AS SAID BY SOCIOLOGISTS
I fall into the overwhelming majority of Poles watching TV. There is approximately 99,8% of us. On average, we spend 4 hours and 9 minutes per day with our eyes fixed on a TV screen, which amounts to 9 years if we live to an old age (75, let’s say). One in seven people from this group claims she or he can not imagine their life without television. When commenting on that, sociologists use a euphemistic phrase “glued to the TV”, with which they replace a stronger expression: “slaves of TV”.
Tomasz Kulicki used the picture of the Polish society staring at their home TV sets as a point of departure to a broader reflection on the condition of a nation facing new media and presented it in the article Przyssani do ekranu (Glued to TV) (“Obywatel” 6/2006). Translating the figures provided by the market research company 4P Research Mix into the reality of everyday life, one can feel really horrified by the picture one gets. We are a human mass weakened by the TV’s entertainment and information stream, which for an individual means being mentally and physically passive and for a society entails homogenization and making our perception and interpretation of the reality infantile. All that foretells that apocalypse is near.
The author gives under the readers’ consideration the following negative results of TV addiction: its destructive influence on social relationships (instead of bothering to visit our friends for some chat, we sit in front of a TV and absorb the talks between TV stars; we resign from the aspect of social life that distinguished Poles among the more placid West European nations, that is from the need for disputing. The fast pace of information delivery dominating on TV leaves no time for thinking and expressing one’s opinion. As a result the views held by the society are a calque of the views from the most influential media, notes Tomasz Kulicki. What is more, we bring up our children in the (TV) picture culture, sentencing them to partial illiteracy and an inclination towards unsocial behaviour. Most of all, we waste our time since we do not improve our education, relax properly and get new information – TV just grips us, turning us into TV addicts (in a process similar to developing alcohol or drug addiction) and with time a TV becomes a non-registered (but charging us with a licence fee) member of the family.
There is one basic reservation I have about Tomasz Kulicki’s analysis. This analysis was based on an excessive faith in statistics, of which it is characteristic that they present an ‘average’ picture of reality, with all margins of a studied phenomenon rejected since they can not undergo simplification. An interesting description of the phenomenon that is truthful to the actual state of affairs should include the margins and it is the researcher’s task to verify the statistic data he received in order not to lie about the reality. It would turn out then that a large part of people included in the magic 99,8% have little in common with the described group of “on average 4 hours and 9 minutes per day”. They share neither the perception of the world, nor the level of activity, nor the way they communicate with the society. The most they have in common is the fact of owning a TV set.
(By the way, to those interested in the new media’s history, especially TV’s, I would like to recommend the latest book by Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz, titled Dokąd prowadzą nas media? published in 2006, which in an accessible and interesting way, may be not to original on the layer of reflection, sums up various medial processes and looks in the current situation)
The authors writing for “Obywatel” more and more often base their articles on the sociological analysis. The issue of Rodzina Radia Maryja (the ideological association around the broadcaster Radio Maryja) dividing the Catholic circles and the Church authorities, which apparently subsided during the last months, was taken up anew by Łukasz Kutyła in his article Populizm religijny. Radio Maryja – wyklęty lud ziemi? (Religious Populism. Radio Maryja – Cursed Children of the Earth? ). The author arrives at the answer to the question stated in the title by referring to Immanuel Wallerstein, who divided the social space into core and periphery. Both categories were adapted by his followers for the purpose of analysing sources of social tensions and conflicts. The division into the elite, which models the general cultural patterns according to its own needs and then strives after the consolidation of those patterns in the social life, and the much more numerous mass is something generally known and felt. In order to make the vision look not too simplified and too explicitly pessimistic, sociologists give the mass the right to an act that changes the interpretations imposed on them form above. Undertaking such a task turns the group of rebels into a so-called rebellious class.
What distinguished Rodzina Radia Maryja from other religious movements and national populisms is, according to Łukasz Kutyła, the fact that the people from the margin took floor and instead of slogans about internationalism and a lack of private property, they have different words written on their flags, like Naród-Rodzina-Religia (Nation-Family-Religion). Rodzina Radia Maryja is special because it can not be identified with the traditional left, which usually is a breeding ground for the leaders, who direct the rebellious class to fight for “better future”. Typical sociological tools are not enough to study it, which opens the doors for the imagination of the academics from different fields. Maybe anthropologists with a religious flair would feel tempted? I am counting on them.
“Obywatel” is increasing its volume and from the next issue onwards we will get 100 pages to read. It is already difficult to fit the comments on all interesting articles here so finishing this article I truly recommend reading the Z życia obywateli (Citizens’ life) section, its main topic being the reflection on the condition of the contemporary physical worker A.D. 2006. Extreme views and opinions clash and the discussion is really heated. Perfect for today’s aura.
Beata Pieńkowska
Translated by Anna Skrajna
Discussed journals: Obywatel