Seite 25 [25]
Within and Across the Media Borders
‘The section “Transmediality and Intermediality” consists of chapters discussing
the creation of medial images used as a reflection of the local “third space” and the
circulation of some particular motifs across the media. Image making and circu¬
lating practices emerged from and in relation to other media and performances.
Sz. Kristof presents indidnosdi as an example of the highly complex web of multi¬
mediality. In her approach, she highlights a tendency of stereotypization of these
images—a reliance on a couple of characteristic “visual clichés” in representing the
figures. She discusses the difference between having knowledge from inside (in
America) and in Hungary, rather as curiosity and sympathy for native American
people.
Certain images are a result of the conscious development of media. In this
context, Oroz problematizes the historical figure of Matija Gubec. He uses the
perspective of memory studies with special emphasis on popular culture and po¬
litical discourse. New visions of Matija Gubec appeared in comics, movies, and
theater shows, filling media space. Through these new media forms, people iden¬
tified themselves with him as a figure representing the oppression. The authors
questions revolve around why would a peasant leader become popular and in what
way did the “socialist state of mind” make this figure an argument of plausibility
of its ideology.
What happens when we had an opportunity to use media across borders?
Sorescu-Marinkovié offers insight into the way the Other, Yugoslavia’s neighbors,
was perceived by Romanians watching Yugoslavian television in the 1980s in
Timisoara. As the author states, the practice of watching foreign TV was a le¬
gitimate reaction to the reduction of TV broadcast time and the ubiquitous and
subversive communist propaganda, which is why Romanians started to look for
alternatives that would satisfy their need for information and entertainment.
Lachowicz discusses how power and authority was accessed in the manipula¬
tion of a nature/culture dichotomy within the visual landscape of the popular film
chronicle that became present in the memory of the TV and cinema watchers in
Poland. Claiming that landscape lives in narration, Lachowicz analyzes the images
presented by the chronicle from 1956 to present how collective memory and pro¬
cess of place making are constructed.
Czarnecka discusses how the image of nontraditional woman emerged by an¬
alysing all-Poland beauty pageants held twice (only) in 1957 and 1958. As she
claimed, these contests served to constitute a model of femininity different from
the dominant one. It was associated with the multidimensional process of objec¬
tification; on the other hand, it points out the phase of a struggle for a woman's
right to a public display of female body. This way the New Woman embodied the
desire to see and to be seen. Thus, Czarnecka concluded that beauty queens made
an attempt to be not only the passive objects of party-state.
The next section, “The Functioning of Socialist Media: Shaping Society
Against the Outside World” deals with caricatures. What were the functions of the
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