Ideologisation of the Family in Women’s Magazines in the People’s Republic of Poland: Propaganda Models and Transmission Mechanisms

Abstract

This article aims to show the phenomenon of ideologisation of the Polish family in the official dimension of the culture of real socialism, i.e. the media. The subject of the analysis was the most popular women’s press in the People’s Republic of Poland,
with a socio-educational and advisory nature. By presenting the phenomenon of family ideologisation, attempts were made to show two of its aspects, i.e. mechanisms for the transmission of propagated content. In the first case, the family models appearing in
the analysed press in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were reconstructed, and in the second, the techniques, principles, and means used in the propaganda message were presented. The basic research problem is framed in the question: What models of family life were propagated by the examined women’s press in selected periods of real socialism and what communication mechanisms were used concerning the propagated content? The following theoretical assumptions were adopted in the analysed issues: 1) the image
of the family propagated in magazines was subject to strong ideologisation and politicisation, 2) the family was treated as a political and educational tool in the service of the power apparatus, 3) interpretations of selected aspects of family life lowered the
rank and importance of the family in social awareness, and 4) various mechanisms of propaganda were used to weaken the cognitive and psychological structures of women. The basic material base of the research was the magazine “Przyjaciółka” published in selected periods of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The supplementary base was the magazine “Kobieta i Życie” and studies by A. Kłoskowska from the 1950s and F. Adamski from the 1960s. In the reconstruction of the family models from the 1950s and 1960s, I used the content analysis method, and in the study of the family model from the 1970s, the frequency-thematic analysis of the messages of the researched content and H. Lasswell’s communication model. The theoretical reference for family analyses in
the period of the People’s Republic of Poland was the concept of family as defined by K. Marx, F. Engels and V. I. Lenin. The research findings revealed that the transmitted content was subject to strong ideologisation and politicisation. The transmitted content
weakened the importance of the family and deformed the sense of family values. The propagated image was one-sided and reduced. The family was treated as a tool in the service of the communist state. The techniques of transmission generated a sense  of mental dilemma, ignorance, and intellectual confusion among the female readers.