Authors

Karolina Ziolo-Puzuk¹;  ¹ Stefan Wyszynski University, Warsaw, UK

Discussion

This presentation will examine the changes that have occurred in the understanding and use of the term “censorship” in Polish parliamentary debates on the basis of the “Corpus of Parliamentary Discourse” from the years 1989-2019. The thirty-year period in question saw the abolition of the Main Censorship Office (April 1990) and the extraordinary development of mass media, including social media, which presented MPs conducting political campaigns with new challenges in the sphere of information control. How did the context, in which politicians invoke the term “censorship”, change? How is censorship understood at present, and is it merely a rhetorical device or also an important element in the debates about freedom of speech?