TELEVISION AS A PROPAGANDA TOOL OF THE ROMANIAN COMMUNIST PARTY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE '70S
TELEVISION AS A PROPAGANDA TOOL OF THE ROMANIAN COMMUNIST PARTY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE '70S

Summary/Abstract: The present study discusses the evolution of the Romanian National Television as a propaganda tool of the Romanian Communist Party in the first part of the '70s. After a modest beginning in the second half of the '50s, the Romanian broadcaster developed quickly, gaining more and more subscriptions each year. TV shows and live transmissions began to improve during the '60s, especially after the inauguration of the new Television Centre, at the end of the decade. Television became popular amongst the Romanians, so the communist authority decided to use it as one of its principal vectors of propaganda. However, the beginning of the '70s is considered to be a golden era of the television in Romania. The propaganda broadcasts co-existed with the neutral TV shows during this decade, so the Romanian National Television was still significant for Romanian citizens. This study focuses on the propaganda broadcasts, following the main themes that were presented and the evolution of the ideological shows. The main sources used for this research are documents from the National Archives of Romania and the Archive of the Romanian Television Society. The main hypothesis of the study is that the Romanian Communist Party accepted the broadcasting of some foreign TV programs and also the Romanian entertainment shows because its officials wanted a loyal audience for the ideological transmission. Most of the broadcasts made by the Romanian national television at the beginning of the '70s contained a propaganda germ, that was going to affect later the whole schedule of the television, especially during the last decade of the Communist regime.

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