The political subculture of Radio Maryja - catholic media as political system object in Poland

Ewa Nowak, Rafał Riedel

English version of the article

This paper seeks to identify the role and function of an important branch of Catholic media in Poland in building a specific subculture in Polish political system. The main argumentation line of the paper is based on an assumption that the two main media actors Radio Maryja and "Nasz Dziennik" constitute communicative, cultural and system foundations of the religious right in Poland and therefore represent a political subculture. The authors of the proposed paper intend to analyze the specifics of the above-mentioned phenomenon in Polish political system in comparison with theoretical perspective of classical works by G.A. Almond and S. Verba dealing with evolution of political culture and its impact towards religion and democracy as well as secularization. The qualitative aspect of the applied methodology pertains to analysis of media material of Radio Maryja and the "Nasz Dziennik" for the years 2000-2007. In terms of quantity it embraces selected data from the current CBOS [Public Opinion Research Center] report concerning listeners of Radio Maryja.

KEYWORDS

Catholic media, secularization, Radio Maryja, political subculture