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IIC02
Representing the (Transnational) Other
PP 402
Transnational Homosexuals in Communist Poland: An Analysis of Polish Gay Zines in the 1980s
L. Szulc
1
1
University of Antwerp, Communication Studies, Antwerpen, Belgium
Despite the existence of the Iron Curtain between the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc during the Cold War, which prevented much communication and
travelling between the blocs, homosexual activists on both sides managed to establish some communication channels. In 1978, Western activists created
International Gay Association (IGA). Already three years later, in 1981, IGA established a special section named Eastern Europe Information Pool (EEIP).
The key aim of EEIP was to gather information about the lives of homosexuals in the Eastern Bloc, integrate them and support their self-organising. This
task was delegated to an Austrian organization HOSI-Wien, particularly to a Polish citizen, Andrzej Selerowicz, who emigrated to Austria some time before
1981. At that time, Selerowicz was regularly visiting Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, for business but also to contact
homosexual people, mostly men. On top of it, in 1983 Selerowicz started publishing gay zine in Polish, named Biuletyn. Because of Selerowicz’ work,
homosexual activists in Poland started to organize themselves more seriously in the second half of 1980s. One of the strongest group at that time was
established by Ryszard Kisiel around a zine named Filo, which he started to publish in November 1986. The group continuously maintained its contacts
with Western activists: for example, in 1988 Filo was partnered with a Norwegian organisation Tupilak and in 1989 it was officially accepted as a member
of IGA. Thanks to the courtesy of Lambda Warszawa, I got access to the complete archive of the Filo zine, 17 issues published between 1986 and 1990, as
well as most of the issues of Biuletyn. In this research project I aim to qualitatively analyse the content of the zines to further investigate the transnational
aspects of the first homosexual groups in Poland. Drawing on the existing literature on transnationalism and sexualities, I will examine the role of Eastern
Europe in homosexuality-related transnational flows of news, identities and diseases in the 1980s. First, I will draw on the literature in media studies on
alternative media to discuss the genre of gay zines and thus contextualize the analysed zines. Next, I will employ basic qualitative content analyses, such as
thematic analysis, to chart the content of the zines. In particular, I would like to know what were the key themes the authors of the zines were interested
in, which names they used for ‘homosexual people’ and which cities, countries and blocs they wrote about. Finally, I plan to draw on more sophisticated
methods for the qualitative content analysis, especially framing analysis, to examine how the authors of the zines define themselves (e.g. how they use
such deictic forms as ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’) as well as how they frame different geopolitical entities in relation to homosexuality in general, and AIDS epidemic and
homosexual movement in particular. This research project is still in progress and it is therefore difficult to offer any substantial conclusions. I will appreciate
to get the opportunity to present my conclusions at the ECREA conference in Prague.
PP 403
#Krymnash(#CrimeaIsOurs): The Discursive (De)Legitimation of the Annexation of Crimea
A. Bezverkha
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1
National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy", Mohyla School of Journalism, Kyiv, Ukraine
The social upheaval at the EuroMaidan, and later Russia’s annexation of Crimea and armed conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014, have been marked by the un‑
precedented use of new media by ordinary citizens to express their political and ideological affiliations to one of the sides of this conflict and to justify or to
delegimitize the actual territorial as well social changes at the peninsular. Additionally, new media has become a new battlefield where users impose their
own meanings about the current events and confront those dominant in the cyberspace. Some well-known internet memes have become a widespread
tool to shape these online discussions and have become a visible marker of identity of supporters or opponents of the issue discussed. The presented study
aims to explore the patterns of identity construction of theTwitter and Facebook audiences by the use of hashtag analysis.The study focuses on the patterns
of utilization of the popular hashtag #Krymnash (“Crimea is ours”) by various groups of the Russian and Ukrainian online users during various time periods
as the conflict around Crimea and in the Donbas unfolded in early 2014 and in the 2015. The study utilizes a multidisciplinary methodological approach
of critical discourse analysis to examine the corpus of media texts which contain the mentioned hashtag in both Russian and Ukrainian Twitter, Instagram
and Facebook accounts during the time span between March and June of 2014 and later between March and June of 2015. The research findings demon‑
strate how ideological ambivalence of the meaning behind the hashtag name has led to the shift of the dominant ideological affiliation of the latter and
how the discursive strategies of political subversion problematized the initial set of meanings behind the hashtag, thus changing its original nature as
a focal point for a new type of Crimean Pro-Russian identity as well as for stirring up Russian nationalist sentiments related to the“reunion of Crimea with
Russia”. The study argues that the ambivalence of meaning embedded in this popular hashtag corresponds to the Ernesto Laclau's concept of the floating
signifier and, given the open and diverse nature of the online communication, gives room for the various confronting ideological frames, as well as their
supporters, to impose respective meanings on the content of the hashtag-related social media texts. In this regard I argue, that the very nature of the online
communication - open for diversity and multiplicity of voices - steps in contradiction with the initial goal of the #KrymNash online annexation legitimation
campaign and provides room for subversion of the original meaning as a contestation of the Russian pro-government ideology, provides space for alter‑
native and counter-discourses, and finally results in the blurring of the features, which construct the online groups of Crimea's secession supporters and
opponents. In this regard Laclau argues, the very nature of the social interaction and the very possibility of the hegemonic struggle over meanings in this
public domain, makes the absolute fixation of the meanings and control over their changes impossible.