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Rozprawy — analizy — studia przypadków

Vol. 12 (2020): Fascinatio studiorum linguarum

Communication entanglements in small propaganda texts: The case of the children’s letter to Płomyk

  • Igor Borkowski
DOI
https://doi.org/10.19195/2083-5345.12.12
Submitted
24 June 2021
Published
24-06-2021

Abstract

The wide-ranging systemic activities of political propaganda can also be observed and studied in the context of individual products, almost on a microscale. This paper makes an attempt at such an analysis, whose subject is a handwritten letter from the mid-1960s school chronicle, written by primary school students and addressed to the editorial office of the youth magazine Płomyk. In the content of the message, apart from regular communication behaviors, we find references to the context of reality, life and the experiences gained in the immediate circle of the local community. The epistolary narrative, when confronted with facts, leaves no doubt that the letter, while being a tool for didactics of forms and genres of expression, and at the same time an educational tool, also becomes a space in which a consistent utterance with manipulative features is formed. Looking at a single manifestation of a propaganda utterance enables us to ask questions about the level of trust in the text, the assimilation of the style of expression, and the internalization of the rituals of propaganda statements.