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This article aims primarily to explain the manner in which political communication is able to influence the decision to start a protest under conditions of dictatorship. The role of mass media and several communication channels in an oppressed society is connected to the phenomenon of priming—or activation of latent mental representations by an external stimulating factor, for triggering certain attitudes or behaviors. Focus is set on the 1989 anti-communist revolution in Timişoara, Romania. The qualitative methods are based on analyzing data from 30 semi-structured interviews with former participants in the demonstrations. Results reveal that, in an illiberal society, alternative sources of information and emotional experiences, activated by an external stimulation and supported by social contagion, are significant factors for protest mobilization. Future research can take the military environment into account and investigate combatants’ reactions to adversaries in relation to political communication, contagion, and priming.
Introduction
This exploratory research investigates the role of political communication in mobilizing political protests within a dictatorial society. Focus is set on the Eastern European anti-communist revolutions at the end of the 1980s, particularly on the social movement against the authoritarian Romanian regime lead by Nicolae Ceaușescu, from the city of Timișoara. Our intention is to explore motivations behind the decision to protest under oppressive conditions—related to the available information on the West and to previous experiences of social movements, as well as the triggering factors sparking the protests. To this extent, the research relates to the phenomenon of priming—studied mostly in an experimental manner by scientists, to test the way in which people’s decisions are influenced by passive images stored in their memories. In relation to politics, priming has received attention with regard to electoral campaigns and the capacity of media to determine voters’ attitudes. Scientists focused on experimental research and demonstrated that passive concepts (words, images), a certain mindset, emotions, events, or experiences can be retrieved from people’s memories with the help of particular stimuli (e.g., Shanks et al. 2013; Doyen et al. 2012; Bargh and Chartrand 2000). These mental representations—part of the individual’s past and deposited on an unconscious level of the memory—are able to be primed, or to influence subsequent ways of thinking and actions. The process mostly takes place in a subliminal manner, with the person being unaware of the triggering factor.
There is less research for priming in relation to political activism: scholars have studied the manner in which political campaigns—with mass media having a determinant role—shape public evaluation and influence voters’ decisions (e.g., Tesler 2015; Kuehne et al. 2011). With respect to priming and protests, there are arguments revealing direct connections between demonstrators’ reasons to go out on the street, and mass communication (e.g., Ketelaars 2017). An approach on priming and protests was performed by Snow and Moss in 2014, as part of their search for conditions able to trigger spontaneous collective movements; it was based on a “grounded analysis of ethnographic and historical observations” (Snow and Moss 2014, 1123). A close look at several demonstrations showed the importance of previous experiences and predispositions for the way participants were about to behave. Snow and Moss (2014, 1134) note that “spontaneous lines of action…are not random but are dictated, in part, by prior priming experiences or cues and their relative recency.” But there is marginal evidence on this phenomenon in regard to the Eastern European revolutions at the end of the 1980s, and there is a need for investigating this path. We therefore enter this underexplored field of research and look at the Romanian social movements in the city of Timișoara, in December 1989. The main goal of the research is to reveal the process through which political communication influences a protest in a society under dictatorship, and how the mechanism unfolds in connection to contagion and priming, to finally generate a social movement. We have chosen this particular case in Romania because it provides a relevant setting for the subject: in Timișoara, inhabitants were more connected to external sources of information, than others in the country. The image of the West was assimilated, stored in their memories, and available to be retrieved by particular stimulations—which initiated the revolution.
To explore the concrete manner in which this process took place, we use a qualitative approach based on the grounded theory research style. By means of 30 semi-structured interviews with former participants in the events, our intention is to reveal the mobilization mechanisms that drive people to go out on the streets and expose themselves to dangerous circumstances. We are interested in the relation between political communication and protests, encompassing the phenomenon of priming and its concrete forms of manifestation in a society characterized by lack of accurate information, with mass communication channels controlled by the state. The article is structured on five sections: it begins with a view upon theoretical arguments, followed by the case study and the methods. Findings resulted from the discussions are presented on a narrative basis, in connection to the initial argumentative inputs. The fifth section, “Discussion and Conclusions,” approaches the scientific relevance of the study, as well as its theoretical and empirical implications.
Political Communication, Protest Mobilization, and Priming
What are people’s motivations when they start an illegal demonstration? First, “at the heart of every protest are grievances” (Klandermans and van Stekelenburg 2013, 88). People’s discontent about living conditions, or about the social or political situation, motivates them to take action: “An increase in extent or intensity of grievances or deprivation and the development of ideology occur prior to the emergence of social movement phenomena” (McCarthy and Zald 1987, 1214; see also Ekiert and Kubik 1998, 568). Researchers place grievances next to the group identity and the common interest, as providing “highly combustible material that fuels spontaneous action whenever external control weakens” (Gurr 1993, 167). Other reasons, such as religious ones, were taken into account (see, e.g., Schiffbeck 2021a). With reference to Snow et al. (1986), McVeigh and Sikkink (2001, 1429, 1432) bring the social constructionist view into discussion (the resource mobilization theory and the model of political opportunity), lacking the connection between individual grievances and protest participation. According to the resource mobilization theory, the “number, size and duration of protest events depend on the availability of material and organizational resources to the challenging groups” (Ekiert and Kubik 1998, 576–577). Klandermans (1997, 43) turns to collective beliefs and values, related to personal life experiences: “people employ distinct sets of beliefs in different circumstances and in doing so draw from the beliefs that are available in a society.”
Discussions about these beliefs, or in general about politics, inside certain networks, are able to increase the level of efficacy among potential demonstrators, to create collective identity and transform “individual grievances into shared grievances and group-based anger, which translates into protest participation” (Klandermans and van Stekelenburg 2013, 887). With a specific reference to revolutions, Garton Ash (1990) speaks about these events occurring from bottom to top (Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany, and Romania)—or, using the term refolution (reform and revolution), about “reforms coming from the top as a response to pressures for a revolution coming from the bottom”—in the cases of Hungary and Poland (see also Dahrendorf 1993, 9; Tismăneanu 2009, 27, 151; Gabanyi 1997, 3). Dahrendorf and Ash mention the combination between the popular pressure and external influences: specifically, the Soviet leader Gorbachev, the “opener of doors shut until then,” paved the way toward a democratic socialism in East Central Europe (Dahrendorf 1993, 17), or toward the so-called socialism with a human face (Garton Ash 1994; see also Gabanyi 1997, 18). In terms of resource mobilization, the 1980s were a period of structural homogeneity with a significant social capital inside working and middle classes, which allowed for a higher potential of becoming politically active; gradually, the 1990s and 2000s have seen a decline of the “propensity for collective action,” due to a culture endowed with less solidarity and more individualism (Della Porta and Tarrow 2005, 13). The period of time we are referring to is, generally, seen as productive in terms of political mobilization, with significant chances for people to come together and protest, due to grievances, and the international diffusion and contagion of communal conflict” (Gurr 1993, 161).
An important element in terms of motivating protests is the expectation, which comes up to a large extent in our interviews: besides grievances, resource mobilization, personal beliefs, and collective identity, social movement theorists speak about expectation as a predisposing factor for protests. Again, in the specific case of the 1989 revolutions, “few people foresaw the dramatic unfolding of the changes…, but many expected them to occur at some point” (Dahrendorf 1993, 18). Transformations in East Central European countries were “political revolutions decisively and irreversibly triggering the change of regimes” (Tismăneanu 2009, 142). To the same extent, in regard to hope and expectation in an international context, the author mentions Gorbachev again as the one opening the door for the suppressed conflicts to come to the surface—“Mikhail the Liberator,” as he was called by The Economist in April 1989 (Tismăneanu 2009, 84), although his “modest reforms” did not make him the liberator of Eastern Europe (Tismăneanu 1999, 16). However, the whole history of the 1980s was the “fuse to ignite the gunpowder” (Dahrendorf 1993, 20), or the factor to give birth to the “revolutionary explosion” (Tismăneanu 2009, 85). This was valid particularly in the case of Timișoara, where “for a long time, something was boiling in the city, everyone knew it, everyone felt it. The more than 315,000 inhabitants waited for a spark to take place” (Suciu 1990, 5–8). Being exposed to information from outside one’s country about better living conditions stimulates people’s active behavior: “Anyone following TV programs from the West knew that production forces for a better life are there.…The revolution could not be delayed anymore” (Dahrendorf 1993, 24).
The Learning Process
Along the same line, of being influenced by the available information, studies reveal that the manner in which mass media represents the protest issues shapes the motivation of demonstrators: if more attention is being directed to certain claims, these will become part of people’s reasons to go out in the street (Ketelaars 2017, 494). The information made available to (potential) demonstrators thus may turn out to be highly significant in configuring their way of manifestation. During the Arab Spring, for instance, protesters chose certain types of actions based on what they knew had happened before: the recurrent chant of “The people want the fall of the regime!” is connected by researchers, as a repetitive action, to the “pre-sensitizing” process of priming: “Mimicry may be involved, but we argue that the priming process makes the mimicry more likely” (Snow and Moss 2014, 1134). Basically, the more informed people are regarding past events—or, as the case may be, regarding present “preferences of other similarly aggrieved segments of the population”—the more likely they are to subscribe to ideas they have learned, and act accordingly (Hoffman and Jamal 2014, 5; see also Lohmann 1994).
Scientific arguments differ in interpreting these kinds of actions as mimicry, or contagion, on one hand, and, like mentioned above, as an effect of priming, on the other hand. Among the first researchers to theorize the subject, Le Bon ([1895] 2001, 19) states that “an individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.” Ekiert and Kubik speak about organizing a movement and spreading the initiative among participants, by the ones who started the protest: “When the ‘initiator’ groups or organizations are successful in pressing their demands, others may follow, expanding the range of issues and institutional arenas of contentious politics” (Ekiert and Kubik 1998, 572; see also McAdam 1995). People can become motivated by others, especially in the beginning stages of a protest: perceiving the others “think like he or she does” (Clardie 2017, 7; Kuran 1995) can have the contagious effect of a snowball; fear of negative consequences is overcome and collective identity brings the protest forward “once a relatively small number of highly-motivated individuals decide to participate” (Hoffman and Jamal 2014, 595; Kuran 1991, 1995). When people’s desire and courage grow, they connect to each other and this perception makes them “think, feel and act as members of their group and transforms individual into collective behavior” (Klandermans and van Stekelenburg 2013, 890; Turner 1999; see also Schiffbeck 2021b).
Spontaneous collective actions may also be driven by the exposure to earlier experiences, without involving mass media or other types of communication channels. Snow and Moss (2014) offer the example of the Kent State shooting (Ohio, May 1970), when National Guardsmen opened fire toward students engaged in a demonstration on campus. Despite claims for an organized shooting, there is little evidence on orders received by the guardsmen or that this action had been planned. Preexisting high local tensions between students and security agents (due to the recurrent presence of the National Guardsmen on campuses) led to this spontaneous and radical development of the situation (Snow and Moss 2014, 1135, 1136). Aggression and hostility on both sides was primed by the exposure to previous negative experiences and frictions between parties—caused, as mentioned above, by the fact that guardsmen had made their presence felt increasingly often among students. And this exposure, or the stimulation, took place through the particular context—the presence of guns, which exacerbated and activated the already-built (latent, until then) negative mental representations. In this case, priming is considered to have been “unquestionably at work” (Snow and Moss 2014, 1136).
Priming and Politics
Previous research on priming in relation to politics has primarily focused on the manner in which campaigns (mainly by means of mass political communication) are able to influence voters (e.g., Tesler 2015; Kuehne et al. 2011): political judgments are usually expressed according to experiences, to the personal environment (what individuals see going on around them, opinions of friends, colleagues, family, etc.), as well as to the way they perceive and understand politicians and their messages. Additionally, these judgments rely on available knowledge, subject to a situational activation (Bryan et al. 2009, 893). There are different positions in the literature with respect to the role of campaigns and mass media in stimulating existing perceptions and predispositions. Tesler (2015, 806), for one, shows that political communication indeed activates predispositions: by triggering latent mental representations, political campaigns in the media may “alter the standards of public evaluation.” Studies reveal that political preferences are changed, rather than primed, by the exerted stimulation. Lenz (2009, 821, 834) refers to “the appearance of priming”—in the sense that media messages and campaigns inform people about certain candidates’ positions, with the effect that electors adopt opinions of their preferred party as their own. According to Tesler (2015, 819, 820), the degree to which an attitude or predisposition is being primed depends on its level of crystallization: if the mindset is uncertain, the political message will change it, but if the person’s position is stable, then it is more likely to be primed, or activated by the particular communicative stimulus.
The term priming was actually introduced at the beginning of the 1950s, by Karl Lashley (1951), who examined a potential intervention between will and behavior. In the next decades and especially after the year 2000, literature investigated this psychological phenomenon on a larger scale. The process appears as a natural human tendency to (re-)act in accordance to “hidden” concepts/images from the past, when a particular stimulation comes from the external environment. The mental operation develops in an unconscious, “passive, subtle, and unobtrusive” manner: “the mere, passive perception of environmental events directly triggers higher mental processes in the absence of any involvement by conscious, intentional processes” (Bargh and Huang 2009, 128). The individual is subject to a temporary activation of mental representations: the “internal readiness” is stimulated by the environment and the effects occur in terms of creating particular “perceptions, evaluations, and even motivations and social behavior” related to the prior experience (Bargh and Chartrand 2000, 6; Bargh 1997). Memory plays an important role here: Bargh and Chartrand (2000, 7) speak about “the residual effects of recent experience. Representations deposited in the subconscious memory are passive (inactive for a long time), and they do not manifest until the environment produces an incentive. Once triggered, the image becomes temporarily operative and exerts “a passive effect on the individual, one that he or she is not aware of and does not intend—and is therefore unlikely to control” (Bargh and Chartrand 2000, 7; Higgins 1996).
This “associative memory and activation” process (Snow and Moss 2014, 1134) has increasingly been the subject of experimental research among cognitive psychologists. They divided priming into several categories, according to the means of exposure to stimulation, and to the effects on the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral levels. From the perspective of the activated object, concepts (words, pictures) can form mental representations: audio or video messages determine an increased sensitivity to the subsequent stimulation (Elgendi et al. 2018, 1). From a perceptional perspective, priming may, for one, occur on the subliminal level: the individual is not aware of the stimuli, they lie “below the threshold of perception”; the unconscious operation unfolds in a different manner than the act of memory, where the information is being directly retrieved (Elgendi et al. 2018, 1). In the second situation, of the supraliminal, “conscious” priming, the person fully recognizes the stimuli but is unaware of the details, or pattern behind the algorithm (Bargh and Chartrand 2000, 7).
There is also a difference between the manner in which information is being processed: on the cognitive or on the emotional level. When the activated object is a concept (word or image), “priming is mainly understood as a cognitive process” (Kuehne et al. 2011). When emotions are involved, we sometimes look at an additional, affective type of priming. Alongside the cognitive one, the emotional level of priming can have a determinant role when it comes to influencing decisions: especially in the field of politics, our particular focus in this article.
All these arguments are related to a primary investigation of political communication, protest mobilization, and priming. In connection to politics, research emphasizes the effects of mass media and campaigns on voters’, but also demonstrators’, decisions. It has also been established that earlier emotional experiences have the capacity to influence protest behavior. With respect to the subject of this research, the anti-communist movements in Eastern Europe have virtually been neglected when it comes to concrete mechanisms of stimulating potential participants to the demonstrations. In the following sections, we will therefore concentrate on tools political communicators use to affect citizens who live under dictatorship, with an extremely limited access to information. What can the role of mass media look like under these circumstances? Who or what are the stimulating factors able to activate the decision to demonstrate? We will try to answer these questions by means of the interviews we have carried out with former revolutionaries in the city of Timișoara. But first, let us present the case study itself and the methods we have used in collecting and interpreting the data.
The Case Study
Romania is an East European country that was under one of the strongest Soviet communist influences after World War II. From the beginning of the 1970s, the population gradually became the victim of an authoritarian communist regime under Nicolae Ceaușescu, with a degrading economic situation, accompanied by less and less freedom of speech and movement. “In fact, it was about a ferocious dogmatism, of a neostalinist rigidity overcoming by far…the other regimes” (Tismăneanu 2009, 85). By the end of the 1980s, the Iron Curtain began to lose its strength: Significant movements for freedom had taken place in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, while Eastern Germany had started the unification process with its Western neighbor. Especially the Solidarity actions in Poland, the “pioneer movement of a new type of politics in Eastern Europe,” were “contagious” for the rest of the region (Garton Ash 1999, 124). The Polish example and the East German one are mentioned by our interviewees several times as a stimulator. While the Eastern Germans managed to accomplish the revolution peacefully, it was not the case in Romania, as “violence is not a necessary ingredient of revolutions, at least in their beginning phases,” when these movements are generally characterized by mass demonstrations and occupying public spaces, less than by terror and killing (Dahrendorf 2001, 11). People in Czechoslovakia also managed to accomplish the so-called Velvet Revolution peacefully, with the spark considered to have taken place on November 17, 1989, when a student demonstration in Prague was suppressed by police and security forces.
Several protest movements against communism had broken out in Romania previously, but without clear endings: in 1981, the Motru miners started a revolt that was the first working-class protest of the Ceauşescu epoch during which people shouted “Down with Ceauşescu!” Their discontent came from authorities’ intention to “rationalize” bread, that is, to sell this basic food in particular proportions, in order to conserve it. Chants like “Ceauşescu, PCR, pâinea noastră unde e?” [Ceaușescu and the Communist Party, where is our bread?] remain in people’s memories even today. A major strike of the miners in the region of “Valea Jiului” (Valley of the river Jiu) took place in 1977. In November 1987, workers of a truck factory in Brașov, unsatisfied with living and working conditions, started a protest later joined by thousands in the town center. One month before the 1989 revolution, the national football team’s qualification to the World Cup after a victory against Denmark drove people in Timișoara to celebrate in the streets, chanting “Freedom!,” “Gorbachev!,” and “Brașov!” A week later, workers in a factory (U.M.T.) from the same city attempted a movement against the regime. These protests were the result of a general state of major discontent.
In mid-December 1989, Timișoara became the place where the revolution finally started. The revolution began as an “explosion of popular revolt against a totalitarian dictatorship in terminal crisis” (Tismăneanu 2009, 14), or, in the same terms, as a rebellion toward the totalitarian communist regime, without external (military) implications or interferences (as was the case during the events in Panama at the end of the same year) (Szabo 2013, 29). Parishioners and supporters of Tőkés Laszlo—a Reformed pastor threatened with evacuation by the authorities for his rebellious attitude—gathered (at first, in a small number) in front of the parish and his house, to defend him, after, on December 10, he had announced that he expected to be evacuated several days later (Mioc 2002, 23). The pastor was known for raising his voice against austere conditions under which the Reformed Church needed to carry out its activities and for criticizing the regime—an isolated attitude back then, due to fear of consequences: “The ability and availability of the Hungarian press and authorities, of making Tőkés’ hard situation known, privileged him towards dissidents of Romanian origin, who did not have the possibility of making themselves heard” (Deletant 2010, 245–246). His courage motivated parishioners, at the beginning, and representatives of several other denominations, afterward, to join his silent protest against evacuation.
News spread in the city and people were curious, so the movement soon extended. It turned its focus from supporting a courageous pastor, to different objectives: freedom, democracy, and a decent living standard. The silent protest by the small group of ethnic Hungarians would have been easily put down by the communist authorities: “There was no (even declarative) association of Romanian ethnics to the position developed by Laszlo Tőkés” (Szabo 2017, 14). On December 16, the dissident poet Ion Monoran stopped the trams crossing St. Mary’s Square and, together with others, urged the passengers, mostly ethnic Romanians, to get out and join the pro-Tőkés manifestation. This led to the spreading of the protest to the ethnic Romanian population. In that evening, around 80% of the people demonstrating near the Reformed church were ethnic Romanians (Tőkés testimony in Suciu, 1990, 10–17; Mioc 2002, 24): “Protesters of all nations in Timișoara came to the Reformed church out of curiosity, and when they could, they took the chance to manifest their discontent and raise political demands” (Szabo 2017, 15). Hundreds, and then thousands (students, workers, other professional categories), encouraged by each other and by common goals, decided to risk their lives for freedom. Massive protests and violent clashes with the military and the former militia took place for several days. More than one hundred people died, several hundred were wounded, and thousands endured a lot of suffering for a long time afterward (Szabo 2013, 25).
The massacre in Timișoara was compared by scholars with the one in Tiananmen Square six months earlier: “Yes, there were tears, bitter tears…which brutally ended the ‘democracy movement’ of students and workers and even soldiers in China, tears for the victims of Securitate brutality in Timișoara and elsewhere” (Dahrendorf 1993, 6; see also Szabo 2013, 51). Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested, some of them beaten and tormented in prison, as “using violence and massacres can be explained by the impenitent Stalinist character of the communist dictatorship” (Tismăneanu 2009, 126). On December 20, 1989, revolutionaries declared Timișoara the first Romanian free city. Communist authorities attempted to isolate Timișoara: phone connections were cut and almost no news was available outside the city. The next day, participants at a meeting organized by Ceaușescu in Bucharest, inspired by the courage of fellow citizens in Timișoara, change an organized support movement (this time, for the communist leader) to a massive demonstration for freedom. The revolution extended to many other towns and succeeded in overthrowing the regime. A very high price was paid, nevertheless: more than 1,100 people died and several thousand were severely injured as a result of oppressive reaction.
The choice of this city for our research is related to its initiating role in the social movement—up to now, historically and politically designated as the “city of the Revolution” (Vesalon and Creţan 2019, 29), and to its characteristics: due to its geographic position—close to the borders with former Yugoslavia and Hungary—and due to its openness toward the West (many of the inhabitants in Timișoara having families or friends living abroad)—people here were more informed than other Romanians regarding the Western living conditions and the anti-communist movements that had already occurred in Eastern Europe, as well as the national and international political context. Accurate information (in contrast to what media controlled by the communist authorities was exposing Romanians to) was acquired through Radio Free Europe in Munich, Voice of America, the Romanian-language programs of Deutsche Welle or BBC, Radio France International, and so on (Szabo 2017, 11), by watching TV news and documentaries or listening to radio programs from neighboring countries, or talking to friends and relatives abroad.
Scientific assertions speak about media freedom as a potential supporting factor for dictators: they can use free circulation of information in order to be better informed about “how the power is actually shared” (Sheen, Tung, and Wu 2022, 215). It was not the case in Romania, where “the media had mainly ideological and propaganda functions and the informative programs were censored so that everything that was to be transmitted to the public would not defame the regime” (Sălăgean 2022, 65). This situation will come up from declarations made by people whom we have interviewed (e.g., O.H., S.V., C.I., M.D.). The geographic position of the city, the fact that its inhabitants were “fascinated by the West,” and the openness toward communication with the outside world made even the national leader Ceaușescu consider Timișoara “disagreeable and politically unsure” (Murgescu 2007, 27–28).
The additional accurate information coming from alternative communication channels and the previous protest attempts hypothetically motivated the demonstrators. Our attempt is to find out directly from people who went out on the street to what extent previous experiences—and information they had about what was happening in Europe—shaped their decisions to demonstrate at that time. For testing the manner and the degree to which protesters were influenced by these preconditions, we use a qualitative research approach, detailed in the following section.
The Methods
We used interviews and referred to existing documentation about the Romanian revolution, as these methods were the most appropriate in helping to create a comprehensive image upon circumstances motivating people to go out on the streets. For selecting respondents, we turned to the homogeneous purposive sampling: a selective, or subjective approach, building upon “the judgment of the researcher when it comes to selecting the units” (Sharma 2017, 751). The method attempts to fulfill the purposes of the investigation by looking for “information-rich cases” to obtain the necessary data (Mweshi and Sakyi 2020, 190). It sets its target on a relatively small group. The main criteria when selecting our respondents were homogeneity, in terms of having been active during the protests (all of them were arrested by the authorities), and having been involved in similar/common experiences (taking part collectively in the social movement). Participants were chosen on a non-probability basis with respect to their age, gender, and level of education. Compared to the probability sampling used in quantitative research designs and where the goal is to reach a representative part of a population, the type of purposive sampling we have applied is less related to generalization of findings and more to the in-depth exploration of meanings inside a chosen subject.
We thankfully had access to lists of about 200 former participants in the demonstrations. Their contact data was provided by local associations in Timișoara, resulting in a subgroup of 30 people (see Table 1), from the approximately 800 men and women who had been arrested during the protests (e.g., Roth 2016, 8). In accordance with the typical profile of the initial 200 people on our list, the vast majority of the respondents we spoke to (87%) were men; more than half (60%) were people in their 20s at the time of the revolution—born between 1960 and 1969. Most protesters (53%) had graduated from high-school, followed by college graduates and students, as well as people who had finished a form of technical studies (see Table 1). They demonstrated in the first days of the revolution—December 16 and 17 (facing violent oppression)—and were put in detention during the protest and came back on the street three days later, after being released. The period between December 18 and 20, 1989, remains virtually uncovered (a limitation of our study), as those who were put in prison had no opportunity to demonstrate.
Table 1.Overview of Respondents’ Profiles
| No. | Initials | Interview Date | Gender | Birth Decade | Level of Education |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | D.D. | January 23, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 2 | F.H. | January 29, 2019 | Female | 1950–59 | College graduate |
| 3 | F.W. | January 31, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 4 | G.F. | January 31, 2019 | Female | 1950–59 | High school graduate |
| 5 | G.L. | January 31, 2019 | Male | 1950–59 | Technical studies graduate |
| 6 | G.F. | January 31, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | Technical studies graduate |
| 7 | G.G. | January 31, 2019 | Male | 1950–59 | Technical studies graduate |
| 8 | I.P. | February 1, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | College graduate |
| 9 | G.T. | February 1, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 10 | K.Z. | February 4, 2019 | Male | 1970–79 | High school graduate |
| 11 | M.I. | February 5, 2019 | Male | 1950–59 | High school graduate |
| 12 | M.D. | February 7, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 13 | N.B. | February 8, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 14 | O.H. | February 8, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | College student |
| 15 | P.A. | February 11, 2019 | Male | 1950–59 | College graduate |
| 16 | P.V. | February 12, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 17 | A.V. | February 13, 2019 | Female | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 18 | R.E. | February 13, 2019 | Male | 1940–49 | College graduate |
| 19 | S.T. | February 15, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 20 | S.V. | February 15, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 21 | T.U. | February 15, 2019 | Male | 1950–59 | N/A |
| 22 | S.C. | February 18, 2019 | Female | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 23 | C.J. | February 19, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | College student |
| 24 | P.L. | February 19, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | Secondary school student |
| 25 | K.B. | February 21, 2019 | Male | 1950–59 | College graduate |
| 26 | G.S. | February 21, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | College graduate |
| 27 | S.N. | February 21, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 28 | V.D. | February 21, 2019 | Male | 1960–69 | High school graduate |
| 29 | C.I. | February 22, 2019 | Male | 1940–49 | College graduate |
| 30 | L.S. | February 23, 2019 | Male | 1970–79 | High school student |
The semi-structured interviews took place in January and February 2019, on the phone, and lasted around 30 minutes each. The conversations were not audio recorded; instead, we keep all our notes, containing the answers of our respondents, in an archive. We chose this approach in order for the respondents (the majority of them, elderly people) not to feel restricted or intimidated by being recorded. The limitation was thus compensated by the quality of the obtained data—under conditions of respondents feeling more free to express their memories and thoughts about the discussed subjects. We made use of an interview guide—with questions referring to the information about the political context, events they had experienced, and the personal way they perceived these factors as influencing the decision to protest (see Appendix 1). Inquiries were developed in the course of discussions: additional information has to be collected from each person participating in the study (Holloway and Wheeler 2010). In-depth statements confer meaning to the topic and make the results more comprehensive and relevant. If the interview is merely conducted based on the formal guide, the process becomes restrictive: certain aspects do not come up for discussion and important information may be blocked or left outside (Struebing 2013; Hopf 1978).
The problem of non-response was not encountered in the phase of data collection, as the majority agreed to be part of the project: there was a total of 40 calls for this particular research; 10 potential respondents refused to take part because of sickness, because of the difficulty of recollecting dramatic moments, due to the fact that they did not want to expose themselves in any way, or they did not express reasons for their refusal. Interviewing 30 former protesters and not triangulating with other sources of data was considered appropriate for coming to meaningful and relevant results—according to the data saturation principle, “or the point in which no new information or themes are obtained” (Mweshi and Sakyi 2020, 190). The research should limit itself when in-depth information on a certain social practice creates the premises for extracting sufficient substantive data (see, e.g., Miles and Huberman 1994; Struebing 2013, 115).
Today, 35 years since the revolution, there is a question of accurate recollection and description of actual perceptions. In general, information gathered retrospectively tends to be problematic, when (as in our case) focus is set on what happened in the past, and not on how respondents perceive the situation today (Neusar 2014, 178, 180): distortions are likely to be produced by knowledge or beliefs from the present (Schacter 1999). This fact can be interpreted as a limitation of our study. Retrospection bias was maintained at an acceptable level—first, due to the strong emotional character of the protests, which kept memories alive; there is a difference between ordinary events from the past, which people are less able to remember, and unique and major happenings that they were part of. Researchers are more likely to obtain objective information when asking people about things they “know quite well,” instead of attempting to extract data that is less relevant to the respondents, thus more likely to be forgotten or distorted (Neusar 2014, 181). The fact that all respondents were arrested and the impact of the revolution on them contributed to an accurate remembering of perceptions from that particular period.
The second manner in which retrospection bias was maintained at an acceptable level is related to “the way in which questions are asked and the use of different words,” which “may have some or occasionally even strong influence on answers” (Neusar 2014, 181): additional questions (varying with the particularity of each interview) encouraged accurate descriptions of perspectives from the actual time events had happened. Thus, besides the questions in the interview guide, we asked participants to provide details on their statements, in order to enrich the data and for the information to become more comprehensive and meaningful. For instance, in relation to the potential impact of revolutions in other Eastern European countries, we asked them about how they had learned about these events, about concrete effects this information produced on their decision to demonstrate, as well as about the possibility that the events could be replicated in Romania. With respect to the image they had of the Western lifestyle, we wanted to find out to what extent the information they had about this lifestyle had motivated them to go out on the street, as well as if, in the absence of this information, the protest would have been equally likely to occur. With reference to the triggering factor in Timișoara: besides intending to know why this city was credited with more chances for starting a revolution, additional questions challenged respondents to reflect upon other possible stimulating factors or places, if Timișoara had not proved to be the scene. These questions, along with other reflections, intended to explore the information in an in-depth manner, develop the argumentation, and lead the research toward reliable results.
Analyzing the Information
During the interviews and after finishing them, we wrote down notes on the main ideas. Notes and memos are of help in identifying statements directly related to the topic: the researcher enriches their data by “inserting additional thoughts about the interview case at the moment they occur” (Deterding and Waters 2021, 17). The interpretation was based on coding—for selecting the relevant elements. Codes—or convenient symbols—represent the analyzed message: questionnaire and interview responses, analysis reports, focus group transcripts, and so on. This analytic method can be applied either by the human investigator (our case), or by computer programs using predefined searching and identification algorithms (Neuendorf 2019, 211). Coding is divided into the open, axial, and selective procedures (Strauss and Corbin 1990; Struebing 2013). We used axial coding for identifying specific forms of priming in people’s responses—resulting in theoretical subconcepts; then we proceeded to build connections between arguments—to reach an integrative conceptualization. By encrypting the data from “the experiences relevant for the particular subject” (Strauss and Corbin 1990), meanings of the social practice can be uncovered.
The researcher finally comes to the key arguments of their study by means of the “unitary analysis perspective” (Struebing 2013, 123). Findings are compared to the initial theoretical inputs, and connections are established between existing knowledge and the obtained data. The inductive analytical process is part of the so-called grounded theory research style: gaining data qualitatively and developing valid concepts, generating theories without one’s own hypotheses, but also without excluding existing theoretical assertions—just for “not discovering the wheel again” (Struebing 2013, 112). Literature stimulates the results-oriented interpretation, by offering new, unexplored possibilities of connection, which then again foster curiosity for discovery. Strauss and Glaser ([1998] 1967, 54) describe the approach as “theoretical sensitivity.” An unstable, but necessary process at the beginning turns into a homogeneous and restrictive type of conceptualization and leads to answers for the research questions.
Results
This section approaches the main elements contributing to the mobilization of the anti-communist protest in Timișoara that we have derived from the research. First, images about the West—in a city more open to the exterior than the rest of the country, due to alternative communication channels, as well as to friends and families from abroad transmitting accurate information—contributed to a set of motivational knowledge. Second, previous events and experiences (oppressed protests in Timișoara and other Romanian cities; pro-democratic attitudes that occurred internationally, such as the “Prague Spring” in Czechoslovakia and Pope John Paul II's support for freedom in Poland) also played a part in shaping protesters’ mindsets. And third, the silent movement initiated for protecting the Reformed pastor turned into “the chance to profit” and triggered the tension. Let us elaborate on these mobilizing factors in the following, with the help of the data extracted from the interviews.
Most of the people we interviewed (16 respondents/53%) acknowledge the special role of the information they had about what was happening at national and especially international levels, in shaping their attitudes. There are some respondents (5 respondents/16%) who deny previous knowledge on the political development abroad, simply because they did not have access to it (Interviews A.V., S.C., G.G., P.L., I.P.). On a general scale, Romanians’ main source of information were the official governmental channels, controlled by propaganda. Timișoara was regarded as the country’s “wild west,” due to its location, close to the borders with former Yugoslavia and Hungary—a fact that made people more open-minded toward what was happening abroad and, consequently, more opposing toward the regime (P.V.): “People were not as poor here, as in other parts of the country. So, grievances were not the main stimulation for us. Timișoara was much more open to the outside world, due to the information available” (K.Z.). The West was “a miracle: As young people, we could watch and see what was going on there” (P.A.).
The image/concept inhabitants had built about the world outside Romania was not the direct influencing factor, able to motivate the revolution. It was a subtler and complex process. As the interviews reveal, audio and video messages related to the West were transmitted to people mainly by means of alternative communication channels, secretly accessed, such as Radio Free Europe, or TV stations in neighboring countries. Three-quarters of those acknowledging the role of previous information (12 respondents) said that the pro-active attitude they knew from the West had a significant influence on their decision to protest. Interviewees mentioned political circumstances in Europe several times, as an additional (to the existing grievances), but significant factor to offer them the necessary motivation, courage, and trust that things could be changed in Romania, too. What was happening on the Eastern European scene—the anti-communist attitude and way of thinking, as well as the goals (freedom of speech, writing and movement; economic and political pluralism; democracy) pursued in Poland, Hungary, or Czechoslovakia—was a factor that influenced Romanians.
The Forbidden Information
Mass media—not the “classic” national media, which was under state control, but the Western alternative sources—played a determinant part in mobilizing protesters. Respondents listened to Radio Free Europe and were aware of what was happening abroad: “From a political point of view, this influenced us” (S.V.); “We were motivated by things we heard on that radio station, which we were listening to frequently” (C.I.); “The regime was an authoritarian, a dictatorial one—we were hardly thinking it could ever fall. But what we heard about other countries gave us hope” (M.D.); “There were talks about what was going to happen several months before the revolution; people knew something was going to happen” (P.V.). Radio Free Europe thus appears as the main source of accurate information. It provided people with data about political developments in the USA, in the Western world in general, and about social movements for freedom and democracy in Eastern Europe. This information crystallized a particular mindset: an attitude directed toward fighting for their rights. The stimulation in December 1989 (the support movement for Tőkés) activated this attitude and triggered the revolution.
Besides Radio Free Europe, interviewees mention written press, TV and radio stations from abroad (mainly Hungary and former Yugoslavia), but also family and acquaintances living in the West and transmitting accurate information: “I had friends in Germany and Poland, who were telling me about what was going on there” (O.H.); “For the Iron Curtain to fall—Eastern Germans able to walk to the West, and Hungarians going to Austria…it was unimaginable! We told ourselves that this cannot last any longer and we cannot remain isolated” (G.S.); “The situations in Eastern Germany and Poland inspired me personally, but I did not concretely compare it with Romania. I had them in my subconscious, like ‘Look what others are doing and we are not’” (F.W.); “We knew a priest had been murdered in Poland. This knowledge inspired people during the events in front of Tőkés’ residence” (D.D.). Especially what had happened in Poland, in relation to the Trade Union Solidarity movement, was a major source of inspiration (e.g., L.S., G.T., D.D.). Several others spoke about courage, about expectations deriving from the image they had of Central and Eastern Europe (see Dahrendorf 1993, 18): “We knew about what was happening, it was an additional motivation” (F.H.); “People were desperate there, too, fighting for freedom” (T.U.); “The fact that the communist regime had fallen in other countries influenced us” (S.T.). People were thinking about and expecting something to happen in Romania, too (G.L, P.A., V.D., M.I.).
These images and the way of thinking—the attitude about success over communism—created a premise for things to develop in a similar manner. “We were aware it was a European movement and it had to pass through Romania, too, sooner or later” (C.J.); “The circumstances in Europe were favorable. We only needed a spark for people to flare up” (F.H.); “We were thinking: ‘It happens in these counties, why can't we do it?’”; and “Chains have to be broken, like they had been broken elsewhere—no matter where it starts” (G.F.). The last respondent also remembered the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev in Bucharest in July 1989 and regards it as significant for the further development of events: back then, the Soviet leader took part with Nicolae Ceaușescu at a meeting of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Several others recollected the role of Pope John Paul II in fostering democratization in Poland, and perceived it as relevant in shaping their anti-communist attitude (C.I., K.B., R.E.).
These statements reveal knowledge about previous events, as well as an affective, emotional representation of the past—images loaded with tension, derived from the significant perceived differences between the two ways of living. The Western “miracle,” “unimaginable” things happening there, “desperation” due to oppression, “breaking the chains”—these expressions show emotion features of people’s memories and imagination, waiting to be activated “sooner or later.”
The “Gunpowder Barrel”
The spark making things happen in Romania came with the support movement for Tőkés Laszlo. Revolutionaries perceived it as an opportunity. It was a chance to “profit”—as, in those times, similar public gatherings were forbidden: nobody could have imagined an organized protest movement, with even several dozen supporting a cause and expressing discontent publicly. As soon as this happens, solidarity is created, through contagion: spontaneously, the external stimulation factor, able to incent the revolution, is there. All the information acquired previously—along with grievances (economic, social, cultural, and political)—create a tensed atmosphere: “The country was like a gunpowder barrel” (K.B.); “People were about to flare up. If it was not for Tőkés, it would have been something else” (S.N.). Worth mentioning here are the similar circumstances assessed with the Arab Spring and the so-called “mosque-to-square” narrative (Hoffman and Jamal 2014, 594), with mosques functioning as “a locus of anti-government agitation and logistical centers of preparation for demonstrations” (Ardic 2012, 38). Sermons in Muslim places of worship influenced people to move “from Friday prayers to central squares, in order to demand the removal of the regime” (Hoffman and Jamal 2014, 1). The gathering in front of the Reformed parish inflamed the bottle, which had been gradually filled up with tension—on one hand, through grievances and discontent toward the regime’s policies; on the other, by means of the information people had received about the international political circumstances; and, third, by previous experiences in their own country. One respondent told us about the football match between Romania and Denmark, in November 1989, which motivated students, especially in Timișoara, to go out on the streets and celebrate the long-awaited qualification: “When the comrades heard what we were chanting, they walked us back home. But it could have started back then; it could have been a continuation of the miners’ strike in ’77 or of the protests in Brașov in ’87. It was not; but we felt people started to gather, we felt it was about to begin” (N.B.).
Other interviewees went further in time and spoke about events they had been part of at the end of the 1960s. One interviewee remembered he had been a military employee during the “Prague Spring” in Czechoslovakia: “We were just waiting for an order, were ready to intervene; I lived those moments the hard way” (R.E.). Although in a considerably smaller proportion (only two respondents/12% from the ones acknowledging the role of previous information), direct experiences also contributed to building the tension; they remained in people’s memories, who do not forget what they had been part of. Similar to the information about Eastern European movements, these experiences played an indirect part in the revolution: deposited in the memory, they were retrieved at the proper time (determined by the accumulated tension—due to grievances, on one hand, and the acquired information on previous events and existing social and economic status in the West, on the other), as well as by the proper external stimulation (the circumstantial support movement for the Reformed pastor).
Discussion and Conclusions
This study attempted to explore the role of political communication, in connection to existing concepts, emotions, events, or experiences from the past, in the mobilization of political protests under dictatorship. The article focused on an underexplored historical and geographic context regarding this subject: the Eastern European anti-communist revolutions at the end of the 20th century. Particularly, we looked at the movement against the regime led by Nicolae Ceaușescu, in Timișoara. The qualitative research methods allowed for a deeper understanding of the manner in which protesters’ decision to start demonstrating under violent and oppressive conditions was motivated by available information and experiences.
First, with respect to Snow and Moss’s “pre-sensitizing” process of priming in relation to demonstrations, and to Hoffman and Jamal’s acting in accordance to what had been learned from others’ preferences and actions, a general and basic view upon the results indicates a type of mimicry, an imitation of attitudes from abroad. A detailed analysis, however, shows that available images of the West, along with previous protests in Romania, created a set of latent knowledge to be activated later by the particular stimulation, the spark in front of Tőkés’s residence (see Figure 1). Finally, all these elements are part of a learning process and they contribute to generating the social movement. The repetitive, contagion effect can occur from neighboring countries, to facilitate a protest (e.g., Ekman, Gherghina, and Podolian 2016, 7), or among demonstrators, such as during and after the gathering in front of the Reformed pastor’s house. Mimicry does not exclude priming—the processes can unfold simultaneously. Our findings, derived from analyzing existing data on the revolution, and from the interviews, direct us toward the conclusions formulated by Snow and Moss, that “to call such collective action mimicry or contagion is to label it rather than to explain it,” respectively, that mimicry is made more likely by the process of priming (Snow and Moss 2014, 1133–1134). In other words, what happened in Timișoara was, on one hand, an effect of contagion in terms of ideas and experiments from outside, and among individuals in the crowd. At the same time, building, storing, and activating particular concepts, images, and mindsets is, at this social level, not to be regarded as priming in terms of the psychological, experimental phenomenon. It was a learning process with an informational red wire on which the accumulated gunpowder circulated and, finally, triggered by the proper stimulation, exploded.
Figure 1.Development of the social movement in Timișoara.
With regard to political communication, the implications of the article go beyond the specific theoretical argumentation, according to which, by means of an exposure to certain stimuli, messages coming from mass media and propagating a state of tension can trigger political activism. On one hand, we demonstrated that alternative communication channels, to which people living under dictatorship have access, contribute to the creation of certain mental representations, which play an important part as co-motivational factors (besides grievances) for protesting. Our study did not take traditional mass media and their influence over voters or protesters into account; instead, it showed the significance of alternative sources of information from democratic societies (Dahrendorf 1993, 24), be it radio or TV channels, written press, family members or friends. More than half of respondents acknowledged that secretly accessed information influenced them. Their preferences and attitudes toward communism were more likely to be shaped unanimously, as Western media channels were transmitting similar messages, directed against communism and supporting democracy. On the other hand, there is the emotional factor of the process to be taken into account. This article showed how, in an Eastern European undemocratic society, accumulated emotion can play a determinant part when initiating a protest. People who had experienced tension in previous, unfinished events related to political activism, and, mainly, events creating a particular image of the West (the perceived “miracle”), internalized the stress in the form of emotions—inspiration, frustration, hope, expectation—which, stimulated by a certain triggering factor, contributed to initiating a protest.
The implications, added value, and relevance of our research come from the focus on a dictatorial, illiberal society in Eastern Europe, virtually neglected until now in this scientifc perspective. Findings show the importance of political communication and, to a smaller degree, of previous events and experiences, in a mobilization process in which the accumulated knowledge contributes to the generation of political activism. Although our approach was a retrospective one (studying an event from the end of the 1980s), implications can be regarded as valid today—due to the maintained characteristics of this particular European society, and due to a major happening (the revolution) able to make people remember/recollect perceptions and experiences from that particular time.
Further research can develop the subject and look at political communication, contagion, and priming less through a social and political lens, and more within the psychological realm. For instance, an in-depth analysis of the mechanism may focus on individuals or groups, to unveil the extent to which cognitive priming can play a part in the activation of mental representations, to influence the decision to protest. There are recent social movements in different parts of the world—student protests for free education and urban social movements in South Africa, anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong, protests against the monarchy in Thailand and against military dictatorship in Myanmar—that certainly deserve further attention from scholars. The processes of contagion and priming, as well as the role of classical or alternative communication channels, can add useful context and support the application of these theories to military studies, particularly, the investigation of whether soldiers’ reactions during combat are a function of priming (i.e., past combat experiences, or media narratives on the image, character, relative strengths and weaknesses of the adversary). This last perspective can be applied to existing conflicts in the current international context.
Acknowledgments
We would like to express our sincere thanks to the “Memorialul Revoluţiei” Museum in Timișoara, which helped with information whenever it was necessary. The local revolutionary associations, especially “ALTAR” and “17 Decembrie 1989,” thankfully provided contact data for approximately 200 of their members. A special appreciation for the ones who agreed to be interviewed and offered precious insights about their experiences. We were privileged to receive support with carrying out the interviews from Sorana Trăistaru and valuable knowledge from Marian Odangiu. The journal editors and anonymous reviewers provided very useful suggestions for improving the manuscript.
Published online: September 20, 2024
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