Eg the Underground Press

Ruch Młodej Polski (RMP, the Young Poland Movement) was a countrywide political opposition organization created in 1979 in Poland. Its publications appeared in many places: Trójmiasto,1 Warsaw, Kraków, Łódź, and Słupsk; sometimes they were signed with the name Młoda Polska (the Young Poland). They were published by various people, especially during martial law and in the following years. Such a printing structure can be characterized as a loose federation of printing “firms”—separate, even if at times they used the same logo. This network deserves a separate study; the present text discusses only Wydawnictwo Młoda Polska in Trójmiasto.

A rare and lost preface to Animal farm; novella written by George Orwell. This preface better known as Freedom to Press was written by Orwell himself and It gives equal cult to the topic which Orwell tried to heed on. I just edited it into readable PDF.

This is my dissertation proposal which I submitted to the Department of History, CEU. I upload this material so that I can get comments and critics from other scholars who have similar interests. If there is any question, opinions and remarks, please do send me messages. I welcome any of them. It is about my on-going dissertation project, therefore please do not use for your citation, thank you.

Niniejsza praca jest antologią polskiej podziemnej prasy narodowej z lat 1939–1950. Naszym celem jest ukazanie myśli i postaw przedstawicieli nacjonalizmu polskiego podczas sowieckiej i niemieckiej okupacji, to znaczy w warunkach ekstremalnych. Wbrew oczekiwaniom autorzy odkryli, że konspiracyjna myśl narodowa była – w kontekście swoich czasów – paradoksalnie pluralistyczna, wielowątkowa i raczej umiarkowana w porównaniu z otaczającymi ją innymi nacjonalizmami i  konkurencyjnymi  prądami  skrajnymi,  a  szczególnie  z  rasistowskim  socjalizmem i z komunizmem. Cezura czasowa niniejszej pracy to z jednej strony wybuch II wojny światowej, a z drugiej zniszczenie przez komunistów ostatnich większych struktur podziemnych narodowców.

One of the inchoate yet defining features of journalism in the twenty-first century has been the profession’s unannounced but nonetheless consequential repudiation of the time-honored journalistic ethos of ‘‘objectivity.’’ In this paper, I argue that the gradual renunciation of the ideals of objectivity in contemporary journalistic practice, especially in the United States which birthed the concept, is both a return to journalism’s roots and
a back-handed, if profit-inspired, embrace of certain hallmarks of ‘‘alternative journalism,’’ which emerged as a counterfoil to nineteenth-century notions of ‘‘objective journalism.’’ I demonstrate my thesis by historicizing ‘‘objective journalism’’ and linking its emergence to multiple impulses: industrial capitalism’s desire to capture as many eyeballs to consumer goods as possible using the instrumentality of the mass media; the seduction of nineteenth-century positivism, which conduced to the uncritical valorization of epistemic precision, measurability, the ‘‘scientific method,’’ detachment, and other manifestations of naıve empiricism; and the turn-of-of-century delinking of political parties from newspaper business. I also argue that the progressive abandonment of the tenets of ‘‘objective journalism’’ by the legacy media is an artful hegemonic containment of alternative journalism’s age-old ideals and singularities. This, I point out, is actuated by the imperatives of survival in an increasingly uncertain and fragmented media market, made even more so by the unexampled discursive democracy and diversity that the Internet has enabled, which has contributed to the flourishing of citizen and alternative journalism.

Censorship and its counterpart, the `underground' production and distribution of printed texts and images, existed ever since a `public sphere' came into being. The volume approaches this phenomenon by covering cases from the Tsarist Empire, the Soviet Union, Central Europe, South America and China. In a long-term as well as global perspective, the well-known practise of samizdat under communist rule may be understood as part of a long tradition of underground publishing still relevant today in places like Russia, Iran, or China.

This issue focues on teaching and the Other. It features articles on comic books and gender, underground club culture, vampires, conspiracy theories, A.S. Byatt's stories, and computer games. There is a section of poetry and several review essays and a strong cohort of reviews.

How to research the underground press?
The second circuit press is one of the most important historical sources to describe modern Polish history. The studies call for a holistic approach, i.e. the overall research of individual newspapers or thematic exhaustive comparative analysis, carried out by selecting the broadest possible research sample. In the fi rst stage there should be wide queries conducted in order to determine the actual state of research on the topic that interests us. In the second stage a detailed analysis of the content of a newspaper or newspapers must be undertaken, through which a thematic categorization key is developed. For each key-topic selected texts are assigned. Then we measure the area of individual texts on a certain topic by number of pages or cm 2. We provide statistical reports serving as a starting point for substantive analysis of texts from the second circuit press. In press we also look for information on the origin of the newspapers, people or environments issuing them, organizational problems etc. The " conversation " of the researcher with the press becomes the preparation for interviews with its creators, authors. Then we start searching for editors or underground printers preceded by the preparation of a comprehensive and exhaustive questionnaire. The next step is to call the notation of sound or fi lm with the people we were able to reach, and who are often (in the absence of archival materials) the only source of information enabling us to work on underground publications. The investigator becomes a mediator in the dialogue between the press and its creator. Another important link in the research on illegal publishing is the analysis of archival materials – primarily operational documents of the Security Service that are stored in the Institute of National Remembrance. It is a specifi c research triangle: analysis of the content of the press, conversation with its creators and analysis of archival documents. It allows you to make a chronicle record of the past reality and to save an important part of the modern Polish history from oblivion.

Od niemal dziesięciu lat w swojej pracy naukowej zajmuję się badaniem prasy drugiego obiegu w Polsce. W ciągu tego okresu dokonał się gigantyczny postęp związany przede wszystkim z digitalizacją zbiorów drugoobiegowych, opracowywaniem poszczególnych tytułów w postaci haseł encyklopedycznych i słownikowych, artykułów naukowych czy prac od licencjackich po doktorskie. Rozszyfrowano wiele postaci, odsłonięto mechanizmy funkcjonowania zespołów redakcyjnych i druku oraz kolportażu poszczególnych tytułów. Nadal jednak sporo zostało do zrobienia. W niniejszym tekście chciałbym przedstawić problemy, jakie napotyka badacz, analizując zjawisko drugiego obiegu w Polsce, wskazać sposoby ich przezwyciężenia oraz pokazać, w jaki sposób można badać nielegalną prasę wydawaną w okresie PRL.

Bombs, sabotage, death threats and assaults are all in a day's work for the staff of the fledgling radio stations and newspaper campaigning for independence in New Caledonia. The three FM stations, operating in the capital, Noumea, the north-eastern town of Hiénghène, and the Loyalty Islands, and the newspaper Bwenando face formidible obstacles. While they see themselves as the “free” voice of Kanaky, they are portrayed by the French-controlled media as “revolutionary” and trying to subvert the French Republic. New Caledonia does not enjoy the freedom of press which is taken for granted in metropolitan France or in neighbouring South Pacific nations such as Australia, New Zealand and even pre-coup Fiji. Although there are few laws that curb the media, the nature of ownership means the mainstream media is heavily biased against the Kanak population which supports independence.

The focus of this paper is the graphic language of
São Paulo city punk rock scene, as it evolved prior
to the popularization of personal computers, in
the late 1970s and early 1980s. The rise of the
punk movement in São Paulo coincides with the
ending of Brazilian military dictatorship in the mid
1980s. Brazilian punk verbal and visual messages
reflect an activist stance against the social and
political situation of that period.
Unlike other international trends in graphic
design, the graphic language of punk printed
matter evolved apart from academia, and its
history cannot be based on assumptions of
master- or school-related influences that
characterize most design history narratives. The
context in which this graphic language evolved
also differs from that of other vernacular
expressions, once international mail exchanges
played a central role in punk culture.
In this paper, the graphic language of São Paulo
city early punk era, from the late 1970s to 1985, is
described, aiming to a better understanding of the
visual expression of Brazilian youth during the
military regime, and its contribution to a
worldwide, shared visual language of punk.

Personal media bypass mass media hierarchies, generating a sense of community and proximity. Print “zines” and online “blogs” also serve to culturally and socially distinguish those who produce and consume them. Digital network technology has transformed personal media. For example, blogs enable viewers to add comments, extending the parameters of inclusion. At the same time, instances of exclusion seem to proliferate in the “blogosphere”. The simplification of complex tools makes it ever-more easy to create personal media: hence the multiplication of internal exclusion procedures which serve to differentiate agents equalized by undifferentiated inclusion in dominant networks.

An illustrated text exploring two sites of sonic conflict - the 121 Centre in Brixton (gabber, stormcore and hardtek) and The Labrynth in Dalston (happy hardcore, jungle, rave). The squat housing the 121 was evicted several years ago and the site of the Labrynth was cleared in 2007, both by authoritarian New Labour councils.

Radio began as a DIY endeavor, invented by amateurs and tinkerers - the hackers of the late 19th and early 20th century. The Radio Act of 1927 allowed the government to privilege certain groups, particularly the radio corporations, in the allocation of the radio spectrum, and effectively locked the amateurs out.  Since that time, unlicensed broadcasters - or pirates - have roamed the airwaves and tried to elude the FCC. Through a series of interviews, this 33 minute "broadcast" looks at some of the motivations of these radio hackers - why they started doing it, and why they stopped. It also takes a critical look at the recently passed Local Community Radio Act (LCRA) - legislation which intends to open the airwaves to broadcasters under 100 watts, but may not be able to accommodate broadcasters in the largest urban areas. Finally, the migration of many microbroadcasters from the airwaves to the Internet is examined, particularly how this move allows for broadcasts to proliferate, but may not serve the public in exactly the same way the traditional radio medium is able to.  It concludes that there still is much more work to be done towards equitable distribution of the airwaves, and that while Internet radio may be able to meet the needs of certain communities, its very distribution methods indicate a much different audience than would be served by local radio.

In the years around 1968 London was home to a sizeable community of writers, musicians, artists, and political activists whose countercultural attitudes are expressed in the publications of the ‘alternative’ or ‘underground’ press – magazines such as International Times, OZ, INK, Friends (later Frendz), Time Out, Gandalf's Garden, The Black Dwarf, and The Hustler. That most of them had at least some pages devoted to music reflected the crucial role of rock in particular in summing up the community's aspirations, focused less on political or social than on cultural transformation. This article seeks to chart in these underground publications the changing attitudes towards music and its revolutionary potential. Initially the alternative press portrayed popular music as sharing with avant-garde tendencies a basic equation between new creative means and their would-be disruptive effects on society as a whole. However, there soon arose contradictions between the radical social potential of music and its growing commercialization, contradictions stemming not only from the co-optation of rock by market forces and record companies but also from the underground's own lack of a coherent ideological agenda. Paradoxically, it was precisely when popular music began to be considered a form of ‘high’ culture – just as the alternative press advocated – that its perceived effectiveness as part of the revolutionary, countercultural project began to diminish.

Three stories in a single book. The first book to document the long struggle of London pirate radio for a legal black music station, started by Radio Invicta in 1970. The first book to document the transformation of KISS FM from a tiny London pirate radio station in 1985 into the UK’s leading homegrown youth brand of the 1990’s. The first book to reveal the inside story behind the most successful UK radio station launch of its era. 500+ pages. 1,000+ research sources.

Author Grant Goddard paints a detailed and critical account of the contemporary UK radio industry. His career in radio started in 1972 on London pirate stations, he worked in local commercial radio before co-ordinating KISS FM’s winning licence application and re-launching a large team of mostly club DJ’s who had little radio experience as a new legal London station that attracted more than one million listeners within six months. Readers interested in the history of black music in Britain, music radio, media start-ups and the UK government’s persistent determination to stamp out pirate radio will find it informative and interesting.