3- Mass Media

Question 1

If you get a change question-

Answer 1

purpose of control didn’t change but the government had to adapt to changes in technology

Question 2

Newspapers

Answer 2

Decree Nov 1917 banned all non-socialist newspapers. By early 1920s, all non-Bolshevik papers eliminated. Printing press nationalised, with access restricted. All editors and journalists were employees of the government, members of the Union of Soviet Journalists and expected to be Party members. Approval from Glavlit, the cencorship office, was needed for every article written for publication

Question 3

Newspapers- what did Pravda and Isvestiya share

Answer 3

Pravda (Party newspaper), Izvestiya (govt) used as vehicles of propaganda, highlighting the achievements of the government and socialism. To ensure a high readership, these papers were cheap to buy and widely available. Copies were posted on boards along pavements and at workplaces. Mass newspapers- Pravda had a circulation of 10.7 million 1983.
Newspapers carried endless details about the achievements of socialism, with production figures related to meeting or exceeding targets for Plans, especially under Stalin.

Question 4

Limitations of newspapers

Answer 4

prohibited topics. Sept 1957, at Kyshtym, a nuclear waste tank exploded and 270,000 people were exposed to dangerous radiation levels. In the absence of any acknowledged disaster, the government took two years to evacuate unsafe areas.
Local newspapers were more likely to publish views critical of the authorities, it was acceptable to print letters criticising minor bureaucrats, and complaints about poor housing became an increasingly common subject in the 1970s.

Question 5

Magazines

Answer 5

able to deliver propaganda e.g. Sovetskii Sport caried political news praising the government on its front page. Form of escapism

Question 6

Radio

Answer 6

By 1921, programmes were being broadcast. The Spoken Newspaper of the Russian Telegraph Agency featured news and propaganda material. In order to get their message to the people, the Bolsheviks installed loudspeakers in public places, factories and clubs. Resulted in a collective response that ensured everyone got the intended message.

Question 7

Control of radio communications was centralised through

Answer 7

the Commissariat for Posts and Telegraph and resources for rapid development given.

Question 8

Radio Useful medium as

Answer 8

it enabled the government to get its message across to the 65 percent illiterate population.

Question 9

The speed by which the government could convey its message through radio was to prove invaluable during the German invasion of 1941.

Answer 9

With German forces less than 50 miles from Moscow, Stalin gave a speech live on radio from Red Square to commemorate the October Revolution, which was highly effective in reassuring the Soviet population that not all was lost in the war.

Question 10

What meant wide audience for radio

Answer 10

Most new apartment blocks were wired for radio reception.

Question 11

Until 1964, there was only one Soviet radio station.

Under Brezhnev, the range was extended to three,

Answer 11

including Radio Maiak, which played some foreign music and was popular with Soviet youth. T

Question 12

The limits on the amount of info received by the Soviet population were important in

Answer 12

restricting the level of public debate.

Question 13

LIMITATIONS radio

Answer 13

The government tried to restrct access to foreign stations by mass-producing cheap radios with a limited reception range, but they also had to rely on jamming foreign broadcasts and threatening to arrest those that listened to stations such as Voice of America or the BBC. These threats rarely succeeded.

Question 14

TV

Answer 14

1950, the USSR had 110,000 sets, by 1958, almost three million. Mass production of televisions in the 1960s brought their price within the range of most of the population. By the early 1980s, most of the rural population had access to tv.

Question 15

The govt stations provided a mix of

Answer 15

news, documentaries on the achievements of socialism, and cultural programmes on ballet and the classical arts. Children’s programmes and feature films. Life in the SU was presented as joyous, whereas life under capitalism was rife with crime, homelessness and violene. BUT UNINSPIRING AND FAILED TO SPARK ENTHUSIASM INPOPULATION.

Question 16

By 1985, there were two television channels and greater emphasis on light entertainent.

Answer 16

popular. 1970s, Soviet singer Eduard Khil became a noted and popular celeb. Positive features- the broadcast of local programming for the regions of the USSR, often in local languages. mADE A CHANGE FROM THE USUAL IMPOSITION OF rUSSIAN culture on national minorities.

Question 17

Limitation of mass media

Answer 17

SOVIET PUBLIC GOT USED TO READING BETWEEN THE LINES- news of heart propblems of a member of the Politburo was interpreted as a fall from favour, as was someone’s continued non-appearance in the press. Favoured and rising stars received more news space. e.g. 1953, Sovie citizens who subscribed to the Soviet encyclopedia received a package that instructed them to remove pages from their collection that had details of Beria, which was the first sign to the public he had been arrested.

Question 18

Successes of mass media in terms of propaganda

Answer 18

The tech of mass media may have changed, but the government ensured that a steady diet of propaganda was conveyed. alongside overt propaganda, the govt came to rely increasingly on output that provided distraction from realities of socialism.

Question 19

By 1980s, tech advancing further-

Answer 19

video recorders were being mass-produced by the state, making the sharing of info among public easier, but rise of increasingly sophisticated tech, including computers, made harder to restrict population’s access to info.