Polish music press in the face of systemic change in 1989 as an example of cultural transformation in post-communist countries

The systemic transformation has significantly increased and diversified the music press market. Liquidation of the monopoly, privatization, censorship abolition and media pluralism are just some of the factors that contributed to shaping new cultural policy in Poland. The research material used for this paper’s analytical purposes consists of Polish music magazines; based on a query covering over 110 journals being published since 1946 to the present, a historical and comparative analysis was made. It allowed to determine what new solutions the publishers started to put into practice to make their magazines more attractive. Moreover, it showed a clear fragmentation of the market. After ’89, popular music magazines began to prevail; there are also many specialist journals devoted to a specific topic. A look at cultural transformation from the perspective of the music press is therefore an innovative idea, combining knowledge from the borderline of musicology, cultural studies, and press studies.