Object structure
Title:

The rubber waistband and the resistor: Solidarity Radio and media fantasies of emancipation under late socialism in Poland

Subtitle:

Acta Poloniae Historica T. 115 (2017)

Creator:

Wciślik, Piotr

Contributor:

Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences ; Polish National Historical Committee

Publisher:

Instytut Historii PAN

Place of publishing:

Warszawa

Date issued/created:

2017

Description:

p. 175-210 ; 23 cm

Type of object:

Journal/Article

Subject and Keywords:

media fantasies ; media archeology ; media activism ; Samizdat ; Radio Solidarność ; community radio - Poland - history - 20th c. ; alternative radio broadcasting - Poland - history - 20th c. ; anti-communist movements - Poland

Abstract:

The article presents the story of the underground Solidarity radio, a less known chapter of dissident media activism, whose emblematic form was the “extra-Gutenberg” phenomenon of underground print culture, or samizdat. It proposes an approach, influenced by media archeology, in which both can be studied as part and parcel of the same communication environment in order to better understand the particular articulation of dissent, media and modernity which both represented. It proposes that in addition to being a certain media form, samizdat was a “social media fantasy” – a shared cultural matrix which embodied political expectations and passions about liberating effects on horizontal communication, attainable here and now through means at disposal of an average person. Underground broadcasting developed in the shadow of the samizdat materialization of this emancipatory media fantasy, despite the fact that radio activists mastered a unique craft of intrusion into the public airwaves, which gave broadcasting an aura of spectacularity that underground publishing had lost as it expanded.

References:

Bolter Jay D. and Grusin Richard, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA, 2000).
Dunbar-Hester Christina, Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest and Politics in FM Radio Activism (Cambridge, MA, 2014).
Huhtamo Erkki and Parikka Jussi (eds.), Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications and Implications (Berkeley, 2011).
Kamiński Łukasz and Waligóra Grzegorz (eds.), NSZZ ‘Solidarność’ 1980-1989, ii: Ruch Społeczny (Warszawa, 2010).
Kind-Kovács Friederike and Labov Jessie (eds.),Samizdat, Tamizdat and Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism (New York, 2013).
Komaromi Ann, ‘Samizdat as Extra-Gutenberg Phenomenon’, Poetics Today, xxix, 4 (2008), 29-67.
Natale Simone and Balbi Gabriele, ‘Media and the Imaginary in History’, Media History, xx, 2 (2014), 203-18.
Parisi Valentina (ed.), Samizdat: Between Practices and Representations (Budapest, 2015).
Pickard Victor, America’s Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform (Cambridge, MA, 2014).
Standage Tom, Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2000 Years (New York, 2013).

Relation:

Acta Poloniae Historica

Volume:

115

Start page:

175

End page:

210

Resource type:

Text

Detailed Resource Type:

Article : original article

Format:

application/pdf

Resource Identifier:

0001-6829 ; 10.12775/APH.2017.115.07

Source:

IH PAN, sygn. A.295/115 Podr. ; IH PAN, sygn. A.296/115 ; click here to follow the link

Language:

eng

Rights:

Creative Commons Attribution BY-ND 4.0 license

Terms of use:

Copyright-protected material. [CC BY-ND 4.0] May be used within the scope specified in Creative Commons Attribution BY-ND 4.0 license, full text available at: ; -

Digitizing institution:

Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Original in:

Library of the Institute of History PAS

Access:

Open

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