The private zone :

Abstract

The respondents were asked to consider how freely they discussed news from foreign radio stations with the members of their families, their friends, their co-workers, acquaintances and strangers. The bulk of the respondents freely shared this information with trusted persons such as family, friends and some of their co-workers without fear that they would be betrayed to the authorities. Therefore, in 1973, there appeared to be a "private zone" around these people in which they could communicate information from an unofficial source without real fear of punishment. However, this private zone did not appear to extend out to acquaintances or strangers because the respondents appeared to resist sharing information from foreign radio stations with people in these categories of association out of fear of the consequences of being reported to the authorities.

This study, through personal interviews with recent Soviet Jewish emigres now living in the United States, documents the news gathering habits of the respondents while they still lived in the Soviet Union. During the summer of 1980, 104 emigres were questionned about how they obtained news information they could trust concerning the 1973 Middle East War, even though they lived at the time under a political regime which outwardly claims the undivided attention and loyalty of the Soviet mass audience for its own party press.

The private zone phenomenon seems significant in several ways. First, it suggests that the objective of the Party to completely control the Soviet communications environment was unreached as of the early 1970's. Secondly, it suggests that the Party had acquiesced in the late 1960's and early 1970's to the thorough penetration of the same environment by foreign radio services broadcasting all forms of "anti-Soviet" propaganda. A "totalitarian" state operated in such a fashion may not be totalitarian after all. Or, it may still be wholly totalitarian, but temporarily experimenting with ways to control Soviet society without resorting to the tactics of mass terror which were commonplace in Stalin's day.

Not only do the official sources appear to be lacking in terms of credibility, but it appears that many Soviet citizens regularly turn to unofficial and unauthorized sources of news information to satisfy their curiosity about world affairs--sources such as rumor, personal communication with persons outside of the Soviet Union, foreign shortwave radio stations and the like. This behavior, of course, is officially abhored by the Communist Party.

The respondents indicated that during the time of the 1973 war, they relied principally on foreign shortwave radio services such as the Voice of America and the BBC. The official Soviet press was not ignored, but largely discounted as a source of reliable news.

For years, analysts of Soviet affairs have sensed that there may be a gap between the information provided by the Soviet domestic news services and what much of the Soviet audience actually believes is the truth. Apparently, many Soviet citizens find the official Soviet sources to be lacking in terms of reliability and credibility.