Our two team members, Prof Beata Klimkiewicz and Dr Katarzyna Vanevska, presented a conference paper titled Pandemic communication in Poland: A media policy perspective at the conference “Audiovisual Media Regulation during the COVID-19 in Central and Eastern Europe”. The conference was organised by Eötvös Loránd niversity and the University of Bucharest, and took place online on 30th September.
The aim of the paper was to examine the specific challenges encountered during the pandemic in news media communication in Poland, from the perspective of media policy and regulation. An analytical framework was proposed, covering several important areas in which Covid-19 pandemic affected media policies. These included (1) the issues such as those of fundamental rights, where legal guarantees for freedom of expression and right to information were not fully respected; (2) economic conditions of news media in Poland, which were marked by a high degree of volatility and uncertainty; (3) digital platforms and tax policies targeting platforms in Poland, how these changed during the pandemic, whether the state/public authorities responded to disinformation/covid-19 sceptical communication with any policies, and how effective these policies were. The research conducted by the authors also included an assessment of the role of the state/political control, considering if any changes have been introduced in Poland concerning funding, remit/performance, or governance of public service media during the pandemic. On the basis of this analysis, the authors provided the conference attendees with general conclusions about the nature of pandemic communication in a context of populist politics and decision-making.
