The GDR's "Junge Welt": Mouthpiece of the Communist Youth, Propaganda Vehicle, and the Public’s Favorite

• In Event: Political Journalism Between Autonomy and Propaganda

Abstract

The present study uses the example of the German Democratic Republic's (GDR) communist youth newspaper Junge Welt (Young World) to ask for the success of the printed press and radio and television broadcast in centrally controlled and supervised mass media systems. Against the background of Lasswell’s rather simple model of communication the authors assume that it is possible to identify potential causes for the success of this daily newspaper on every level of the mass media communication process: communicator (ownership, media steering, and editorial staff), content/medium and audience. With a view to cover these widely diverging fields, the present study is based on three types of sources: more than 1,000 files of the Federal Archives and the Stasi Archives in Berlin, interviews of eyewitnesses: 19 leading GDR journalists and media officials and qualitative as well as quantitative content analyses of the newspaper itself.

Authors

• Anke Fiedler, UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES

• Michael Meyen, U Munich