Published Online: Mar 13, 2020
Page range: 155 - 170
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2014-0110
Keywords
© 2014 Henrik G. Bastiansen, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The period from 1945 until 1991 was decisive for the development of international mass communications – the rise of television being the most important example. These years were also marked by the Cold War between the East and West – the conflict between two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. If we wish to understand the development of the mass media during this period, we also need to investigate the relations between the media and the Cold War. It seems obvious that the Cold War influenced media content for decades. However, perhaps a more interesting question is: To what degree did the media influence the Cold War?
Scholars have already related modern mass communications to earlier conflict periods of the 20th century, such as World War I, the years of mass society in the 1920s and 30s, and World War II. In fact, the period from the late 1800s until the late 1940s saw modern technology being utilized as mass communications as never before in world history: The press became a huge industry of news and opinions, Hollywood dominated film and cinema, while radio broadcasting quickly emerged as the third mass medium. All of them had the ability to reach millions of people and thus to influence public opinion. No one really understood the consequences of mass communications on such a huge scale.
If we continue this perspective into the postwar period, we quickly enter the era of the Cold War. It became
During this period, the Cold War dominated international news and politics. It was a struggle between two superpowers and their ideologies – capitalism and communism – with many allies on both sides. Some of them were voluntary allies, others involuntary. The tension between them was sometimes extremely high – with consequences that affected the rest of the world. The most threatening possible consequence was a nuclear war, which could end the future of mankind.
Let us start with a brief discussion of the general relation between the Cold War and the field of mass media research. A great many historians have specialized in Cold War research. Three historiographical schools have emerged: the traditionalists, the revisionists and the post-revisionists. The traditionalists blamed the Soviet Union for the origin of the conflict, while the revisionists took the opposite view and blamed the US. The post-revisionist school has not been interested in assigning blame, but more interested in explaining why the different actors acted as they did. The three different schools followed each other chronologically, but their viewpoints are present both in new literature and in historical television documentaries, etc. Even today, the debate continues in recent literature on the topic. See for instance Gaddis 2005
The first point of interest is whether Cold War scholars have included the mass media in their works. The main impression is that experts have generally neglected the importance of the media. LaFeber 1991, Gaddis 2005, Lundestad 2004, Lundestad 2010, Hahnimäki and Westad 2003, Leffler 2004, Tjelmeland 2006, Villaume and Westad (eds.) 2010, Loth 2010
But this fact does not mean that media scholars have neglected the Cold War. We find many studies about the media during the Cold War – especially in the United States. These studies show how the media treated the Cold War. Here are some examples: Aronson (1970/1990), MacDonald (1985), Short (1985); Nelson (1997), Barnard (1999), Cummings (2009) and (2010). For German media see Bruner 1989, Hesse 1990, Hoff 1990 and Steinmetz 2004
We need to delve a bit deeper into the field of mass communication research in order to get a better understand of the complex relations between the Cold War and this kind of research. When Paul Lazarsfeld and others developed mass communication research in postwar America, it was at the same time as tensions increased between the US and the Soviet Union and the Cold War developed. Thus, the new warlike atmosphere between East and West also came to influence communication research. During the 1950s, the new field of mass communication research developed a deep interest in See Klapper 1960 Lowery and DeFleur 1995: 213–237
Another example showing how the Cold War influenced the development of mass communication research is the 1956 book
Thus, there are many reasons to study the complicated relations between the Cold War and the media in a country. I have chosen the Norwegian media as an example in the following discussion. We begin with an overview of the media development in Norway at the time – as the first of three steps.
From the standard text book on Norwegian media history, we can summarize the periods between 1945 and 1991 and their characterizations:
Periods from the Norwegian Media History in the Cold War Era 1945–1991
| 1945–1950 | |
| 1950–1960 | |
| 1960–1980 | |
| 1980–1991 |
This table provides an overview of the 47 years of Norwegian media history that coincide with the Cold War. In this table, the periods lack international aspects, especially the Cold War. To include it, we need a basic overview of the Cold War chronology.
Even today, there is no agreement among scholars on how to make a periodization of the Cold War. It was so complex that it can be categorized in many different ways. This makes the situation complicated, but it also makes it easier to develop a simple and elementary overview of the Cold War that is adapted to our needs. In a simplistic manner, we may summarize the conflict as follows:
The Cold War Chronology 1945–1991
| 1945–1962 | |
| 1963–1979 | |
| 1980–1985 | |
| 1985–1988 | |
| 1989–1991 |
This table shows the Cold War as two main conflict periods characterized by a high level of tension (1945–1962 and 1980–1985) and separated by a period of Detènte (1963–1979).
The years 1945–1962 contain the origin of the East-West conflict, even though the experts still discuss how and when it really started. Stalin ruled the Soviet Union while Truman was the US president. In 1946, Churchill, talked about the “Iron Curtain” dividing Europe. The so-called “long telegram” from George Kennan in 1946, defining for the first time the Soviet threat, led to the development of the US containment policy. The aim was to establish barriers for Soviet influence in Europe. In 1950, this US containment policy became global with the war in Korea (formulated in the so-called NSC-50 document).
The conflict escalated when both superpowers got the atomic bomb. It was also intensified by the Stalin blockade of Berlin and the Western airlift in 1948, the origin of NATO in 1949, the war in Korea in 1950, the revolt in the DDR in 1953, Nikita Krustchev’s way to power, the Hungarian crises in 1956, the Polish protests in 1956, the U2 crises in 1960 and the US Bay of Pigs invasion on Cuba in 1961. The conflict in Europe thus developed into a global conflict. However, Germany came to be of special importance. The allies divided Germany after WWII, including the capital Berlin. The Soviet zone became the Deutsche Democratische Republik (DDR), while the western zone became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD). In no other place was the Cold War more visible than on German soil, and especially in the divided Berlin – and even more so after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
After the Cuban crisis, the East-West conflict changed character; the years 1963–1979 became an era of détente. The superpowers tried to reduce the direct tension. They established a hot line between the White House and the Kremlin, in order to prevent a nuclear war being started inadvertently. Despite events like the Tet offensive in Vietnam and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, both in 1968, the lower level of tension was combined with negotiations on arms reduction and other issues between the superpowers; the SALT I treaty was signed in Moscow in 1972, while the Helsinki negotiations were underway. American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts met in space, illustrating the more friendly East-West relationship. Nevertheless, the Cold War was still there, but developed more indirectly by proxies, in Vietnam and in other third-world countries like Angola, Somalia and Ethiopia. In such countries, various political actors were supported either by the the US or by the Soviet Union. The Détente period reached its climax with the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, but was weakened in the late 1970s and ended in 1979.
The years 1980–1985 became a new era of confrontation between East and West. It started with the Soviet SS-20 nuclear missiles in the late 1970s. It escalated with the invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, which was followed by a partly Western boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow 1980. In addition, the Polish crises in 1980 and the Soviets shooting down a Korean Airliner (K007) in 1983 contributed to the general tension. President Reagan held his speech about the Soviet Union being an “evil empire” the same year. The NATO Double Track Decision of December 1979 linked deployment of new nuclear missiles in Western Europe to NATO negotiations on arms reduction with the Soviet Union. A new fear of nuclear weapons and nuclear war arose in Europe, motivating a large peace movement. The death of Leonid Brezhnev in 1982 was followed by the brief periods of Jurij Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko until 1985, without reductions in tension and confrontation.
Michail Gorbachev was appointed as new party leader in March 1985. The new Soviet leader soon started to change the signals sent to the West. Gorbachev and Reagan’s East-West summit in Geneva the same year was a success. Gorbachev developed many new policies: The “Glasnost” program in 1986 and the “Perestroika” program in 1987, including the “New Thinking” about the role of the USSR in the world. See Gorbachev 1987, 1996 and 2013 See Gorbachev 2013: 490–501
The years 1989–1991 were dramatic. The period started with unrest in Eastern Europe that soon escalated to a popular revolt, which swept across the Eastern bloc. Demonstrators demanded the end of one-party rule by the communist party and the establishment of democratic multiparty systems. The result was stunning: In country after country, the power of the ruling communist elite collapsed. This made the year 1989 as historical as the French revolution of 1789. The most famous single event was the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th 1989. Gaddis 2005, Lundestad 2010, Hahnimäki and Westad 2003 and Tjelmeland 2006
We have now presented some traits of the Norwegian media development
Table 3 links the Norwegian media development
Norwegian Media and the Cold War 1945–1991
| 1945–1962 | ||
| 1963–1979 | ||
| 1980–1985 | ||
| 1985–1988 | ||
| 1989–1991 |
At the same time as the world saw the origin of the Cold War as a fundamental geo-political and ideological confrontation between the US and the USSR, the Norwegian newspapers re-established its role from the prewar years: as a party press. The press was divided into the Labour press, the Conservative press, the Liberal press, and the Agrarian press.
The Cold War made a huge impact on the cinema screens from the late 1940s and into the 1950s. Totland 1992, see also Bastiansen 1996
All of this had important consequences for how the media covered Cold War news: from the late 1940s, the East-West conflicts were presented only by the party press or by NRK radio. The communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 frightened not only the Labour Government, but also the Labour press and the non-socialistic party press on the Center/Right. Thus, most of the party press supported the Norwegian NATO membership in 1949. Dahl and Bastiansen 1999: 230ff, Jacobsen 1993, see also Meyer 2008, Skre 2010, Fonn 2011 Dahl and Bastiansen 2000: Chapter 7, p. 153–195 Totland 1992: 75–77
Table 3 shows a remarkable parallel between the Détente period of the Cold War and how the Norwegian media system was reaching its highest lewel of public regulation and state subsidies at exactly the same time. The era of Détente meant a lower level of tension in the East-West conflict, negotiations about SALT I and II and the signing of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. The US and the USSR were seeking to avoid direct confrontations, although there were several wars and conflicts by proxy in the third world, motivated by the same rivalry. For Norwegian television coverage of the Vietnam war, see Bastiansen 1997
News about the Cold War events of this period was reported by Norwegian media at their peak as a national media system: the combination of the party press and the NRK radio and television monopoly
All this meant that the NRK became even more important than before. In the 1960s it also started to establish its own foreign correspondent offices abroad; the first came in London (1964), then New York (1965), Paris (1966), Bonn (1967), Moscow (1968), Washington (1970), Hong Kong (1970) etc. This network of correspondents was established along the East-West axis of the Cold War. Bastiansen 1996:240–245
This had important consequences: It meant that the news of the detènte period between East and West was presented by media in quite a different position than in the late 1940s and early 1950s – the party press had begun to disappear, while the position of the NRK as a combined radio and television monopoly was stronger than ever. The NRK correspondents produced many important programs interpreting international events, wrote books and participated in public debates. Several of them became national celebrities with high credibility. See Johansen 1976 and 1977, and Steinfeld 1982, 1984 and 1986
The third period shows a striking co-existence between the new confrontation between East and West after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and NATO’s Double Track Decision in December 1979 and the beginning of a major transformation of Norwegian media. At the same time as the Western boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow 1980, the Polish crises and the rise of the Solidarity Movement, the Norwegian party press was riddled by conflicts caused by reduced loyalty to the political parties: They occurred within the Labour press, the Conservative press and the Agrarian press in the early 1980s. They all wanted to end partisan political journalism.
The Conservative Government ended the NRK monopoly in 1981. That decision was part of the Government’s liberalization and privatization policy for radio and television, which paved the way for many new local and private radio and television stations and the new “media age” of the 1980s. At the same time, the media reported about the new confrontation between the superpowers. A new “Ice Age” in East-West relations followed the era of Détente in the early part of the 1980s. It was a paradox, because all the new media channels in Western countries like Norway meant more communication, more news and more media content, while the new confrontation between the two superpowers at exactly the same time also meant more tension, harder talk and less information available for the media.
The transformation of Norwegian media continued into the second half of the 1980s, but now in quite a new era of East-West relations. Soon after the appointment of Gorbachev in 1985, the USSR sent new signals to the West through international news channels. This was part of the new Glasnost policy. The Russian word “glasnost” means “openness” – and was a keyword for the new Soviet leader. In 1986, the news showed a new kind of openness within the USSR: a new desire to discuss internal problems in public. In 1987, Gorbachev launched his “Perestroika” program.
For Norwegian media this happened while the party press tradition in the Labour press, the Conservative press and the Agrarian press was moving quickly to its end. The NRK also began to change, in order to meet the growing competition from videocassette recorders, satellite TV and the new television channels. The media were being liberalized, privatized and commercialized away from the “Norwegian system” of the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, media coverage of the Glasnost period coincided with a time of major structural changes within the Norwegian media sector. However, the Soviet media were also changing by allowing more open and critical discussions.
The fifth period, 1989–1991, came, surprisingly, to mark the end of the Cold War. No one could have guessed, in advance, that mass demonstrations would manage to press the communist parties out of power in Eastern Europe. The myriad spectacular events taking place included the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the unification of East and West Germany in 1990 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It was sensational news and covered by the mass media globally.
In Norway, these events were covered by media heavily influenced by the transformations of the late 1980s. From 1987, the national economic crisis contributed to declining advertisement income for newspapers. On the other hand, most of the press had now declared its editorial independence from the political parties. The Labour press ended its formal loyalty to the Labour Party in 1991 – as the last party press to do so. Three new big media groups came out of this process: Orkla Media, Schibsted and the A-Press. In addition, from 1989 the NRK started competing in a more active and aggressive way. Now, the aim of NRK was to survive on the new media market.
A new private TV2 began its broadcasts in September 1992. It came too late to provide contemporary journalistic coverage of the fall of communism in the East and the events that followed until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. In TV2, the Cold War was history right from the start. The only thing this new channel could do was to give retrospective coverage of selected Cold War events – and that it did. See Bastiansen 2011: 124–132
Although the coverage was massive, studies of how the media actually covered the last part of the Cold War and the fall of communism are still lacking.
This brief discussion shows that Norwegian media changed a great deal
Today, we have two models explaining the postwar growth of foreign correspondents covering world events during the Cold War. Maria Nakken developed the first one. She analyses the foreign correspondents of the NRK as a
Rolf Werenskjold developed the second model. He identified what he calls the Norwegian foreign news Werenskjold 2011: 238ff
In this article, we have studied the Norwegian media development between 1945 and 1991 (Table 1), the Cold War chronology (Table 2) and then we have connected the two (Table 3). The following discussion sums up, in a general way, how these two may be connected. This opens up a much broader discussion about what kind of influence there was between the Cold War and the media. The discussion has shown that during most of the Cold War history, the events themselves have been the non-dependent variables influencing media coverage. We can identify this influence in the world news, which created public interest and debate, but also in film and television. Without the Cold War, a huge range of topics would not have been in the media at all. Consequently, it is easy to conclude that the East-West conflict influenced the media content in a massive way – as many previous studies have shown. Future research will undoubtedly discover new examples of this from-events-to-the-media influence. Also for the Norwegian media, we need more content analyses in this area.
But is this the only form of influence between events and media? What about the
Several Western radio stations penetrated the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Cold War: Voice of America, BBC External Service, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Deutsche Welle, Deutschlandfunk, Radio in the American Sector (RIAS Berlin), etc. We have many evaluations of how important they were for listeners living under communist rule. Impulses from Western radio programs reached listeners with news and comments – even if they lived under communist control behind the Iron Curtain. These radio stations undermined the authority of the Communist party and inspired dissidents, at least in some parts of the population. See Short 1986, Nelson 1997, Heil 2003 See Short 1986: 227ff
For me, the most interesting example of this is the Glasnost era that began in 1985. After the dramatic years of confrontation 1980–1985, a new period in the East-West relationship started with Michail Gorbachev as the new Soviet leader. His idea of “Glasnost” was in fact a kind of implementation of Western ideas of openness and public debate – but within a nuclear superpower with a one-party state ruled by the mighty communist party. That was unique. The summit meetings between Gorbachev and Reagan showed improved relations between the US and the USSR. This created hope for a better future in the rest of the world.
However, the main point here is this: Glasnost was in fact a See Steinfeld 1986, 1990, 1991 and Røssum 1990
So when the Soviet media entered the Glasnost period, it also influenced the reports and images sent by foreign news correspondents based in Soviet. Their news reports changed the public image of the USSR in Western media. The Glasnost policy – together with Perestroika and “New Thinking” – explains why dissidents in Eastern Europe began to look at the Soviet Union with optimism and continued their work against the communist elite – leading to the events of 1989. In fact, it is impossible to understand 1989 without understanding the era of Glasnost. It is also impossible to understand the Glasnost phenomenon without the media dimension. Thus, in Soviet society during these years, the direction of influence undoubtedly also went from the media to the events. Or more precisely, Gorbachev’s policy of Glasnost gave the Soviet media a new and more offensive role in the news and public debate. Then, the Soviet mass media began to influence the whole situation in their own society, but also in Eastern Europe, stimulating the situation that led to 1989.
Understood in this perspective, the Soviet media in the Glasnost era must be regarded as one of the contributing forces that led to the fall of communism in 1989. Thus, influence was not only moving from events to media, but also from media coverage to new news events. This means that we have a complicated situation marked by bidirectional influence. The media were not only passive mirrors, but – at least in some parts of this history – they also influenced events.
But what about the Norwegian media in this situation? Any conclusion on this must be tentative, because we need more research. Of course, their news coverage did not change Soviet society or the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. But their reporting of these years must have been deeply influenced by changes in Soviet media and how they discussed social problems in new ways. Thus, we can say that the Glasnost era in the Soviet media also changed foreign news journalism in Norwegian media – and thus the public image of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s. Explaining how this happened is still open for upcoming research.