Actions for Under the Radar : Tracking Western Radio Listeners in the Soviet Union

Email RIS file
Bookmark
Report an Issue

Under the Radar : Tracking Western Radio Listeners in the Soviet Union

Author
Parta, R. Eugene, 1940-
Published
[Place of publication not identified] : Central European University Press, 2022.
Physical Description
1 electronic resource (429 pages)
Access Online

Availability

I Want It
I Want It

Finding items...

Language Note
English
Restrictions on Access
Open Access Unrestricted online access
Summary
Western democracy is currently under attack by a resurgent Russia, weaponizing new technologies and social media. How to respond? During the Cold War, the West fought off similar Soviet propaganda assaults with shortwave radio broadcasts. Founded in 1949, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcast uncensored information to the Soviet republics in their own languages. About one-third of Soviet urban adults listened to Western radio. The broadcasts played a key role in ending the Cold War and eroding the communist empire. R. Eugene Parta was for many years the director of Soviet Area Audience Research at RFE/RL, charged among others with gathering listener feedback. In this book he relates a remarkable Cold War operation to assess the impact of Western radio broadcasts on Soviet listeners by using a novel survey research approach. Given the impossibility of interviewing Soviet citizens in their own country, it pioneered audacious interview methods in order to fly under the radar and talk to Soviets traveling abroad, ultimately creating a database of 51,000 interviews which offered unparalleled insights into the media habits and mindset of the Soviet public. By recounting how the "impossible" mission was carried out, Under the Radar also shows how the lessons of the past can help counter the threat from a once and current adversary.
Subject(s)
Other Subject(s)
ISBN
9789633864555
9789633864562
Collection
OAPEN Library.
Funding Information
CEU Press - Opening the future
Terms of Use and Reproduction
Creative Commons https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
View MARC record | catkey: 39989909