The Evolution of Persuasive Strategies in Polish Magazines for The

Zeszyty PRASOZNAWCZE Kraków 2016, T. 59, nr 3 (227), s. 582–598 doi: 10.4467/22996362PZ.16.038.5913 www.ejournals.eu/Zeszyty-Prasoznawcze/ FROM “ENLIGHTENMENT” TO “SEDUCTION” The evolution of persuasive strategies in Polish magazines for the youngest children (in the last two decades of the twentieth century) ANNA WILECZEK AGNIESZKA MIERNIK Instytut Edukacji Szkolnej Uniwersytet Jana Kochanowskiego w Kielcach ABSTRACT In this paper authors made a review of the strategies used by the editors of magazines for Z HISTORII MEDIÓW Z HISTORII children. They showed their methods of presenting cognitive and educational contents in the eighties and nineties of the twentieth century. The changes and developments which took place in this fi eld were caused by the political changes. The magazines for children published in the era of the Polish People’s Republic required from the reader careful reading, intense concentra- tion and a lot of patience. From the point of view of the young generation which likes colored, original and interactive media the magazines issued in that period may seem boring. In turn, the conviction created by pop culture that “what is boring cannot be important” limited the scope of contents to prepared sensations, commonness and banal uniqueness. After 1989 publishers in their search for new forms of winning over the youngest readers produced new multimedia magazines combining in a single issue traditional version (paper form), television (programme form) and online (web page). In order to make magazines more attractive in the spirit of unifi - cation to make them “magazines for everyone” meant that the seduction of the reader was no longer done by the contents, but by attachments, such as gadgets and “online continuations”. It was the most pronounced direction of the metamorphosis of the magazines for the young readers in the process of adapting the press to the realities of the consumer society which has begun at the end of the eighties of the last century. It was the price paid for the dream of making the Adres do korespondencji: Instytut Edukacji Szkolnej, Zakład Literatury i Kultury Języka, Wy- dział Pedagogiczny i Artystyczny, Uniwersytet Jana Kochanowskiego w Kielcach; anna.wileczek@ujk. edu.pl; [email protected] 2-łamanie.indd 582 2017-02-08 14:04:18 FROM “ENLIGHTENMENT” TO “SEDUCTION”. THE EVOLUTION... 583 magazines as popular as possible and enticing a large number of readers. At the same time it was a chance for the editors to survive in the world of hard economic reality. Keywords: magazines for children, persuasive strategies, history of children’s press 1. Introduction A child is a special recipient because as a reader expects pleasant, attractive and useful contents and as an immature member of society requires continual educational actions and axiological care.1 This immaturity is the object of numerous formative measures provided by educators, creators of culture, and “engineers of souls”. They are designed to “enlighten” the young readers (educational and upbringing function), to attract them or even “seduce” them providing pleasant, modern contents in a color form (ludic function). Magazines for children are produced by adults. It is important to analyze their objectives which decide about the conception of a particular magazine and its issues (pragmatic aspect). It seems that three main objectives are pursued: to bring up and educate the readers, to shape their views and their pro-social attitudes, as well as to meet their expectations, by offering the pleasure of reading and thus “winning them over”. Therefore we can talk about a specifi c use of persuasive strategies being a complex of methods and measures aimed to affect the child for a specifi c purpose.2 These strategies are a result of changes in culture and civilization. They not only illustrate a growth of cognitive consciousness of the youngest readers, a change of the trends in upbringing, but also, what is of particular importance for the author of this paper, Z HISTORII MEDIÓW Z HISTORII provide a guide in the evolution of the socio-cultural relationships between an adult (initiator of educational cultural events) and a child (recipient and reviewer of these events). This indicates that some signifi cant shifts in the specifi cs of the transmission of cultural models took place in the last two decades of the twentieth century. The shifts ran from post-fi gurative culture in which adults imposed traditional models of the transmission of values and education, which may be called “enlightenment,” to pre-fi gurative culture, in which adults pandered to young readers’ tastes,3 which basically boiled down to the principle of “seduction”. In this paper we review the strategies used by the authors of the magazines for children to win over young readers through the ways of presenting cognitive and educational texts in a particular period, namely in the eighties and nineties of the twentieth century. The changes concerning this matter resulted from the political changes which led to the abolition of censorship and the progress of moral liberal- 1 The best example of this is the fact that literature for children is called (in Poland) “the fourth literature” or “the separate literature” due to its specifi city. 2 Vide: defi nition of persuasion (perswazja): “explaining something to somebody, encouraging or discouraging somebody”. Universal Dictionary of the Polish Language 2005, p. 99. 3 Terminology: cf. Mead 1970, p. 117. 2-łamanie.indd 583 2017-02-08 14:04:39 584 ANNA WILECZEK, AGNIESZKA MIERNIK ism. Until that time the basic function of magazines for children was to broaden the young readers’ knowledge about the world and to shape their system of values. It was also desirable to activate the readers and develop their pro-social attitudes by conducting a dialogue with them. At the end of the nineties a special emphasis was put on the cognitive and ludic functions explicitly taking care of a modern media character of the magazines combining words and images which situated them among the other mass media, such as television and the Internet. Before we make a study of these phenomena let us have a look at the development of the magazines for children in Poland. 2. Whether to teach, entertain or sell? A few words about the history and functions of the magazines for children in Poland Initiated in the twenty fi rst century magazines for children were used primarily to shape the readers’ patriotic and moral education. The magazines were home manuals aimed for noble and bourgeois recipients (cf. Waksmund 1984) as evi- denced by the statement of Klementyna z Tańskich Hoffmanowa, the fi rst editor of the magazine Rozrywki dla dzieci (Entertainment for Children): “There shall be in them […] moral teachings and national memories, because they are the best to feed young souls”. Texts in the magazines fulfi lled mainly the educational function, explicitly expressed in this phrase addressed to the readers: “Dear children […] in advance learn to be thankful and nice to people”. In the fi rst half of the nineteenth century Stanisław Jachowicz created a magazine in which the educational function was realized by cognitive and entertaining Z HISTORII MEDIÓW Z HISTORII contents, such as fairy tales and didactic poems. His magazine Dziennik dla dzieci (Daily for Children) contained information about current events, local news, children’s literary works and invitations to take part in competitions. However there were no continuators of the novel character of the magazine and the periodical published in the second half of the nineteenth century lost the character created by Jachowicz, because as Danuta Żebrowska (2009, p. 72) wrote: “positivism slogans of organic work and work at the grass roots appeared” exposing the upbringing and educational functions and limiting cognitive contents to the Church calendar and secular one. Post-positivism magazines were oriented on journalism and tried to open themselves to the readers, for example by introducing the section “Listy” (Let- ters). However it was in the two decades between the First World War and the Second World War that an essential breakthrough in the character of the magazines for children took place. In Poland 322 periodicals for children were being published in 1934. They were suited to the age of the children: the youngest children, children learning to read, children who could read and older children. They were of different specialization types: information, school, scout, religious, professional, travel and entertaining magazines. According to Józef Białek, “in 2-łamanie.indd 584 2017-02-08 14:04:40 FROM “ENLIGHTENMENT” TO “SEDUCTION”. THE EVOLUTION... 585 the interwar period magazines for children and teenagers played an important role in shaping moral and esthetic attitudes of the young readers, as well as in forming a new model of literature for children” (Białek 1987, p. 188). They played educational role as well by supporting the process of school education. The educational function was realized in the aspect of patriotic and religious model: “God, the nation, the state”, constituting the essential profi le of the pre-war magazines. The ludic needs of the youngest readers were treated marginally by providing some sensational and travel cartoons, e.g. Karuzela (Roundabout), Republika (Re- public), Mickey Mouse Weekly. The editors’ conviction of the need of conducting a dialogue with the young readers entered the public consciousness as proved by the publication of magazines for Polish children abroad during the Second World War, e.g. Słoniątko Indyjskie (Little Indian Elephant) published in the Near East. After the Second World War the model of magazines for children was shaped by the political changes. The ideological and educational functions were realized in the aspect of socialist patriotism by presenting chosen state holidays and selectively treated history.

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