Red Tape: Radio and Politics in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1969
A Center Austria book talk by
Dr. Rosamund Johnston
When: Wednesday, February 28, 2024, 12:30 PM
Where: Deutsch Seminar Room 112, International Center
In socialist Eastern Europe, radio simultaneously produced state power and created the conditions for it to be challenged. As the dominant form of media in Czechoslovakia from 1945 until 1969, Communist officials, broadcast journalists, and audiences used radio technologies and institutions to negotiate questions of citizenship and rights. Here, I reconstruct the relationship between radio reporters and the listeners who liked and trusted them while recognizing that they produced both propaganda and entertainment. With recourse to listeners’ feedback, captured in thousands of pieces of fan mail, I show how a non-democratic society established, stabilized, and reproduced itself.
Dr. Rosamund Johnston is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna. She has also authored one book of public history, Havel in America: Interviews with American Intellectuals, Politicians, and Artists, released by Czech publisher Host in 2019.
Her work has appeared in Central European History, the Journal of Cold War Studies, East Central Europe, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Scottish newspaper The National, and on public broadcaster Czech Radio. She is currently researching the global history of Czechoslovakia between 1954 and 1994 through its arms trade.
