Cold War stereotypes

Our research challenges these stereotypes, proposes a more nuanced understanding, and acknowledges the diversity of communist societies. Its reach has extended beyond academic circles via museum exhibitions in the UK, USA and Eastern Europe as well as a BBC television documentary.

^{Image: TV sets in a shop window display in Budapest, c1972 (Fortepan/Erky-Nagy Tibor)}

Notable studies include research on the print media in Yugoslavia, and the Screening Socialism project which examined television histories in five countries.

This project found that explicit propagandistic content was rare, and that programming had much in common with Western broadcasting whilst audience tastes were often at odds with official ideologies. It also revealed notable cross-country differences, with some countries more open to Western programming and more tolerant of dissent.

Another strand of research explored everyday life in the Soviet Union to understand how changes, following Stalin’s death, were experienced by ordinary people. An examination of the mass move to prefabricated housing in the 1960s shattered many stereotypes. Homemakers were not passive subjects and appropriated state-produced consumer goods in ways that transformed standard apartments into individualized homes .

Overall, this research challenges the stereotype of the communist East versus the liberal West and highlights the diversity of communist societies. We can no longer view communist countries as backward and pervaded by propaganda – they had much in common with the West.