Tuesday, May 8, 2007

W 024 F

Introduction
Having read the newspaper issue of Kisalföld of 14th September 1978, a whole new world opened to me. According to the task I’ve chosen the newspaper edition of the day I was born. My choice fell on a local newspaper entitled Kisalföld, which was namely the official paper of the Gyõr-Sopron County Committee and the County Council of MSZMP (i.e. Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party ).

I found fascinating socialist articles of which texts are full of clutter and its sentences are long and hardly understandable.

Journalists wrote what they were compelled to write about, omitting all the unnecessary details and persisting in the pure facts. No independent opinion could be given voice to, otherwise one's job was in danger. That's the reason for most articles seem boring and dull; one can read the same reports with positive outcomes and of few importance.

This paper reports my survey on the main characteristics of the foreign and home affairs, articles concerning culture or science and advertisements. Besides these my aim was to highlight the generally used vocabulary of the articles mentioned above. I wished to get to know about pecularities of articles and about how a newspaper edition was organized those days. In this research I wanted to concentrate on thoughts typical of that era.

Method
Reading the articles is just the first stage. To obtain an appropriate survey I needed to make notes on any information I possesed that had a bearing on my essay. After a long discussion with myself I decided on the actual day of my birth, though all of the reports are of events happened a day or perhaps more days before.

Results and Discussion

Foreign affairs
I divided this type of articles into two sections: those concerning socialists and those of Western countries. I had to make this division as there were sharp and obvious feature differences between them.

Articles about socialist events are long, thus no essential facts are involved. They mainly inform of meetings of heads of states, greetings, celebrations and gifting medals to one another. The ending is always positive and hopeful.

Such long ranks after the name of celebrities appear as "Leonard Brezniev, the Secretary-general of SZKP KB (i.e. Soviet Communist Party, Central Committee) and the President of Top Council Presidency of the Soviet Union" (1978, p. 2). They put big emphasise on "peace, friendship and co-operation" (1978, p. 2) within the Soviet-Indian relationship. There's an article dealing with " nationality problems between Vietnam and China" (1978, p. 2), though both countries belonged to the socialist camp.

Among the generally used words we find cooperation, peace, safety, friendship nationality problems and armaments race and the necessity of disarmament.

On the contrary the style of articles in connection with Western countries is suitable to Western expectations. A new major problem is presented several times: terrorism, which Hungary did not have to face with those days at all.

The "Carter-cabinet" of the United States of America "made great efforts" to induce Egypt and Israel to compromise (1978, p. 2). The United Nations Organization calls for "fighting against international terrorism and extremist thugs" ( 1978, p. 2).

There's a typical vocabulary either, including words such as anarchy, summit meetings, economic collaboration, fight against terrorism, Great Powers, disarmament conferense and inspire confidence.

Home affairs
There are less pictures to be found, which means the author wanted to support his or her point of view only with text. There's only one page about home politics, within three articles focusing on events of the county itself. Once again, one cannot find out much about the actual facts. Everything is made appear as being good.

Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Puja Frigyes is mentioned several times in articles of various sorts. He invited his colleague from Thailand, has just made a visit to the Netherlands and also occurs in connection with the Hungarian-Benin discussions (1978, pp. 1-2).Saving techniques are crucial factors in the wood-processing factory of Sopron as the "produced waste is reused": the work-places are heated with it (1978, p. 3). According to an article the main criteria of being a good cadre are: "professional knowledge, interest in politics, bearing human qualities, Party membership and getting postgraduate education, especially in politics". The whole article is not about the effectiveness of the factory or the goods they produce, but is a detailed description of how reliable members of the Party they are.. One more remarkable feature is that in such a little factory they employ lots of leaders (1978, p. 3).

Making connections, greetings and cadre politics are the most frequently used words in this section.

Culture
Unknown playwrights from the Eastern block are celebrated (1978, p. 8). One can also read a realistic story about "checking the content of dust bins" so as to judge the nation about how much we waste. That's the way the story tells us how sinful thing we do when throwing away seemingly unnecessary things (1978, p. 4).

Advertisements
This section is limited to half a page, from which it turns out that the newspaper is supported financially by the state. It receives a regular donation, so does not need the money the advertisements could mean. Another major feature of the classified ads is the lack of western goods. One is able to choose a "Lada , Wartburg or Trabant" as sorts of cars, maybe a "Hajdú" washing machine (1978, p. 6).

Conclusion
As it obviously turns out from the issue of Kisalföld of 14th September 1978, this newspaper contained mainly comments on economical and political topics. The content of the different articles outlined the party policy and the planned economy typical of that era and, of course, tried to popularize it. The basic tone of the issue still shows a socialist-communist attitude, but no so sharply any more as in the 1960's. Though it made attempts to characterise the socialist values superior to those of the Western world, not only in an economical level but also referring to intellectual manner. This tendency is clearly presented in the structure of the surveid paper. The style and the length of the news misses just every personal impressions, feelings or opinions. The most frequently used words are worked out in similar way.

To sum up one can say that Kisalföld was suitable for party purposes, but one must admit that there was something idiosyncratic, something original and novel in its structure and so in the articles - contrasting other regional newspapers of the 1970's. Maybe this is the reason for Kisalföld was and is still rather popular compared with many other newspapers.

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