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Zbigniew Bajka: The Press Readership Among Workers

This article appears 18 years after the publication in the columns of Prasa Współczesna i Dawna (The Contemporary and Old Press) — a predecessor of Zeszyty Prasoznawcze — of a study by Władysław Kobylański „Cracow Worker and the Press”, which was the first press research elaboration dis-cussing the press readership in that environment. The following years brought many different elaborations, but in almost all of them the press reception was treated as a matter of secondary importance and described fragmentarily. In the scalę of the whole country the subject had been undertaken in 1974 when the Press Research Centre in Cracow madę a national survey, which comprised ab. 10 thousand people in the age above 14 years. Almost 20% of respondents were the workers.

The survey showcd that in generał the rangę of press, radio and TV is, among the workers, morę or less similar to the all-Polish average. On the other hand they do not use those media as systematically as the other groups. The press is read by ab. 61% of -workers (the all-Polish figurę is 65%), the radio broadcasts are listened to by 27% (all-Polish figurę is 31), and the TV programs are watched by 45% (all-Polish figurę — 46%). The workers also read a lesser number of titles (per one person) and besides the list of papers and periodicals they read is not much varied.

In the dailies’ group they most often read local party newspapers and afternoon papers. The latter are most popular among city workers and are morę and morę freąuently read by so called farmer-workers.

As regards the thematic interests it can be said that workers are interested in a narrower group of problems reflected in the columns of the press, but on the other hand show a morę intensive concern for some, particularly such as employment, wages, sports, sensations and entertainement. They mostly favour concise and short forms, altbough some say they are also interested in materials with comments, reportages, ieuo}ipa advises and replies to the reader’s letters. On the account of geopolitical criteria the workers display greatest interest for all-Polish problems, lesser for local and foreign affairs.

Among the factors conditioning the readership activity of workers the chief part play: a) education; b) age; c) sex. Education is the most important factor, although in the group investigated were in generał no persons with en education higher than secondary. The higher the education, the greater the activity. Age was almost eąually important. Older persons showed less activity. En-vironmental conditionings are mostly a resultant of the action of several factors. For instance one’s residence in the country is associated with lower education, homogeneous character of the group on account of the sex (almost 70% of the workers living in the country are men), mostly lower wages and objectively smaller chances of finding a job.

Other factors do not play a significant role, their influence is not of an independent character and only supplements the basie conditionings of the readership activity. (Summary by the Author).

Bolesław Garlicki: The Effects of the Journalists’ Trips Abroad

An essential effect of the trips abroad are the journalists’ correspondences. A survey concerning the content of those correspondences which were publish-ed in 15 central and local papers showed that 49% of them (which appeared in 1974) related to capitalist countries, 41% to Socialist countries and 10% to the third world countries. The authors* interest focused on only some countries (German Democratic Republic, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Federal Republic of Germany. United States, Great Britain. Morocco. Iran, Iraq and Kuweit). The visited country was described chiefly in generał, most often its Capital, bigger towns. The problems of smali towns, as well as those of the country, areas outside of the bigger towns etc — so much characteristic for some countries — were often ignored. The subject of reports were chiefly economic matters, politics and sport. Relatively little attention was paid to social problems, culture and education. Much too often as an object of interest predominated the materiał objects (constructions, relics of the past) and toc

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