The ‘Valley of the Clueless’ — Results From an Historical Eexperiment

Abstract

The region between Dresden and the Eastern border of Germany, also known as the valley of the clueless, could only receive local television stations during the years of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), as opposed to television reception in the rest of the GDR which also included stations from the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Hence, the populations in these two parts of the GDR were exposed to different mixes of television programming. In this article, a selection of public opinion surveys deposited at Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung in Cologne is analyzed regarding the differential impact of GDR and FRG television in shaping individualistic and communal values, values about life styles, images of the West German society, and evaluations of conditions in the GDR. Hypotheses on cultivation analysis and gratification studies are tested concerning variations in media use and the employment of alternative pursuits in other spheres of leisure pursuits. Results from these secondary analyses offer insight into the responses to GDR media in the historical circumstances of the valley as compared to the impact of FRG media in the rest of the GDR. While responses from the valley indicate that there was a far greater preponderance for the use of GDR media, limited access to FRG television did not produce outcomes dramatically different from those in the rest of the GDR.