General Information

Author/Creator

Parta, R. Eugene, 1940- author.

Language

English.

Published

Budapest ; Vienna ; New York : Central European University Press, 2022.

Physical Description

415 p. ; 23 cm.

Contents/Summary

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"--

Subjects

Subject

Radio Free Europe.

Radio Liberty.

Voice of America (Organization)

Radio broadcasting > Soviet Union.

Radio audiences > Soviet Union.

Cold War.

Bibliographic Information

Responsibility

R. Eugene Parta.

Content

Machine generated contents note: Acknowledgements -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Prelude: My Road to Radio Liberty (amabile) -- First Movement (1965-1970): Early Years of Audience Research (andante) -- Second Movement (1970-1980): First Steps in Audience Interviewing (accelerato) -- Photo section. -- Third Movement (1981-1985): Audience Research Breaks New Ground (sforzando) -- Fourth Movement (1986-1990): Perestroika Changes the Game (fuocoso) -- Fifth Movement (1991-1994): The Post-Soviet Transition (vittorioso, capriccioso, lamentoso) -- Postlude: Past Successes and the Road Ahead (coda) -- Appendix 1: Charts and Graphs referenced in text -- Appendix 2: Vignettes: Max Ralis, Helmut Aigner, Christopher Geleklidis, Steen Sauerberg, Andrei Nazarov, Ivan Myhul, Viktor Nekrasov, Andrei Sinyavsky, Aleksandr Galich, Victor Grayevsky, Vladimir Shlapentokh, Boris Grushin, Yuri Levada, Irina Alberti -- Appendix 3: Methodologies. MIT Simulation. Contribution of Ithiel de Sola Pool -- Appendix 4: Excerpts from Questionnaires, BALEs, BGRs -- Appendix 5: Subsequent careers of SAAOR/MOR Staffers -- Bibliography -- Index.

ISBN

9789633864555

Holdings

Item Type	Current Location	Collection	Call Number	Volume Info	Shelving Location	Public Note
Book	OSA Archivum Library	Reference collection	384.540947 PAR		Reference	-

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