Table 3

"Which stations were important to you in helping you to form this opinion [on the U.S. course in Vietnam]?"

matter over by themselves" (see Table 2) suggested a measure of distrust for all communications media.

The differences among the Hungarian, Polish, and Czechoslovak results should not obscure the fact that a quarter of the Czechoslovak, a third of the Hungarian, and two-fifths of the Polish respondents ascribed to RFE a decisive influence on their Vietnam attitudes. Combining the three national samples produces the following results:

For every respondent whose attitudes to Vietnam were influenced by BBC, nearly four were influenced by the regime station. The comparable ratio for VOA was 1:5. Of the three major Western stations, obviously only RFE is at present capable of effectively challenging the domestic radio on issues like Vietnam.

IV. Attitudes To The U.S. Course In Vietnam By Regular RFE Listeners

Table 4, below, compares the attitudes of regular RFE listeners (defined as people who tune in more than once a week) with those of the others in the three samples. Irregular listening (less than once a week) was reported by under 10% of the interviewees. The "others" therefore consist mainly of non-listeners.

Table 4

Attitudes of Regular RFE Listeners and "Others" to the U.S. Course in Vietnam

Interestingly, the degree of approval by regular RFE listeners was lowest among the Hungarians, higher among the Poles, and highest (although by a very narrow margin) among the Czechs and Slovaks, while the same ranking, at a considerably lower quantitative level, prevailed among the "others." It is equally significant that the only sample in which regular RFE listeners opposing the U.S. course in Vietnam (37%) outnumbered those favoring it (26%) was the Hungarian, in which the "others" rejected the U.S. course by a six to one ratio.

The Polish results deserve scrutiny. They indicate an especially close rapport between RFE and its Polish regular listeners, as shown by the very sharp split between the attitude patterns of the regular listeners and the others. Polish approval of the U.S. course in Vietnam was twice as frequent—and disapproval half as frequent-among regular RFE listeners as among the "others." In regard to regular RFE listeners, the proposition of unqualified opponents of the U.S. course in Vietnam was smaller for the Poles than for the Hungarians or even the Czechs and Slovaks.

A quantitative expression of the differences between the attitudes of RFE's regular listeners and the others can be given by a new approval index of both groups in the three national samples. The index is computed by subtracting negative attitudes ("U.S. course is wrong") from positive attitudes ("U.S. course is right")-disregarding indecisive answers and refusals.

The degree of attitudinal difference between the regular RFE listeners and the others is, for each of the three countries, expressed by the "distance" between the two figures. That distance is the largest in the case of the Polish sample-"70". The Hungarian sample ("52") follows, and then the Czechoslovak sample ("38"). Looked at in this way, the impact of RFE upon its Polish regular listeners appears extremely impressive. They provided the highest net approval index for the U.S. course in Vietnam in spite of a powerful hostility on this score among the remainder of the Polish sample. By the same token, RFE's impact on its regular listeners in Czechoslovakia seems to be less decisive-with regard to Vietnam-than in either Poland or Hungary, since Czechoslovak public opinion, as reflected by the preliminary findings under discussion, is generally less hostile to the U.S. course in Vietnam. It has already been shown (Section III) that Table 4's evidence of RFE's variant impact among regular listeners in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland has the support of other data.

V. Evidence Of Direct Effect Of RFE On Attitudes to Vietnam

The 476 Hungarian, Polish, and Czechoslovak interviewees who regarded RFE as an important influence on their attitude toward Vietnam were asked to specify how RFE broadcasts affected their opinions. [See Table 5.]

Nearly half of the Hungarians, nearly two-fifths of the Czechoslovaks, and nearly a third of the Poles who listed RFE as an important influence on their attitude to Vietnam (see Table 2) revealed that RFE was the decisive influence. It was RFE which "made them think the way they do" or which, less frequently, dissipated an earlier attitude and thus "changed their opinion."

Significantly, RFE's attitude-forming role was most pronounced in the case of the Hungarians, who represent a public opinion predominantly hostile to the U.S. course in Vietnam (see Table 1). In this generally critical climate, tendentious regime propaganda about the war itself, emphasizing its "David and Goliath" aspect, exerts a heavier impact. And, more important, "discussions with others" tend to reinforce negative rather than positive attitudes toward the U.S. line in Vietnam. Under such circumstances, positive attitudes to the U.S. course in Vietnam are more strongly in need of RFE's support in Hungary than, for instance, in Czechoslovakia.

GENERALLY, A MASS MEDIUM IS ALREADY CONSIDERED VERY EFFECTIVE WHEN IT SUCCEEDS IN REINFORCING EXISTING ATTITUDES. TABLE 5 CLEARLY SHOWS THAT, AS FAR AS THE VIETNAM ISSUE IS CONCERNED, RFE'S IMPACT WENT BEYOND REINFORCEMENT: IN A LARGE NUMBER OF CASES ATTITUDES WERE ACTUALLY FORMED AND CHANGED!

CONCLUSIONS

Attitudes to the U.S. course in Vietnam may be regarded as a sound test of RFE's impact and effectiveness as a communicator in East Central

Europe. The Vietnam issue is salient enough to provoke opinions (only 5% or less failed to answer the first question) but still stands apart from the respondents' most immediate personal concerns.

Two findings desire particular emphasis:

1) Many interviewees indicated that their attitudes to the U.S. course in Vietnam were formed under the direct influence of RFE. The implication is that any full or partial endorsement of American policy was due not to a general predisposition in favor of "U.S. courses" but to the specific content of RFE communications on the subject of Vietnam.

2) RFE listeners were far from unanimous in approving the U.S. policy in Vietnam.

This is an important finding. It indirectly reasserts that RFE listeners are an integral part of the active public opinion by which they are influenced and which they in turn can influence. Had the results shown the attitudinal patterns of RFE listeners on this issue to be the exact opposite of the remainders of the three samples, there would have been a question of whether or not RFE's Vietnam broadcasts "preach only to the converted." By extension, RFE could have been suspected of talking to the completely disaffected and them alone. Whatever the actual numbers of the disaffected, their role in any gradual and patient transformation of economic, political, and "power" relationships from within can be only limited. The results presented in this preliminary report show that RFE's audience covers a broad range of the attitudinal spectrum. There seems to be no danger that the station's message might fail to reach those people, both inside the "Communist Establishment" and outside it, through whom progressive changes in East Central Europe must come.

USING MOTION PICTURES TO AID INTER-CULTURAL
COMMUNICATION*

BY NEIL P. HURLEY, S. J.

The author, who has experimented with screen education, believes there are three types of film. He outlines six rules which explain why motion pictures are capable of creating intercultural bonds among peoples of the world. Twelve films are evaluated in terms of their contribution to intercultural communication.

From their very inception, motion pictures enjoyed a world-wide appeal. Without the barrier of language and all the accompanying cultural and psychological associations, films crossed political boundaries with the ease of the weather. Charlie Chaplin, of all the performers on the silent screen, became known rapidly by such endearing names as Charlot (France), Carlos (Spain), Carlito (Latin America), and Kärlchen (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). Vision became language as the silent

*From The Journal of Communication, XVIII (June 1968), pp. 97-108. Reprinted with the permission of the Journal of Communication, copyright holder, and the courtesy of the author.

film learned to touch that universal cord latent in mankind. True, there were still cultural factors which influenced popularity in varying degrees. For example, Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" was a distinct product of American culture just as Eisenstein's "Potemkin" was unmistakably a Soviet statement. Nevertheless, in both instances, the audiences overlooked the conditioning factors of time and space as the magic of the camera depicted mutiny, slavery, rebellion, death, and sacrifice in an historical reconstruction hitherto unknown to mankind. In the pre-talkie era, motion pictures served as channels of inter-cultural communication. Yes, motion pictures ushered twentieth-century man into the "imaging revolution" where psychology was as important as logic, where social context ranked with the traditional moral evaluation of the individual, where mood rivalled categorical statements, and emotion was as weighty as reason. Perhaps the end of "typographic man," to use Marshall McLuhan's phrase, came between the two great wars when a global audience made up of all classes, races, creeds, ages, and sexes could, for a modest admission fee, see the implications and consequences of human involvement in every conceivable circumstance of life. Women vibrated in empathy with Greta Garbo in her tragic portrayals of Anna Karenina, Queen Christina, and Mata Hari, and were attracted by Douglas Fairbanks and Ramon Novarro. Men learned about femmes fatales such as Pola Negri and Marlene Dietrich and identified with heroes such as William S. Hart, Clark Gable, and Leslie Howard. Children learned about the Wild West, gangsterism, war, and the adult world through a Tom Mix, a James Cagney, a Jean Gabin, a Humphrey Bogart, a Frederic March, or a Charles Laughton.

Unfortunately, because motion pictures have been seen largely as a profit-seeking venture; educators, parents, and the cultural guardians of society have been late in recognizing its potential as a formative and informative instrument for creating the bases of community: shared experiences at the affective and cognitive levels. One reason is that the image is so close to us that we take it for granted. Curiously children understand pictures more readily than adults as Antoine de SaintExupery indicated in The Little Prince. Whenever he drew a boa constrictor which has swallowed an elephant, adults thought it was a hat until he drew the elephant inside the swollen body of the boa constrictor. Something very similar takes place in the cinema. We see the thematic expression but not the non-thematic reality with which the film artists have to work. The hidden elephant in every media experience is the set of rules of the particular communications game. For instance, there are six such rules which explain why motion pictures are capable of creating intercultural bonds among peoples of the world.

1. A physical law-that a transparent plastic material sufficiently flexible to unwind from a reel could produce a number of swiftly moving still images.