EBP #2

 EBP #2

Mass Media and the Diffusion of Collective Action in Authoritarian Regimes: The June 1953 East German Uprising

Charles Crabtree, Holger L Kern, Steven Pfaff

 

This reading explores the question of how mass media influences protest mobilisation. It starts out with the assumption that foreign mass media has a mobilising effect on a population under an authoritarian regime. However, a study that investigates the effect of the RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) on the June 1953 uprising through its signal strength across East Germany, shows that it is more likely that social connections distribute protest ideas more effectively.

Uprising in June 1953:

After the defeat of Germany in World War Two, Soviet Russia occupied East Germany and established the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The main ruling party was the Socialist Unity Party (SED), which sought to “construct socialism” over this area of Germany. This involved the rapid development of heavy industry, centralising economic planning, and an intense militarisation. Social unrest began to grow when the public noticed the amount of the small budget that was being spent on developing the military, in the presence of pressing social concern. As described by Ross (1998) there was a “widespread indignation of workers.” The regime was very authoritarian, with totalitarian features, as it penetrated most facets of society, repressing religious organisations and other freedoms of assembly including workplace councils, replacing them with strict stat-controlled unions. Furthermore, rule was personalised and consolidated by the removal of politically unreliable members of the party. Public disillusionment with the party is extremely clear through the 187,000 East Germans who left to West Germany in 1952 alone.

Yet the causes of these uncertainties were not limited to the actions of the party itself, but also by events occurring in Russia. Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 increased the precariousness of the regime, as with this personality cult that united all members of the soviet leadership, divisions occurred.

Despite disagreements within the SED, leader Walter Ulbricht continued with the enforcement of unpopular policies. These included increasing work expectations and restricting food rations, exasperating the economic hardships faced by the working class. East Berlin’s construction sector was particularly affected, carrying out occasional protests. These grew in intensity until 1953, when mass protests occurred, demanding that the SED decrease expected work hours. This expanded to issues such as demands for the release of political prisoners, demands for free elections, and, most extremely, the resignation of the current government.

On June 17, 1953, these protests spread rapidly and intensely over East Germany. Despite being unexpected for the SED due to policies and changes that met the requirements of previous protests, martial law enacted by soviet military forces quelled the unrest.

The question that this reading poses is how was protest so successfully widely spread over East Germany? There are two main hypotheses that seek to answer this.

1.       Media-driven diffusion hypothesis: areas with better access to RIAS were more likely to experience protests.

2.       Relational Diffusion Hypothesis: areas closer to East Berlin were more likely to experience protests.

The media-driven diffusion hypothesis sees the effects of mass media under authoritarian regimes, these effects include:

-            Making individual actions visible to the wider public

-            Validation of ideas that individuals might believe are unique to them

-            Informs citizens of protests elsewhere, encouraging similar tactics and expanding protest movements over regional divides.

In East Germany in particular, the RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) is thought to be integral to the 1953 uprising. There are several reasons listed as to why this could be the case.

1.       Many protesters admitted to listening to the broadcast

2.       Protest slogans were taken directly from the broadcast, Egon Bahr, RIAS’s political editor stating that he felt a “thrill of responsibility” when this happened.

3.       The RIAS had detailed coverage of the protests

4.       Other possible causes identified by historians such as the death of Stalin were “ambiguous, poorly understood by the population, and too general to be persuasive explanations.”

Most interestingly, the RIAS broadcasts contrasted with the silence from official East German Media. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the protests were so successfully widespread, as the SED did not engage in flooding as a censorship strategy. While fear and friction are preventative measures that stop people from consuming the media that a regime does not see as beneficial to its longevity, whilst flooding is perhaps a less direct form of censorship, but equally as effective. It focusses not on eliminating opposing messages but rather providing numerous alternatives that are much more entertaining, easily accessible, and distracting than the censored media (Roberts, 2014). This did not occur in East Germany, which contributes to the effectiveness of the RIAS as mass media and a means to mobilise the population.

However, evidence from this reading’s study shows no correlation between access to the RIAS and likelihood of protest.

 

Rather, from the data gathered it appears more likely that the second hypothesis is correct – that proximity to East Berlin affects the likelihood of protest. This is due to interpersonal spread of information.

In authoritarian regimes, freedom of assembly is limited, and political groups, or groups that have the potential to be political are normally banned, and East Germany was no exception. Because of this, people’s circles tend to revolve around their immediate community including friends and family, resulting in tight-knit groups who tend to share ideological values. This makes them very active in resistance, leading to high participation in protests, however, rely on the normally weaker ties between these groups to spread this resistance, restricting the broader spread of the protest.

In East Germany, protest diffusion was strong in the highly localised social networks in nearby communities that had strong ties with one another. However, the communities that were geographically distant from these points of protest did not participate in protest as much.

Therefore, this study comes to the conclusion that spatial diffusion of protest was more influential in the 1953 uprising in East Germany than RIAS broadcasts.

The reading explains two main implications of this conclusion:

-            The United States’ side of the Cold War broadcasted anti-communist ideologies to communist countries in the hope that it would facilitate change and continued to do so after the end of the war. However, this research shows that this would have been futile, as broadcasting has little influence over political uprisings and change.

-            This research is in keeping with current ideas around how social media can facilitate protest a lot more effectively than mass media can.

This second implication might not seem obvious at first, as one might group digital media with forms of mass media, but in reality it acts more like social communities than mass media. Hanrath and Leggewie (2013) describe the difference between “one-to-many” media and “many-to-many” media as the facilitation of “individualised mass communication.” Drawing parallels to the study by Crabtree et al. Hantrath and Leggewie discuss the importance of the “weak ties” between online communities to mobilise protest. I think it is this community model of online filter-bubbles and echo-chambers that really shows how mass media has ess of an effect on protest as we might expect. This is incredibly clear in right-wing populist online communities, as the very existence of them shows a rejection of mainstream “authoritarian” media. There is no wonder in times of oppressive authoritarian that mass media is not listened to as it appears to be doing the same thing as the regime – imposing knowledge from a ‘higher’ or ‘more superior’ point. Communities, however, inherently oppose authoritarianism in their structure.

References:

Crabtree, Charles et al. (2018). Mass Media and the Diffusion of Collective Action in Authoritarian Regimes: The June 1953 East German Uprising. International Studies Quarterly. 62(2) pp 301-314.

Hanrath, J., & Leggewie, C. (2013). Revolution 2.0? The role of digital media in political mobilisation and protest. Peace-Development-Environment, 37.

Roberts, M. E. (2014). Fear, Friction, and Flooding: Methods of Online Information Control (Order No. 3627075). Available from ProQuest One Academic; Social Science Premium Collection. (1557761530). https://go.openathens.net/redirector/wgtn.ac.nz?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/fear-friction-flooding-methods-online-information/docview/1557761530/se-2

Ross, C. D. (1998). Constructing socialism at the grass-roots: The transformation of East Germany, 1945-1965 (Order No. U641949). Available from ProQuest One Academic. (1728062174). https://go.openathens.net/redirector/wgtn.ac.nz?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/constructing-socialism-at-grass-roots/docview/1728062174/se-2