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between East and West as well as within each bloc (Risso, 2013). Its history of success is related to some intrinsic characteristics, namely, the production
features, distribution and consumption. It has a light production and reception, it is portable and flexible, immediate and ubiquitous, with a low budget
and a great reach due the orality and distribution patterns. In 1974, Portuguese population was poor and had a high level of analphabets. Therefore, radio
characteristics combined with the military experience in the colonial war came together in this very particular moment, marked by a revolutionary wave.
Radio and other media were used to inform but also to raise sympathy for political causes, either by military or politicians. Furthermore, radio stations
became the very stage of revolutionary struggle during the military coup of November 25, 1975, that would put an end to the radical political events. This
study seeks to reconstruct and analyze the dramatic events of that day, in Radio Clube Português. This radio station was controlled by a revolutionary com‑
mittee that nicked named it“the broadcast of Freedom”. The methodology will rely in research on newspapers and statements that will help to reconstruct
the events, as well as an analysis of discourse of the radio news and special announcements in order to better understand this fracturing process.
PP 388
International Radio Research and Politics: The Radio Audience in Greece During the Cold War
E. Kourti
1
1
University of Athens, School of Education, Athens, Greece
In this paper we present the design, implementation and evaluation of a clandestine, Radio audience research in Greece during the Cold War where Radio
played an important role in the ideological confrontation between East and West. This research was part of an extensive research study on the general
subject of communication behaviour in the Near and Middle East and was conducted, in the early 50ies, by the Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR)
of Columbia University for the "Voice of America", the "official spokesman” of the United States Government in the arena of international shortwave radio
at that time. Relying upon original unpublished documents from the BASR Archives (including the Minutes of the Advisory Committee and reports on radio
audience in Greece based on 300 qualitative interviews conducted between september 1950 and January 1951) we will discuss –through a historical and
contextual analysis- the results of this research on the image of radio in Greece, issues of public radio listening, audience’s choices and radio news critics
on foreign and domestic programs. Special emphasis will be given to the design of this research by the social scientists involved in this project (especially
Paul Lazarsfeld, Robert Merton and Leo Löwenthal) in order to present a body of proposals for the implementation of the United States objectives during
the ColdWar and at the same time to promote the creation of the new discipline of International Communication Research. The ethical questions raised by
the manner this project was conducted and reported are of continuing significance in the field of international communication .
PP 389
Radiobody. Deathcamp’s Imaginary Radio
G. Stachyra
1
1
Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Social Communication, Lublin, Poland
Can there be anything more damaging to the continuity of social relations than the war? Is there anything more destroying to human identity than death
camp, where human are slaughtered and await the death? Is it possible to overcome such circumstances through the memory that brings some hope?
The unprecedented example of “radio”that operated in German nazi death camp Majdanek in occupied Poland shows how without technical background,
within overwhelming hunger and terror, the female prisoners created symbolic radio, which had nearly all attributes of the real medium: the announcers,
daily schedule, jingles and the audience. In one of the barracks the women imitated radio programme, which gathered and united their listeners around
imaginary speakers and encouraged them to struggle for survival, recalled the bracing memories of pre-war times and strengthened the sense of com‑
munity and self-care. That way female bodies and voices became living radio-sets. Through the resemblance of radio ritual and its sonic signs Radio Maj‑
danek created an abstractive code, which served to purpose of perceiving the world and somehow re-constructing it. The power of Radio Majdanek lied in
the continuity of sense-creating process by the use of spoken word. The speech became substantial in making the basic human ties – the relation between
one being and the other. With the support of the remaining archive reports form the death camp the author traces the way that“radio voice”functioned in
the camp’s reality and what was its meaning to the prisoners’identity.