Only fifty years ago, but mass media was radio (no transister radios or walkman's), no color TV, no super-data-highway for high speed communication of images.
News Images of the day were filmed, and shown weeks later in Cinemas, or
photographed and printed in daily newspapers and monthly journals.
During the allied occupation of Austria, there was no development of TV in the small "buffer" country between the East and West. It was controlled by each of the four military zones, and each had it's own broadcasting structure and stations, and as each controlled forces in their region (French, American, Russian and British) they used TV as a propaganda and information vehicle.
It was not until 1953, that VHF transmitting equipment was even allowed to
be tested in Austria, even though the Allied Council had been petitioned
for the return of its broadcast and communication system several times.
When the Allies departed, they finally had to return control of TV
to the Austrian Federal Government. On July 27, 1955, the "funkhaus"
in Vienna broadcast the last RUSSIAN HOUR, the propaganda program of
the Soviet Forces, and simultaneously "Radio Rot-Weiss-Rot"
ceased broadcasting in Vienna and Salzburg.
Austria's current system of Television, Radio and Telecommunications is one of the last remaining communications monopolies in Europe. It is state owned, controlled and managed. There is no private or commercial TV allowed in Austria, and no Public Access Cable TV exists, either. But, as visitors to Ars Electronica since1986 have witnessed, the ORF is a serious promoter of innovative and experimental television work by artists, especially for international festivals and events.
When Americas entered the War in 1941, the advance of the television industry was stopped in their country, and most broadcasting was suspended as Wartime Code banned many programs and froze all new station construction to conserve war materials. In 1945 - the year WW II was declared ended - there were only about 6000 TV sets in operation the entire world. But, sales of TV sets in America during 1947 doubled the number of new living room centerpieces. Sales continued to increase at unprecedented rates for the following four decades. There was no national TV -- or any international broadcast-- existing in Austria, the USA or the Soviet Union in 1945 - there still were no microwave links for television transmission or satellites.
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Ten years later in the USA and twenty years later in Russia - the time
distance from the horrors of WW II allowed for it to be humored too
- and humanized.
Popular 1960's shows like "Hogans Heros" (smart Americans in a German prisoner of war camp outsmart their fumbling captors) emerged, and the 1970's Russian program "Four Tank Drivers and a Dog" was the most popular Moscow TV series. TV continued to reinforce the fears of cold war era in re-runs, while the Korean War of the 1950's was recreated in the 1960s comedy series M*A*S*H, which relieved tensions and memories.
The Vietnam War changed the tone, and the tempo of military reality - and live news reports shocked Americans into their eventual rejection of the political support for it.
The 1990s brought another kind of reality to TV and War - both in America and in Europe. The Gulf War -- also known as the CNN's Living Room War - showed the world a methodical suppression of information, clear censorship and the analytical use of high tech weapons. Citizens in American could only tune into alternative satellite programming offered by Deep Dish TV's "Gulf War Series".
In Europe, the breaking up of the Communist block was televised to
the world, and the bloody revolutions throughout East Europe (which
began with the celebration and breaking down of the Berlin Wall and
the unification of Berlin) often took place in order to gain control of
the television.
The struggle for democracy in the East was also a revolution for the control of television, and the battles to occupy TV centers played a major role in the power struggles in Russia, Romania, Latvia, Czechoslovakia and other Eastern countries. When it lost TV, the Communist Party and its apparatchicks total control of communication to its citizens, and the world.
A particularly daring Russian program during the early days of Glasnost was "Fifth Wheel" in St. Petersburg (then Lenningrad) - which was one of three programs (along with "600 Seconds" and "Public Opinion") that tested the new media freedoms by allowing non-Partyline opinions to be expressed about political and cultural issues.
