Oldal 32 [32]
30
Dagnoslaw Demski
Cultural Production of the Real Ihrough
Picturing Difference in the Polish Media:
1940s—1960s
. .. two major modes of mediating immediacy. In the first mode the
medium is “naturalized” to the extent that it is no longer experienced as
a medium. In the second mode, the mediation process is flauntingly revealed
and highlighted for what it is. Contrary to what this second mode seems
to be doing, I will argue that this “unmasking” of the medium produces
its own sensations of immediacy
(Van der Post 2011: 76).
Thus, when wishing to present a variety of arguments, it is necessary to present
not war as such, but the strategies of representation
(Sajewska 2012: 60).
The problem of media became the focus of debate as a result of changes in the
media market in general in the 1970s. It was triggered first by the emergence of
new media that provided an immediate, live picture (television) and, later on, in
reaction to television, by the arrival and expansion of the Internet (in the Western
world), offering a possibility of selecting the recipient. The debate’s subjects were
formed not only of a question of truth, of revealing the context and the underlying
ideology of the authors, but also of the issue of immediacy and the degree to which
we are able to preserve it in the message and, conversely, the possibility (bearing
in mind the mechanisms of media message creation) of producing a conviction,
an impression, that the message is transparent. The development of media has led
to a contemporary discussion on the subject of the human factor’s influence on
the message. The problem has been examined in the humanities and, therefore, in
growing literature related to the subject. However, the media themselves,’ focused
on the number of recipients or readers, are unwilling to notice (at least, in an open
forum) the degree of removal from reality. In internal discussions, what matters
is the influence on the perception of the reality, not the accuracy of the message.
Contemporarily, major TV shows and the press—from right wing to left wing—are all convinced of
their own truth and distort the reality in a similar manner, providing widely circulating pictures and mes¬
sages they themselves produce.