ABSTRACT

To understand the characteristics of contemporary Polish journalism, at least three crucial elements of its historical background need to be explained: (1) the three partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century carried out by the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, and Habsburg Austria; (2) the post-World War II communist regime; and (3) a transformation of the media in Poland that started with the breakup of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.