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Article:
Epistemic Practices at Radio Free Europe. Production and Circulation of Cold War Knowledge (1950–1971)

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Abstract

In an institutional history inspired by the history of knowledge, this dissertation project analyses Radio Free Europe (RFE) as a social scientific and area studies research institution in the Cold War (1950 –1971). RFE is widely known and historically analyzed as the “voices of émigrés” in the West for listeners in Eastern and Central Eastern Europe. In these studies, however, the crucial epistemic role of RFE remains unexplored. My project will be the first analysis of the epistemic dimension of RFE, based on recently released sources. RFE maintained its own social scientific research department on Eastern and Central Eastern Europe. Firstly, this department’s task was to corroborate RFE’s own radio programs with need-oriented and basic social scientific research. Secondly, RFE deliberately made it accessible so that this research also circulated in western public as well as academic discourses. RFE became an epistemic mediator between the two blocs: In Eastern and Central Eastern Europe, RFE’s research reached the recipients via airwaves, and in the western world via RFE’s own Research Reports or magazines. Hence, RFE became one of the most important area studies research institutions with a focus on Eastern and Central Eastern Europe in the Cold War.

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Ottersbach, Simon: Epistemic Practices at Radio Free Europe. Production and Circulation of Cold War Knowledge (1950–1971). In: Rundfunk und Geschichte, Jg. 46 (2020), Nr. 3-4, S. 105-108.http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/19036
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