Cold War Broadcasting: Impact on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

Chapter 6: The Foreign Radio Audience in the USSR During the Cold War: An Internal Perspective

103 CHaPter 6 the foreign radio audience in the ussr during the Cold War: an internal Perspective elena i. bashkirova the attempt to influence populations through broadcasting in national languages was just one episode of the so-called Cold War between the ussr and the West, especially the united states. in 1947 the Voice of america started broadcasting to the ussr; radio free europe and radio liberty joined the pool in 1950 and 1953 respectively; BBC, Vatican radio, deutsche Welle and other radio stations also began broadcasting in russian. since the soviet authorities had placed ideological and other limitations on information, the programs of Western radio stations helped the local audience to learn about viewpoints which differed from the official soviet point of view. it is clear that Western radio programs were extremely attractive to a significant part of soviet society. it is important to note that the ussr ideological services tried to control not only the public and political spheres, but also cultural life. many authors and performers, and even entire cultural trends, were declared “ideologically hostile” and banned in the ussr. it was left to Western radio stations to acquaint the soviet audience with banned music and literature. as a result, people’s interest in programs broadcast from abroad gradually increased. even today, russian and foreign social scientists continue to discuss the role that the programs broadcast from abroad played in soviet public and political life during the periods of stagnation and perestroika. some scholars and politicians consider their role to have been extremely significant , while others play down the importance of foreign broadcasting. this is not merely of historical interest, for since the sources of many current political processes in russia lie in our past, the discussion remains socially relevant. sociological studies, conducted by the institute of sociology of the ussr academy of sciences in various soviet cities and towns from the 1960s to the 1980s, help to understand the size of the audience i4 J&P.indb 103 2010.07.05. 7:54 104 to Western radio stations, and the extent of their influence on public and political events. this chapter will analyze some of these findings. the audience to foreign radio stations was the object of serious study by both soviet and Western social scientists. the latter needed detailed studies of the soviet audience in order to understand the impact of broadcasts in the ussr, while the ussr ideological services were interested in getting information about listeners to foreign radio stations to help them undertake appropriate counterpropaganda measures. obviously, the level and character of those studies were different. the Western scientists did not have the opportunity to implement their projects directly in the ussr. as a result, they had to apply indirect methods (analysis of russian emigrants to Western countries, analysis of soviet counterpropaganda activity, study of local mass media, interviews with soviet citizens traveling abroad). soviet sociologists had a different problem: they had great difficulty in obtaining answers from their respondents , because listening to foreign radio stations in the ussr was considered a form of anti-soviet activity. direct contacts between soviet and Western social scientists were almost impossible during that time. However, each side actively studied the published results of studies conducted by the other. soviet authors often cited Western social scientists such as f.K. Barlett, B. Berelson, n. Bone, a.C. Brown, g. gode, l. doob, P. davison, d. ingure, d. Katz, g. Kelly, g. Clepper, P, lazersfeld, P.n. linebarger, r. White, r. Hilbert, d. Helloran , K. Hovlaid, g.l. Chids, and W. schramm in their publications. in early studies conducted by russian scientists such as a.g. Zdravomyslov , r. Karevyae, V.d. tokarev and g.i. Khmara, the influence of Western broadcasting on the soviet audience did not merit a separate analysis. initially, it was only one issue among many pertaining to the overall impact of soviet mass media on the audience. studies were restricted to only a few tasks: to find out the number of Western radio stations , to determine which ones attracted an audience, and to note the frequency of listening to their programs. only in the works of researchers such as V.l. artemov, P.s. gurevich and V.s. Komarovsky did the audience for Western radios become a subject of special sociological study. the research work conducted by V.l. artemov and P.s. gurevich showed that the study of Western radio audiences in the ussr required new methodical approaches and solutions to multiple organizational problems , such...