again a problem of methodology and not of equality or rights. The basic premise in her paper was that the identification of periphery is of great importance in feminist studies where hegemonic notions still prevail. The theoretical and methodological frameworks and solutions considered to belong to the centre have a greater chance of being assessed as important and universal than those that emerge at the margins that are considered as culturally related and secondary (Descarries, 2003).The author posed the question about the development of feminist theory in Central and Eastern Europe and to what extent the region remained a gap in this theory in particular.

The Future of democracy is in social media?

(At least in Croatia)

Dina Vozab, Zrinjka Peruško, Antonija Čuvalo from the University of Zagreb explored the democratic potential of the third sector media in Croatia from the perspective of its audiences. Analysis demonstrated that alternative and community media audiences in Croatia have higher political interest and engagement, efficacy, more active information exchange and are involved more consistently in politics. The authors presented three “ideal political participation types”: opinion leaders, civic activists and “silent majority”. Mainstream media audiences are classified as “silent majority” type, while alternative and community media audiences are more likely to become an opinion leaders group. The conclusion was that the third sector media in Croatia show great democratic potential to impact on society through the new digital tools.

There is some obvious follow-up question for discussion – namely, how relevant (agenda-setting or framing overall discourse) are these alternative or communicaty media audiences?

The paradox of the media standing in Poland

Katarzyna Konarska and Jedrzej Morawiecki representing the University of Wroclaw presented their views on the peripheralisation of the media in Poland. The process based on the confrontation between the media and the government is expanding jeopardizing the implementation of the principle of pluralism and the rich democratic public sphere as fundamental guarantees for democracy. Most dangerous are the attempts of political elites to introduce changes in the regulation of the ownership structure of the media market. Voices directly demanding the renationalization of the media may sound outdated and retrograde only but if these opinions turn into actions they could easily bring the democratic process to a halt. The alarming developments in Poland have already started in practice affecting both public service and commercial media. Illustrations of the encroachment of politicians on the media are the current tendencies to change the status of public service media and to describe them as national media as well as to subject them to the controlling power of a new institution residing in the parliament. Private media are accused of representing the interests of foreign countries in public. Abuse of freedom of the media through politicization and favouritism are evident as politicians of the ruling party try to marginalize critical media outlets and support those which are favourable to them. The paradox of the situation in Poland is that private media due to their independence from the authorities are still able to hold internal pluralism, while public service media which by definition has to signify and promote internal pluralism are subordinated to the interests of the governing elite and cannot influence the media policy.

Technological Progress Changes Positions of Countries

Information society policy as a precondition for Internet freedom in Bulgaria and other Balkan countries was at the centre of the research presented by Bissera Zankova, “Media 21” Foundation. The author argued that notions like “centre and periphery” can be examined against the background of the technological advent in the world today and these concepts are relative in meaning in the digital environment. Core countries may turn out to display shortcomings while countries at the periphery can demonstrate potential and catch up to a full fledged digital society. The relationship “core and periphery” bears characteristics that are intimate to other worrying tendencies in the technological age such as the digital divide. However, digital society today displays many divides of various kinds. Bridging divides and peripheries and enhancing Internet freedom everywhere rely on effective global decisions which are applicable in particular countries. Local initiatives can successfully complement global solutions. An example of a promising local initiative is the South Eastern European platform on Internet governance (SEEDIG) established during the Eurodig meeting in Sofia in 2015. The role of such platforms for fostering Internet fora, partnerships and digital empowerment is essential but people in the region need long-term workable projects that would bring tangible results in various spheres.

Pan-European Agora without Money Back-up?

Andrej Škerlep from the University of Ljubljana pleaded for the establishment of a new transnational, alternative, intellectual public sphere as a reaction against the neoliberal globalization processes and a hope for greater protection of peoples’ rights and interests. Globalization nowadays creates prerequisites for cosmopolitan attitude, for the fast growth of global digital networks and for the entrenchment of freedom as a main value. In discussion there were voices that this might happen around a common European TV channel, though the proposal sounds unrealistic. Possibly in the digital era a European channel can start operating on the Internet which is the global Agora today. But again who will finance such undertaking and manage it remains to be debated.

Twitter democracies or Facebook democracies?

Pawel Surowiec, Bournemouth University (UK) presented a research on social media in CEE, based on co-edited book Social Media and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe (BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies). If countries are categorized according to the most popular social media in them we can speak about Twitter democracies and Facebook democracies. These variations make it necessary to pursue national case studies to reveal the unique characteristics of each social media system. He and his colleagues (in an edited book) arrive at the conclusion that social media unfold in a multiplicity of political settings.

Who leads the Tango?

A comparison between the attitude of Polish and Swedish journalists towards journalists’ source networks in Twitter was discussed in the presentation of Elena Johansson from the Södertörn University, Sweden and Jacek Nozewski, University of Wroclaw, Poland. The crux of the research is “who leads the tango” or “who takes the control” in the relationships between journalists as representatives of the Fourth Estate and their political sources. The basic premise is the professional stand journalists in Sweden and in Poland take – while in Sweden journalists traditionally play the role of watchdogs, in Poland they merely oppose official power. Adversarial and symbiotic relationships may unfold and the problem is which participant is more influential. The authors use the network paradigm arguing that technological development has led to transformations in the media sphere and the nature of (political) communication. The supreme power in the network society we witness today is the network-making power and who exercises it. In a networked setting the gatekeepers attract larger connections and the center of communications is of crucial importance. Against such background while in Sweden journalists perform as gatekeepers, a role which flows from the historically entrenched understanding of their task as watchdogs safeguarding freedom of expression, in Poland it is the ministers and press secretaries that comprise the center of communications relationships. In this respect the Swedish network is more balanced, while the Polish one has a periphery. As any network is a dynamic structure it is not clear who takes control in the long run but in Sweden journalists have better opportunities to play as gatekeepers and in Poland these are the ministers. Further in their explanation Johansson and Nozewski stressed that they had presented two different strategies, in the Polish case journalists come directly to ministers for information, in the Swedish case ministers set the framework through tweets and actors make use of most of the possible links in Twitter. The authors were cautious in their assessment of the pros and cons and did not recommend either of these approaches to be pursued in practice. Apparently they left this to journalists. They also did not touch on other related themes that may stem from their research such as the impact of any of the described strategies on accountability and transparency of state power and the quality of democracy.

Czech Celebrities in a Post-communist Vision of Democracy

Markéta Štechová, Charles University (Czech Republic) spoke about “Celebrities and symbolic capital in Czech political communication – critique of periphery” which will serve as a base for a doctoral thesis. Applying Bourdieu’s field theory and focusing on celebrity symbolic capital (Davis 2013) the author explores Czech political communication through the analysis of seven interviews with Czech celebrities (actors and singers) who have been involved in various political campaigns or activities. As explained in the social theory symbolic capital accumulates primarily from the fulfillment of social obligations that carry potential for prestige and it can occur in various fields – media, popular culture, economy. The author underlined the peculiarities of the media field which possesses an intermediate position among the rest fields. That is why it always experiences pressures from other fields. Celebrity culture in particular signifies the heteronomy of the media field. Similar to the accumulation of financial capital, symbolic capital is ‚rational‘ in the sense that it can be freely converted into leveraging advantage within social and political spheres. Thus in the post-communist Czech society celebrities played an important role as after the political changes they came to be associated with a post-communist vision of democracy. Their prominence then continued to rise –the public viewed them not just as post-revolutionary figures but also as recognized contributors to the political discourse. The outcomes of the specific “elite” interviews is a starting point for a critical analysis of the transformations of celebrity symbolic capital, political capital and media meta-capital (Couldry 2003). In the Czech case they show that these transformations are implicitly facilitated by the presence of anti-communist rhetoric in the field of popular culture, as well as in the media field.

There seem to be some obvious follow-up question for discussion – what were the selection criteria? What does it mean – and how do we know – that celebrities played an important role after the political changes? What was a post-communist vision of celebrities not just as post-revolutionary figures but also as recognized contributors to the political discourse? Is the presence of anti-communist rhetoric in the field of popular culture somehow unexpectedly different from the overall discourse?

Sleeping Polish Political Parties and Active Citizens?

Michal Jacunski from the Univeristy of Wroclaw drew attention to political actors as a subject of political communication research and how this research falls in the periphery. The author discussed Polish political landscape and political communication and made an observation that Polish political parties were not adapting to the challenges they were facing. Parties are reluctant to open their communications and activities to research. This is a worrying trend against the backdrop of the participatory and mobilizing communication which expands on the Internet engaging millions of citizens. Media and communication studies, which are constantly developing in Poland, have examined mainly the role of the media, journalists and citizens, leaving aside the analysis of the party and non-partisan political actors activity. In this respect monographs in Poland seem not to fully provide a comprehensive study of the evolution and condition of political communication, in particular on the web, from the perspective of political actors. The author discerns domestication and marginalization of political communication research which does not encompass all possible issues and relationships but simplifies and moves to the periphery significant topics.

Twinkling lights of Phone Torches

The focus of Brindusa Armanca’s (Timisoara, Arad University, Romania) presentation was the periphery as a center based on the typology of communication developing at the 2017 anti-government protests in Romania. The purpose of the author was to provide arguments rooted in the communication theory to the thesis that in a night a country being at the periphery of media attention may come to the spotlight. The chronology of the events is widely known and it serves as an example how political elites can shamelessly and ruthlessly abuse rule of law and democracy taking full advantage of their power. Just for the record, the newly elected Social Democratic government in Romania secretly approved an ordinance modifying the Penal Code and the Penal Procedure Code during the night of 31 January 2017 despite the negative reactions from both the judicial institutions and the public. The accusations were that the ordinance was aiming at decriminalizing government corruption thus helping hundreds of current and former politicians escape ongoing criminal investigations or prison sentences. Immediately after it was announced that the ordinance was passed, more than 40,000 people protested that night. The protests soared the next day when over 300,000 people went in the streets throughout the country, making the rallies the largest since the fall of Communism and the toppling of Nicolae Ceausescu. The protests and rallies have been continuing on a daily basis since then and they reached their peak on 5 February 2017 when between 500,000 and 600,000 people protested throughout the country, thus making them the largest in Romania’s history.

The protest on February 5 was special due to the lighting effects created by the protesters and especially the Romanian flag lighting over the heads of people. On February 12 the lighting show designed the EU flag. The powerful picture of hundreds of thousands of persons united as a nation under the twinkling lights of phone torches combining symbolically the potential of civil mobilization and the 21 c. technology created a stunning effect which circulated around the world (including correspondents from the BBC, China TV CCTV and Latin America TV network Telesur). Millions of reactions on social media complemented the pictures and information disseminated by legacy media. All these efforts contributed to the changing of the general perception about the country according to Armanca. Up to the February 2017 protests Romania generally had a low and mostly negative public image. Protesters’ behaviour served also as a proof that Manheim’s postulate (2006) stating that if you are on the negative side of the axis you cannot jump to the other side – it can change under certain constellation of conditions. In the Romanian case the author argued that the set of favourable circumstances comprise the magnitude of protests, civic solidarity, anticorruption cause, high education of participants, intuition and tactics shifts having vast impact through the use of a variety of expression forms like inspiring placards, humour, irony and allusion and the new technology above all. The campaign was described both as intuitive and professional which raises certain questions how the two relate to each other. The multilingualism of protesters’ messages was also mentioned as an advantage. Slogans and placards in English, French and German definitely contributed to their intelligibility and recognition worldwide. In the discussion a question was raised about the global formats of such protests which could easily be smuggled into one or another country. The methods applied by Romanian protesters do not represent a new strategy because the same approaches were used during protests against Milosevic in Serbia, for instance. Similar happenings, creative art and technology elements were present in the Bulgarian protests in 2012 and 2014. From a civic point of view the general communication formats deployed by protesters do not deprive their actions of uniqueness and strength as these formats are put into practice in different social and political contexts. It is worth studying how general communication frameworks are modified according to the local conditions and how they work in fact.

By and Large Rational Discussion on Migrants?

Lenka Vochocová from Charles University (Czech Republic, co-researcher Jana Rosenfeldová) spoke about the role of niche online fora such as parenting fora for boosting discussion on migration and Islam in the Czech Republic. The main perspective was the gender perspective and Vochohova presenting data from 2015 concluded that women are in principle discouraged to enter the Internet political arena and the gap in participation is persisting (27 % women to 70% men participants in political discussion. In this regard third spaces like parenting forums which formally were not designed for political discourse and bring political debate to the periphery give more chances to women to express their opinions on burning issues like migration. The results were really interesting providing insights about the general attitude and male and female positions. More specifically 40% of participants expressed anti-migrant sentiments. Out of 172 participants there were only 9 male participants. The dominance of a security framework based on personal family concerns stands out. Only 2,3 % of the replies were explicitly against the EU. There were 66% rational claims and 34% assertions. Personal attacks were rather rare but the results show high level of incivility, curiously enough men provided less supportive but rational arguments, while women demonstrated more compassion but a higher degree of incivility. 68,9% of pro-migrant arguments express compassion and were mainly framed in terms of human rights. The majority of commentaries were mutual reactions. Otherwise the emotional reactions of the participants displayed disdain, fear and frustration.

Little Room for Consumers as Committed Partners

in the Fair Trade Project?

The exploration of the variety of discourses continued with the paper of Kinga Polynczuk – Alenius, University of Helsinki (Finland) on the “Universalistic moral discourses and situated moralities: Problematising fair trade communication in Poland”. The central topic was fair trade communication in Poland. Fair trade is understood as a communication problem due to the fact that it is based on moral principles which must be constructed through communication efforts of fair trade organisations. The paper discusses the case of Pizca del Mundo, a Polish fair trade brand exploring Pizca del Mundo’s Facebook as well as fieldwork conducted with the firm. Though Pizca del Mundo drew heavily on the ‘universalistic’ moral discourses of solidarity and care, their communication bore the characteristics of economic, political and cultural conditions in Polish society. It also left surprisingly little room for consumers as committed partners in the fair trade project. Another thought provoking detail was how Polish consumers behave in the market – they are price-sensitive, self-indulgent, concerned about product quality but not about producers, causal and uncommitted. Predominantly cultural factors impact Polish consumers‘ conduct. The author considered it as exhibiting a semi-peripheral country perception.

 

A BIT BLURRED PRESENTATIONS

Some presentations seemed to be a bit blurred, or at least not clearly presented due to their complex character or lack of time. For example, Peter Sekloča from University of Primorska, Slovenia attempted at clarifying the “communication paradox” at the periphery, more specifically the productivity issues of the digital public sphere. Sekloča aimed at carrying out multidisciplinary research of the public as a real producer of critical content under the new digital conditions adding a new dimension to its characteristics. The so called “communication paradox” was the vantage point from which Sekloča criticized the empirical conditions of the network public sphere and formulated the research questions the ICT with the demanded productivity were bringing to the fore.

In his presentation Boris Mance from University of Ljubljana presented research work that empirically analyses the intervention of representatives of critical paradigm (namely the traditions of political economy, public sphere theory and critical cultural studies) in the central space of disciplinary debates on media and mass communication since 1937 to 2015. However, not much empirical data were actually shown.

In her presentation Ksenija Vidmar Horvat from the University of Ljubljana analyzed the periphery between theoretical paradigms and geopolitical space. She reexamined the concept of the “periphery” from the perspective of the post-crisis Europe. In the paper she argued that the 2008 global financial crisis, and the austerity measures, created conditions for a new approach towards the countries in Europe to be applied dividing them into the hard working Protestant North and not so well working South. Spain, Greece and Portugal formed a new periphery.However, one can argue that these countries have been on periphery for centuries. Anyway, back to the presenter´s ideas, the author explored the “core and periphery” as relational terms that could be fluid and exchange positions, a stand taken also by other panelists. Their existence does not mean that there will be total submission of the periphery to the global hegemony of the core. Periphery can be considered an alternative and nowadays relationships are radically changing. “New Balkan” is emerging according to the author – the post-socialist Balkan periphery but this can be considered an elusive term that denotes the modern distribution of power.

Anna Schoeber de Graaf, Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt (Austria) discussed transformations of notion of everybody („common man“ or „people in general“) throughout modern age, starting with the French Revolution. Sure, this is important concept because „everybodies are closely related to democracies as form of a society“. There were some other interesting arguments such as „the everybody is not just the „average“ citizen“ or that new social movements present „negative politicisation“. Since much talk was about the comediant aspects of this negative politicisation (e.g. Beppe Grillo in Italy, but for example the popular show-man Slavi Trifonov in Bulgaria however was not mentioned), it was an open question how much actually these philosophical thoughts and political trends can be seen as universally valid?

 

The next CEECOM conference will be held in Szeged, Hungary, May 30 – June 1, 2018.

 

Bissera Zankova (BG) and Andrej Školkay (SK)

Verzia 01, dátum publikovania 28.6.2017/ dátum poslednej úpravy 30.6.2017, 7 052slov

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