DAS SOWJETISCHE VERSTÄNDNIS VON RADIOPROPAGANDA IM KALTEN KRIEG.

This article analyses Cold War Soviet radio broadcasting. After World War II the Soviet broadcasting system was no longer isolated from foreign media. The information spread by Western radio stations created new problems and obstacles for the Soviet broadcasting authority Gosteleradio. The authorities feared their information monopoly would suffer because they could not effectively prevent Soviet citizens from listening to popular foreign news and entertainment programmes. Jamming Western radio programmes turned out to be quite expensive and ineffective because Soviet citizens always found ways to evade the jammed frequencies. Hence, the authorities tried to cope differently with this situation: by creating the concept of kontrpropaganda they fought more openly with the information contents Western radio stations offered in their programmes. But instead of arguing on rational ground they condemned them morally. At the same time Soviet authorities began to improve their own radio programmes by analysing sociological surveys about listener preferences and by creating new programme concepts for their news and entertainment shows. A famous example for these programmes is the creation of Majak in 1964, a new unionwide around-the-clock news and entertainment programme. Despite being quite popular and peculiarly Soviet it did not solve the main obstacles facing Soviet radio broadcasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]