"Politically purposeful, ideologically informative and literary correct local programmes": the news agenda of the Kaliningrad region in 1947
- Pages
- 57-66
Abstract
The article considers the news content of the information environment in the Kaliningrad region, the new Soviet region, in 1947, when the main media of the first post-war years were formed here. The authors describe the process of organisation of radio and press. They also analyse key topics through the texts of Kaliningrad and district newspapers as well as radio programmes. The research draws the following conclusions: the tone of radio and newspaper reports, which was ideological and prevailingly positive, created a picture of the active post-war development of the Kaliningrad region. This measure should have helped to make the settlers arriving in the region stay here. The mass media “reminded” the population of the region of its inseparability from the rest of the Soviet Union by informing residents about events and processes that were taking place in the whole state and by using the categories “our homeland” and “our country”. The press emphasised that residents of the Kaliningrad region were a part of the Soviet people and along with the rest of the citizens of the USSR were involved in the overall development of the country. At the same time, the high rate of emigration from the region in the post-war years suggests that the work of the local media could not mask the problems that existed.