Don't need no thought control

western culture in East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall

Gerd Horten (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

268 Seiten

2024 | 1. Auflage
Berghahn Books (Verlag)
978-1-80539-146-3 (ISBN)

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The fall of the Berlin Wall is typically understood as the culmination of political-economic trends that fatally weakened the East German state. Meanwhile, comparatively little attention has been paid to the cultural dimension of these dramatic events, particularly the role played by Western mass media and consumer culture. With a focus on the 1970s and 1980s, Don’t Need No Thought Control explores the dynamic interplay of popular unrest, intensifying economic crises, and cultural policies under Erich Honecker. It shows how the widespread influence of (and public demands for) Western cultural products forced GDR leaders into a series of grudging accommodations that undermined state power to a hitherto underappreciated extent.

Gerd Horten is Emeritus Professor of History at Concordia University, Portland, Oregon. His first book, Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War II, was published by the University of California Press in 2002, and he has published articles in journals including German History and German Studies Review.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Disempowering a Dictatorship—Media and Consumer Culture in East Germany

Chapter 1. Successful Media Campaigns in East Germany in the 1960s and 1970s: The Vietnam War and the 1972 Olympics

Chapter 2. Fade Out: Hollywood Movie Imports and the Cultural Surrender of the GDR Film Control in the 1970s and 1980s

Chapter 3. The Westernization of East German Television in the 1970s and 1980s

Chapter 4. Fighting Against All Odds: GDR Popular Music and Youth Radio in an International Context

Chapter 5. Western Consumer Culture or Bust: Intershops and East German Consumption Policies in the 1970s and 1980s

Epilogue: Out With the Old—In With the New? Wende, Ostalgie and the Serpentine Unification

Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum	13.12.2023
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Einbandart	kartoniert
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-80539-146-1 / 1805391461
ISBN-13	978-1-80539-146-3 / 9781805391463
Zustand	Neuware