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Cultural Production of the Real Through Picturing Difference in the Polish Media: 1940s—1960s
The first three parameters are joined by the two next as a consequence of pos¬
ing a question about the type of medium used and its transparency.° We have to
keep in mind that all the visual materials discussed in this chapter belonged to the
predigital era, what in practice meant that the photographic image still reflected
what stood in front of the lens. All of this together gives shape to the creation of
a cultural reality—that is, the creation of representations that correspond to reality.
If we assume that the differences between people result from culture—that is, from
their manner of perception—then we can also assume that these differences trans¬
late into the creation of what we sometimes call “natural” differences. Then the
question of what is real and what is the result of creation begins to make sense—
whether there is at all a reality that has not been transformed. If everything appears
to have been created, then what causes us to interpret certain information as real
and other types not? This motif appears in the research on the media and commu¬
nication. It has numerous other facets and aspects, which will be mentioned later,
but in the present approach, perceiving and describing the world via difference has
to suffice. Represented difference appears the most visible in times of high polariza¬
tion—in this case during the Cold War.
Moreover, describing reality via difference requires presenting the two sides.
Usually it is accompanied by a narrative description, but in my case the image
is sufficient—that is, such style of imaging allows one to observe the boundaries
between the two sides by way of, for instance, appearance, costume, symbolism,
attributes, ascribed roles, behaviours, gestures, place taken up within space, emo¬
tions evoked, and so forth. These boundaries also reflect the axis of the dividing
line. In such a manner, the Other is created and, to paraphrase Alison Griffiths,
representations of difference emerge from a confluence of discursive practices and
image-making techniques (2002: xx). The practices of presenting difference served
to express attitudes and specific ideas on the subject of differences that spring from
those attitudes—in the case of ethnographic material, attitudes and ideas related to
cultural or racial differences; in other cases, to differences connected with politics,
worldview, or other.
The means of presenting difference is similar, and usually becomes filled with
newly diverse content following established patterns. In every context of an im¬
age, different lines of division appear, resulting from the assumed differentiating
criterion. The distance between the two sides becomes visible when we observe
the changeability of representing the sides over a prolonged period of time. This
changeability is enabled by the fact that the picture remains closely related to the
time of its creation and forms a reflection of the relationships prevailing (changing)
° Writing about theatre—more precisely, about the contemporary political theatre—Dorota Sajewska
mentions mediological perspective. She understands mediality as a particular way of seeing the world’s exist¬
ence, perception, and cognition as a specific construct that perpetuates or undermines the type of reality
in which we are living (2012: 57).
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