The Construction of National Identity in Poland’s Newspapers : Content Analysis of Nasz Dziennik, Gazeta Wyborcza, and Rzeczpospolita

Sammanfattning: This thesis focuses on national identity, constructed and represented in Poland’s media, and analyzes three daily newspapers which are diverse in their orientations as follows: Catholic Nasz Dziennik, pro-establishment business-conservative Rzeczpospolita, and independent center-left Gazeta Wyborcza. The research questions are how Gazeta Wyborcza, Nasz Dziennik, and Rzeczpospolita constitute national identity in content and what differences there are in identity construction in Gazeta Wyborcza, Nasz Dziennik, and Rzeczpospolita. The method is quantitative content analysis. It was found out that the Polish media employ a broad spectrum of identity construction strategies which could be defined as identification with and antagonizing from the European Union, redefining and creating new meanings of past events. The prevalent identity represented in the media is an identity of a civic and law-abiding democratic society. This identity is an outcome of political struggles in the country since 1989. The differences between three media types are minor: the media lack one established identity agenda and media content tends to depict the national identity as ambivalent.