Richard Oehmig
Completed PhD project

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)

This study pursues the aim of examining the international television programme trade from a media and cultural history perspective, using the example of East German television. The focal point of the analysis is the central question:
Which effects did the international programme trade have on the overall national programme of East German television and which feedback processes can be derived from this at the level of cultural policy and economics?
The study proposes the hypothesis of an expansive penetration of central, socialist ideals by means of the perpetual import of programmes. This assumption, which no doubt needs justifying, is based, among other things, on the insight that cooperative relations developed and continued between the socialist and capitalist camps in spite of the political realities of the ‘Cold War’. These relations also provide indicators for the internal dynamics of media systems.

The PhD project was part of the completed research project "Transnationale Medienbeziehungen in Europa: Internationaler Programmaustausch und kultureller Transfer als Bausteine einer europäischen Medienkultur"