318 315 314 313 312 311 *** October 1971 APPENDIX 5. RADIO FREE EUROPE PUBLICATIONS USED The Major Information Sources of Hungarian September 1971 Domestic Issues An Audience Evaluation of RFE's Czech- September 1971 An Audience Evaluation of RFE's Rumanian September 1971 An Audience Evaluation of RFE's Polish August 1971 An Audience Evaluation of RFE's Hungarian August 1971 309 Party Preference Trends in Hypothetical July 1971 305 304 303 301 300 Listening to Western Radio in Bulgaria Be- May 1971 1970-March 1971) Audience Trends in Czechoslovakia (1967- May 1971 Rumanian Listening Patterns Before and May 1971 1971) Listening to Western Radio in Hungary Be- April 1971 Listening to Western Radio in Poland Be- April 1971 The Reliability of Radio Free Europe (May 1970-March 1971) 292 288 The Images of Radio Free Europe and 287 284 283 280 270 269 ents December 1970 The Images of Radio Free Europe and November 1970 The Image of Radio Free Europe and of October 1970 The Image Among Czechs and Slovaks of October 1970 Stations Identifying with Radio Free Europe August 1970 Rumanian Listening Patterns May 1969- May 1970 Listening to Western Radio in Poland-1969 May 1970 263 Listening to Western Radio Stations in February 1970 Hungary in 1969 259 256 245 239 238 237 235 Listening to RFE in Czechoslovakia in 1969 December 1969 Attitudes Toward Key Political Concepts in December 1969 ment of Meaning) BOUND STUDY Listening to Western Radio in East Europe July 1969 Listening to RFE Programs in Czechoslo- April 1969 Listening to Western Radio in Hungary in April 1969 Listening to Western Radio in Poland-1968 April 1969 234 Rumanian Listening Patterns 1968/69 230 223 222 221 219 218 March 1969 March 1969 January 1969 The Program Preferences of RFE's Hungar- December 1968 ian Listeners (A Technical Report) Listening to Western Radio in Hungary 1967/ November 1968 1968 Radio Free Europe's Listenership Trends Octiber 1968 1962-1968 Listening to Western Radio in Poland RFE's Audience in Czechslovakia After the October 1968 October 1968 151 Listening to Western Stations in Czecho- 133 Listening to Western Radio in Poland August 1966 August 1966 June 1966 December 1965 132 Rumanian Listening Patterns III 122 118 116 115 107 104 92 Hungarian Listening Patterns 1964-1965 December 1965 March 1965 Radio Listening Patterns and Program Pref- January 1965 Hungarian Attitudes Toward Other Nations December 1964 August 1964 Hungarian Listening Patterns Prior to the April 1964 Agitation or Information? East Europeans August 1963 NOTES 1. Alex Inkeles and Raymond Bauer, The Soviet Citizen (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961). 2. Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen; Klaus Mehnert, Der Sovietmensch (Stuttgart: Deutscher Verlag, 1958), pp. 13-14. AUDIENCE ANALYSIS AT RADIO LIBERTY* BY LORAND B. SZALAY Despite similarities between RL and RFE audiences, there are differences. The Soviet audiences pose special requirements which RL must meet to provide effective audience-adjusted broadcasting. Audience analysis, in such a situation, becomes a most elementary and vital requirement. SITUATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS, INSTITUTIONAL In its background and objectives, Radio Liberty shows some distinct similarities with Radio Free Europe. The similarities are especially important in respect to audience analysis. First of all, there is no direct physical access to the audiences toward which the station is primarily oriented, and there is little public opinion and feedback information on these main audiences. Moreover, the stations operate in a highly sensitive psychological and political atmosphere. Although little is actually known about the opinions and attitudes of these distant audiences, there are indications that during the last decades *Excerpts from "Audience Analysis at Radio Liberty," Congressional Record-Senate, Vol. 118, No. 33, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office (March 6, 1972), pp. S 3426-S 3428. they have developed some characteristics which distinguish them from comparable Western audiences. Despite the similarities between RL and RFE audiences, there are also some characteristic differences. The differences may have emerged as a function of the longer history of the Soviet Communism and the inbred nature of the Soviet system as compared to the largely imported nature of Eastern European Communist systems. The differences may also have resulted from the greater isolation of the Soviet population compared to the physically, geographically, and psychologically more exposed populations of the Eastern European border states. For the Soviet audiences there also appears to be a stronger association between nationalism and loyalty to the political system. There are indications that external criticism of the system may be more readily resented on primarily nationalistic grounds. There is a type of national pride in the Soviet world power status, space achievements, and sport successes which is effectively exploited by the political system for denouncing criticism and political opposition as "unpatriotic." The Eastern Europeans, however, do not take pride in Communism as a type of national achievement; rather it is generally viewed as a foreign imposition of Russian colonialism. It is not only the combination of strong national feelings with ideological elements which complicates the situation; a combination of nationalism and white Russian centralism also produces a hard-to-predict attitudinal mixture, which challenges minority nationalisms that work toward independence and separatism. All these factors and more contribute to making an especially complex communication task involving audiences with uncommon, occasionally highly ambivalent, feelings and philosophies. Thus, the Soviet audiences pose special requirements which Radio Liberty must meet in order to provide effective, audience-adjusted broadcasting. In such a situation audience analysis becomes a most elementary and vital requirement. At the same time, as a competent RL representative has expressed, no one in the West seems to have a very clear idea about the actual attitudes and beliefs of the broad Soviet citizenry. Under these conditions the proper selection and planning of broadcasting, which is large in volume and can rely on little first-hand audience feedback, becomes an immense task. The situational factors hampering audience analysis are overwhelming. Compared to the Eastern European development, they show only slow and minor improvements. The Soviet attitude of hostility has not mellowed, jamming is in full effect, and the number of travelers (RFE's major information source) has not shown a dramatic increase. Moreover, the campaign of denouncing Radio Liberty and discouraging cooperation with Radio Liberty has recently been further intensified. Listenership data are naturally very difficult to obtain in a closed society. In view of the Soviet system and the lack of surveys conducted on samples which would allow broad generalizations, it is impossible to give an empirically founded estimate on the actual proportions of the listenership. Nor is it possible to plot trends in the level of listening over time as Radio Free Europe has been doing for the last decade. Only a few general statements can be made which suggest that Radio Liberty is widely known and listened to. In a closed society where listening to a foreign station is an officially proscribed activity, statements on listening or nonlistening cannot be accepted without reservation. The impact of the station, however, goes beyond the direct listeners; it also involves those who receive the information by word of mouth. These percentages may run high but are especially hard to estimate. In an open society the proportions of listenership may directly express the popularity of particular stations. In a society of controlled public media, however, where there is an intensive awareness of news censorship, the numerical data on the direct listeners is not sufficient to give a realistic idea of the importance of a station. Under these conditions Radio Liberty does not feel that the situation is "thawed" to the point that they can provide public opinion research comparable to Radio Free Europe's. At the present time it is considered impossible to conduct open interviews on large visitor samples which could approximate in composition the home audiences. Whether this position is a legitimate one or merely an attitude based on past experiences is a debatable question which will be discussed later. Nonetheless, Radio Liberty now holds the position that audience analysis, at least for the time being, cannot be conducted on the principles of open public opinion research. It cannot use open, large-scale surveys, first of all, because by doing this Radio Liberty would expose its sources, who as Soviet citizens would be subject to political persecution. Furthermore, Radio Liberty feels that a detailed elaboration of the present procedures is undesirable at least in terms of specifics, which could be exploited and frustrate future efforts of data collection. Discussed in more general terms, Radio Liberty's audience analysis consits of three types of activities: a. Documentation of mail and press reactions. b. Panel evaluation of programs. c. Reports on interviews with Soviet travelers. DOCUMENTATION OF MAIL AND PRESS REACTIONS Especially in the past this category of audience reactions to RL broadcasts has represented a major information source. While the content of the audience mail reveals public sentiments, the flow of this information depends a great deal on the fluctuating level of censorship and suppression of private mail traffic. The content of this mail is conveyed by RL excerpts. This method is simple and commonsensical but provides little basis for broader generalizations and is not very convincing to the more skeptical. The central |