Culture in systemic transition: Nation -state building, national identity and mass media in post -Communist Poland

This study deals with the role of culture and mass media in the processes of social and political systemic change, and focuses on issues of identity formation, the role of the media in the organization of civil society, and the structuring of the societies by diverse social narratives. It discusses the role that media play in systemic change as sites of mean-making and as forums in which the forging of symbolic universes and construction of national identities is carried out. The symbolic universes, which are embodied in narratives and discourses, in turn, define and influence the direction and outcomes of political, economic, and social processes.;The study focuses on the case of post-Communist Poland, and by means of textual analysis identifies different discourses that are embedded in media texts on national identity. These discourses reflect clashing ideological frames: liberal and anti-liberal (nationalist/Catholic) that struggle to define the future destiny of this nation. The study analyzes these discourses in relation to the particular political goals of their proponents, and the role of these discourses in the construction of competing versions of identity and, consequently, social practice. It shows that when access to the public sphere, constituted by the mainstream media, becomes limited for the oppositional discourses, alternative mass media may become an alternative public sphere where resistance identities can be forged. Anti-liberal "Radio Maryja" and its role as a site of oppositional meaning-making and an organizer of a social movement, is used as an example of the mobilizing potential of mass media.;This study is carried out within the Cultural Studies tradition and is undertaken in relation to the historically specific and socially structured conditions, within which the analyzed media texts are produced. The assumption here is that cultural analysis generates a knowledge and understanding of structural context, but also that culture is necessarily involved in changes of the institutional order. The study contributes to the existing literature on systemic transitions in general and East European transitions in particular, as well as to the literature on discourse analysis.