ABSTRACT
It was Erich Honecker’s Neues Deutschland that described the modern mass media as the ‘real key industry of the 20th century’. The resumption by the Soviet government in August 1980, after a seven years pause, of deliberate jamming of Voice of America, BBC and Deutsche Welle Russian language broadcasts reflects the high esteem in which communists hold the mass media. If the effectiveness of Russian language broadcasts is measured by the Homeric tirades of communist counter-propaganda, an increase in the response to western broadcasting over the iron curtain is hardly imaginable. Since June 1963 when the Soviet Union ceased jamming of the VOA, BBC and Deutsche Welle, the only unlimited ‘press freedom’ for the Russian people was on the air. The cornerstone of the Russian service and a major component of programme advance planning are feature programmes.
