The aim of the article is to analyse the formulation “the journalist as a socio-political worker” from the inside, by entering the particular historical and social moment in which it was present. This formulation, also treated here as a language game, was used during the time of socialist Yugoslavia. The concept undergoes a holistic historical-conceptual analysis and also receives empirical attention. The second part of the expression – ‘a socio-political worker’ – is understood as a way of normatively marking the journalist’s work as the creation of journalistic products, the journalist’s labour as producing daily news/products for audiences, and action as the journalist enters into the common world/society.The triad labour – work – action follows the tripartite division set out in the work of Hannah Arendt. The division is used throughout her work Vita Activa [The Human Condition] (Ljubljana: Krtina, 1996) in a classical-traditional meaning. This article, however, attempts to unveil the concepts through the meaning and relevance of (associated) labour in the socialist political community.

In the field of journalism studies, research explicitly addressing the term is rare. However, the concept is often mentioned in texts that address journalism and the journalist’s actions in socialist Yugoslavia, especially the journalistic normativity of time and space. The wording “the journalist as a socio-political worker” is frequently opened up and interpreted in academic texts by referring to the Yugoslav Journalists’ Code that indeed includedThe phrase is written in the Codes [Kodeks novinara Jugoslavije] from 1965, 1973, 1982. it up until 1988, although it is no longer found in the Code. Kodeks novinara Jugoslavije, 1988. The phrase is typically explained as meaning that the journalist, as “a socio-political worker”, is someone who actively contributes to developing and also implementing the self-managed socialism (such as in the article by Sonja Merljak Zdovc and Melita Poler Kovačič,Sonja Merljak Zdovc and Melita Poler Kovačič, “The Paradox of Slovenia: Investigative Journalism during Socialism and Democracy,” Journalism 8, No. 5 (2007): 522. and in the latest book by Zrinjka Peruško, Dina Vozab and Antonija Čuvalo Zrinjka Peruško, Dina Vozab and Antonija Čuvalo, Comparing Post-Socialist Media Systems: The Case of Southeast Europe (Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2021), 101.). The Code also states that the journalist, “as a socio-political worker”, ideologically pursues Marxism and Leninism, realises the importance of the working class and its role in socialist society based on self-management. Melita PolerMelita Poler, “Ethics and Professionalisation of Slovene Journalism,” Javnost (The Public) 3, No. 4 (1996): 109. clearly distinguishes these words from “the journalist as a watchdog” who normatively controls and does not cooperate with political authorities. There is also a consensus in these texts that the formulation is closely linked to political power, placing it among political terms, and this is also considered in this discussion.

Igor VobičIgor Vobič, “Three paradigms of journalistic objectivity in Slovenian press history,” Central European Journal of Communication 7, No. 1 (2014): 9–11. shows that the normativity also captured in the expression “the journalist as a socio-political worker” reveals the unique objectivity of historical time and space (also see Dina Vozab and Dunja MajstorovićDina Vozab and Dunja Majstorović, “The Transformation of Normative Approaches to Journalism in Croatian Academic Literature from Socialism to Post-Socialism,” Croatian Political Science Review 58, No. 2 (2021): 18.). This suggests that phrases which emerged in the chosen historical epoch should be understood according to the political and societal idea of the time – seen in speech/language as an objective disguising of time – which is under research.

In the paper, we present analysis complementing previous research based on the use of two methods: the historical-conceptual method and the qualitative method of in-depth semi-structured interviews. Both methods are intertwined in the text. Rather than attempt to judge the term from the outside, by elaborating and comparing it with contemporary journalistic norms and standards, the article aims to develop an epistemological perspective from the inside, which was especially possible by using these two methods.

The discussion is divided into two parts. In part one, we analyse the mentioned expression with the historical-conceptual method, which includes a brief presentation of the journalist’s actions in engaged and programmatic texts written during socialist Yugoslavia, for the purpose of developing the socialist and self-managed community. The second part is dedicated to reconstructing the use and understanding of the formulation “the journalist as a socio-political worker” by interviewing former journalists who were professionally active in socialist Yugoslavia. Most of them were active in the time of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), mainly in the former socialist republic of Slovenia.

The expression “the journalist as a socio-political worker” after the comparative as combines two adjectives – social and political – that pertain to the noun – worker.The phrase is not written in a unified way across the texts. Sometimes it is written as one word – sociopolitical worker – and other times it is hyphenated – socio-political worker. Even though the Slovenian language discerns between the meanings of hyphenated and non-hyphenated words, the texts and their subsequent analysis reveals that in this case the phrases sociopolitical worker/socio-political workers are identical in meaning. In this article, we use the hyphenated version since the hyphen replaces the word and. Therefore, the meanings of both ‘social’ and ‘political’ are retained. This means the worker is somehow socially and politically engaged/active and therefore the journalist is a socio-political worker. The journalist's professional identity is thus marked by the socio-political imperatives of the Yugoslav socialist system based on self-management.

The wording is treated as a language game, a concept that reconciles the use of language with forms of human actions; in our case, the use of the term “the journalist as a socio-political worker” with the journalist’s actions in the common socialist and self-managed world. For Ludwig Wittgenstein, the concept “is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life”.Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), 9. As such, it can also be part of a specific historical epoch, idea or use. This discussion attempts to unfold the historical meaning of the wording rather than give it a single black-and-white/universal definition that reduces the journalist as a socio-political worker to an expressive instrument of the political authorities and their ideology. This attempt is based on the understanding that human affairs, and with them the use of language in a chosen form of action, are contingent on and subject to spontaneity,Arendt, Vita activa, 11, 183, 184, 199–202. as well as impossible to capture in a universal definition.

With the concept of language game we place analysis of the mentioned wording in the historical-conceptual method. Reinhart KoselleckReinhart Koselleck, Pretekla prihodnost: prispevek k semantiki zgodovinskih časov [Future Past: on the Semantics of Historical Time] (Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis, 1999), 110, 111. (see also the text by Gunter ScholtzGunter Scholtz, “Kaj je pojmovna zgodovina in čemu se z njo ukvarjamo? [What Is Begriffsgeschichte and Why It Deserves Our Attention],” Phainomena 11, No. 41/42 (2002).) explains this method as a main and fundamental complement to social history, which analytically enters into the study of socio-political structures and formations, and therefore as a conceptual discussion of the pulse, the spirit of historical time, and its political and ideological purposes. In our case, this means that by interpreting the formulation we observe the structure of the relationship between the political authorities/politics and the journalist’s labour, actions and work in socialist Yugoslavia. The historical-conceptual analysis approach also continues in the second part of the paper through interviews with former journalists and their historical understanding of those words.

The politician and former editor of Ljudska pravica [The People’s Right] Vida Tomšič, at the first press conference held in the liberated territory in 1944, outlined the role and identity of the journalist in the future Yugoslav socio-political system in this manner:Bernard Nežmah, Časopisna zgodovina novinarstva [The Newspaper History of Journalism] (Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 2012), 282. “We are journalists because we are politicians, or we are politicians because we are journalists”. This declaration was aimed at the struggle to construct a new order, which marked the Yugoslav post-war period, but it also regarded the journalist’s identity and actions as an active engagement in the realisation of this new order. Together as a political and socialist community, they were to change the common reality. The previous interpretation of “the journalist as a socio-political worker” (e.g., in the Yugoslav Journalists’ Codes of 1965, 1973 and 1982) also sees the journalist making an active and engaged contribution to the development of self-managed socialism and self-management (level of social and economic relations), which more obviously began to be introduced into the Yugoslav space after 1950.

Engaged contribution through the identity of journalists as politicians and, later, journalists as socio-political workers may be explained in that journalists, with their products and active recognition of socio-political relevance, actively enter the political community, which is a common space of the people. After revolutions, including after the Yugoslav revolution,Gal Kirn, “Jugoslovanska revolucija skozi tri partizanske prelome [The Yugoslav Revolution Through Three Partisan Ruptures],” Časopis za kritiko znanosti 45, No. 269 (2017). a need had arisen to constitute a new socio-political orderGiorgio Agamben, Homo sacer: suverena oblast in golo življenje [Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life] (Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 2004), 52–55. See also: Hannah Arendt, O revoluciji [On Revolution] (Ljubljana: Krtina, 2017), 19., which required the participation of all people – in the case of socialist Yugoslavia – all working people who were the central identity of the system at that time.

In re-constituting the socio-political order, following revolutionary practice, thought is transformed into practical and active thought (practical reason, phrónesisAristotel, Nikomahova etika [Nicomachean Ethics] (Ljubljana: Slovenska matica, 2002), 190, 191, 194, 195.) that can simply be named action, or in modern vocabulary, activism. The foundations of action are based on human knowledge of speech and its use. It is speech that enables humans, as by nature politikòn zôonAristotel, Politika [Politics] (Ljubljana: GV, 2010), 112. or just a social animal,Hannah Arendt, Predavanja o Kantovi politični filozofiji [Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy] (Ljubljana: KUD Apokalipsa, 2018), 74. to communicate and collaborate with other humans who can together form and even change a political community and together contribute to its future development. Such journalists, who are part of the creation of a new, socialist, self-management political community and society, may be seen as political animals, agents, who actively enter the public space through their own work, labour and action, which are in turn marked by broader socio-political practice.

However, the legacy of the previous statement that “a journalist is a politician, and a politician is a journalist” observed in the formulation “the journalist as a socio-political worker”, which is largely focused on the development of self-managementMitja Gorjup, Samoupravno novinarstvo [Journalism in Self-Management] (Ljubljana: Delavska enotnost, 1978), 62. , allows two conclusions. First, a manifestation of power that is framed through the one-party system and one main ideology. Yet this also means that while the Party as the political authority is leading, at the same time it also shows that the Party is or should only be partly a leader. Second, as a founder of socialist self-management Edvard Kardelj wrote in one of the fundamental works at the time, Smeri razvoja političnega sistema socialističnega samoupravljanja [The Developmental Directions of the Political Systems of Socialist Self-Management] (1977), that a crucial political forces, in addition to other main political forces (e.g., the League of Communists, the Socialist Alliance of Working People, trade unions and other socio-political organisations), of the system is the system of public communication, in which he listed the press, radio, television and other “media of social life”.Edvard Kardelj, Smeri razvoja političnega sistema socialističnega samoupravljanja (Ljubljana: ČZP Komunist, 1977), 220. These forces are fundamental contributions to developing the socialist political idea and self-management. Kardelj added, “the media of social life” are not “merely media, but a political force that can influence social consciousness in a very progressive or a very reactionary manner”.Ibidem.

The introduction of Kardelj's conception of the public media – and thus journalistic activity – as a political (co)force of the socialist system also raises the question of their relationship with other, more central political forces, and the possibility of autonomously implementing the self-management idea and action; in particular, by framing and characterising journalists’ activity as a socio-political worker. We address this relationship empirically with in-depth semi-structured interviews in the second part of the paper below.

Using the historical-conceptual method, the concept of research has so far been elaborated and discussed together with programmatic and engaged texts embedded in philosophical/scientific debates. It may be concluded that “the journalist as a socio-political worker” has a close relationship with politics and is connected to political action. This close relationship with politics does however not mean that the journalist is necessarily subordinate to narrow politics, i.e., the Party, or even that they are an instrumental extension of it. Instead, it means the journalist’s action is directed to the construction of an alternative. The building of an alternative modernity is reflected on one hand by an appeal to the socialist political idea and the individual’s committed contribution to a shared political community and, on the other, it is demonstrated that the journalist as “a socio-political worker” is part of the authorities, especially of the power of united workers, which precisely in socialist Yugoslavia acquires a central role and the role of an engaged member of and contributor to the self-management society.Kardelj, Smeri razvoja socialističnega samoupravljanja, 93. Also in formal acts: e.g., in Article 2 of Zakon o združenem delu [The Associated Labour Act] (Ljubljana: Gospodarska založba, 1976), 23. And in fundamental principles (part II) in Integralno besedilo ustave Socialistične federativne republike Jugoslavije in amandmajev I do XLVIII k ustavi Socialistične federativne republike Jugoslavije [SFRY Constitution, 1974] (Ljubljana: Uradni list SR Slovenije, 1989), 20.

The overall exploration of the formulation and understanding of the relationship between politics and journalism whose meaning this language game offers is complemented by the use of in-depth-semi-structured interviews conducted with former journalists who were professionally active and worked in the SFRY. The interviews saw the following research question emerge: What kind of relationship with political power and the authorities was expressed by use of the wording “the journalist as a socio-political worker” and how did this relationship affect the journalist’s autonomy?

As part of the project Vloga komunikacijskih neenakosti v dezintegraciji večnacionalne družbe [The Role of Communication Inequalities in Disintegration of a Multinational Society], 37 in-depth semi-structured and non-anonymised qualitative interviews, conducted by Jernej Amon Prodnik and the author of this paper, were held between June and August 2021. A table containing data on the interviews is found in Appendix A. The interviews were designed in several thematic strands; in one of these, we specifically addressed the meaning and use of the researched formulation in the past self-managed socialist society. The sample selected for the analysis includes 34 interviews, where three interviews were excluded because they contained no mention of this wording.

The choice of a qualitative method of this type was dictated by the tendency to look at the formulation’s use from the inside, by those journalists who had been professionally active in the SFRY and generally in socialist Yugoslavia. This approach ultimately serves to complement the historical-conceptual method and reveals the ‘facticity’ of use of the wording, as well as the journalists’ point of view: how they used, understood and saw the formulation, especially at the time. Here we may add that both methods are approaches that open up intersecting perspectives and entail different ways of internal thinking about the expression according to the then socio-political system.

By interviewing former journalists, we entered into their recollection and interpretation of the time, and – in a historically interpretative and reconstructive mannerCharles C. Ragin, Družboslovno raziskovanje: enotnost in raznolikost metode [Constructing Social Research: The Unity and Diversity of Method] (Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede, 2007), 99. (oral history) – we also grasped the use of the researched language game. The latter shows the forms of action in the SFRY and the journalist’s relationship with the political authorities and specifically what they wanted to glue onto the journalist’s identity in the socialist socio-political system precisely in the wording of the formulation. Namely, through dialogue with the former journalists, and therefore by using the method of in-depth semi-structured interviewing, we also clarifiedRagin, Družboslovno raziskovanje, 98. Steinar Kvale, Doing Interviews (London: Sage, 2007), 13, 14. some of the judgements, dilemmas, even prejudices about the formulation, which have arisen following the SFRY’s dissolution, and instead adopted an analytical, internal view of the expression.

The main limitation of this method is that the interviewees’ personal and professional histories are memories, and hence we cannot exclude the possibility that their description of the past – and thus use of the phrase “journalist as a socio-political worker” – is imbued with the language of the present and with (professional) normative ideals adapted to the contemporary time and place. It is 30 years since the collapse of the SFRY, although tendencies to move away from the Yugoslav socialist political system were already evident in the 1980s. We are also aware of the fact that the interviewees are remembering and reconstructing the time, place and the formulation on the phenomenological level of experience and thus on the level of plural particularity, i.e., their insight is just one element of views on the language game in the larger puzzle of time and space. This also explains why their words are not taken as the ‘main’ or ‘only’ truth, but as a complement to other relevant and possible perspectives.

The data obtained offer several possible perspectives on the understanding and meaning of the mentioned wording.The interviewers presented preliminary results of the interviews in the paper The Journalist as a Socio-political Worker: Ideology and Practice of Slovenian Journalists in Socialist Yugoslavia at the Central and Eastern European Communication and Media Conference (CEECOM), which took place between 22 and 23 October 2021. Some interviews approached the term affirmatively, in line with the interpretation presented in the first part of the paper. Yet, most approached the expression in a highly critical way, understanding it as a way the political authorities tried to limit and restrict the journalist’s autonomy and their mission to their own political purposes and interests.

The revealed polarisation once again gives the impression that the formulation and its meaning cannot be seen in any univocal way, or even be packaged into a single semantic definition. The interviewees’ divergences also suggest that the life forms of social and political action, including that of the journalist (as a socio-political worker), in socialist Yugoslavia were complex and not unambiguous, and ultimately call for further research to explain the alternative on which the socialist Yugoslav revolution and system were built. The findings presented here also – at least in part – bridge interpretations of the formulation that are products of the conflicts emerging in contemporary political discussions.

The paper and previous empirical analysis allow the conclusion that the formulation, treated here as a language game, which revels the journalistic professional form of action in the SFRY, is closely related to politics and broader political action, which in turn leads to three possible sub-interpretative concise meanings:

However, through the paper we wanted to show the complexity of use of the language game “the journalist as a socio-political worker”. We addressed the formulation in the first part with the historical-conceptual method and in the second part with the qualitative method of in-depth semi-structured interviews with former journalists. With both methods, we tried to approach the Yugoslav time and space in a distanced way, by entering into the understanding of the expression internally and adapting to the normative ideas of the time: who the journalist “as a socio-political worker” should be. The two methods led us to several possible perspectives for explaining the term, which confirms the basic point that the formulation cannot be explained by a single universal definition. What is ‘universal’ in the expression is precisely its concrete connection to politics.

The multiple possible perspectives of understanding show that language and its usage are components of human affairs, of the intersubjective world, which in essence is spontaneous, contingent, plural and unpredictable. Through their own particular perspectives, use of language and the outline of their professional and personal histories/(auto)biographies, the interviewees interpreted and explained one of the most important concepts in Yugoslav journalism and presented the different possibilities of journalistic actions and practice which, alongside possible interpretations of the formulation, also give an incentive to research and explore the complexities of the Yugoslav socio-political system, possible alternative forms of journalistic activity and an alternative liveness in a manner of Catherine Samary,Catherine Samary, Komunizem v gibanju: zgodovinskih pomen jugoslovanskega samoupravljanja [Communism in Motion: The Historical Significance of Yugoslav Self-management] (Ljubljana: /*cf, 2017). who sees, e.g., in the Yugoslav self-management socialism subversive potential to transform society and political communities and generally in the area of human affairs.