On the Emergence of Political Identity in the Czech Mass Media: The Case of the Democratic Party of Sudetenland

Abstract

On 12 Jan 1993, 6 days after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, an article appeared in the Czech national daily Rude pravo reporting two events - a meeting of the preparatory committee of the Democratic Party of Sudetenland (DPS) & a subsequent news conference given by its chairman, Jaroslav Bluhmel. The party & its chairman were almost unknown to the public. The two events, however, turned out to be politically significant. What Bluhmel had said was reported in most of the mass media & elicited public reactions from major politicians. Here, focus is on how the political identity of the DPS was established & contested in the mass media, using articles in national newspapers & on a TV program. The DPS began with an almost empty intersubjectivity; how this was fleshed out by binding to it the views, intentions, & actions of incumbents & opponents is demonstrated. This fleshing out was by no means a consensual matter; Bluhmel & his political opponents never converged on a common definition of the DPS.