Page - 132 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/01

One of the topics which appears several times throughout the contributions is authenticity. At a time marked by the significant “presence” of a second, vir- tual reality (or, even better, virtual realities), people long for institutions and leaders with “authenticity”, understood as unambiguous coherence and conti- nuity in speech and action. Peter Szyszka addresses this issue directly in his article. He frames “authen- ticity” in opposition to “identity”, locating identity on the side of the subject (or, as he would say with a systemic approach, a system) and authenticity on the side of the surroundings, meaning the images which others have of the system. These images always contain suppositions concerning the expected behavior of the particular system. Whereas identity remains the same, expec- tations bound to a conception of authenticity vary according to the concrete circumstances of the particular group or person. In Szyszka’s conception, au- thenticity is less about coherence in speech and action (as proposed above) than about the coherence of speech and action with the ideas of a particular group. In conclusion he therefore proposes that “authenticity” as such, as an evident quality, does not exist. Such differing expectations of the pope’s office and its representative have always been a fact. What has changed is the role of mass media in producing formative images of authenticity. Szyszka considers whether the Vatican consciously controls this production of images to be a sec- ondary question, since “it is not facts but opinion about facts which influences our thoughts and deeds” (288).2 Nevertheless, at the end he illustrates the im- ages associated with the programmatic name chosen by Pope Francis as strate- gically directed by Radio Vatican. Through it related Pope Francis’s first public acts to the historical features of Saint Francis of Assisi, Radio Vatican conscious- ly shaped “reality” (in the sense of “opinion about facts”) and concentrated the audience’s attention and expectations about the pope’s authenticity on the problem of poverty. However, in line with his concept of authenticity, Szyszka concludes that “no pope can be Francis” (293), since not only the images as- sociated with “Francis” but also the question of how to deal with poverty (as well as what is meant by “poverty”) evokes a considerable number of different expectations. Insight into how our images and expectations concerning authenticity are generated is deepened by the contribution by Petia Genkova. Picking up Hans Mummenedey’s theory of impression management, she provides analytical tools by differentiating between assertive and defensive techniques used by public persons (such as the pope) to convey or nurture an intended impression via mass media. Whereas with assertive techniques the subject tries to produce or effect a particular impression in the public’s mind, defensive techniques are 2 All translations from German are mine. 132 | Isabella Bruckner www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/1