The Coverage of Regional and Local Elections '2018 in Public Regional Television in the Light of Public Service Mission (based on the Example of News Programme "Aktualności" TVP3 Katowice) The public service mission of public media imposes a number of responsibilities on public broadcasters covering politics. These responsibilities were expressed in the article as three news media functions. First, information (dissemination of information about candidates, their programs and main issues in election campaign). Second, the "watchdog" role which focuses on the delivery of information about candidates' abuses of law and ethical violations, as well as critical information about their offers. Lastly, mobilisation which focuses on the delivery of information encouraging voters to vote. To answer the main research question about how the requirements of public service mission were fulfilled by regional television in the period preceding regional and local elections in 2018, the above-mentioned functions were verified after the content analysis of news programme "Aktualności" TVP3 Katowice. The results of the qualitative and quantitative analysis exhibited the dominance of propaganda bias in television news regarding local elections. The overall conclusion was that the analysed medium did not respect the elementary rules of the public service mission (impartiality and internal pluralism) and it did not fulfil the functions of news media properly.

The article discusses the problem of the evolution of audiovisual political advertising in Polish parliamentary campaigns in the years 2005–2019, taking a closer look at the presentation of programmatic issues, centralized personalization, and the rhetorical functions of spots. The content analysis of the election spots results in a fairly unchanged marketing standard of election offers, appropriate for all parties (regardless of their size), expressing an attempt to combine sensitivity to important voters’ needs with an extensive symbolic layer, emotionally engaging for image purposes. In most spots, the emphasis on psychological and social benefits at the expense of functional (economic) benefits prevails. The change in campaigns concerns only the increase in the importance of appeals attacking political opponents. However, their role remains secondary, regardless of the party’s position on the political market.

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