Keyword – state socialism

Kékesdi-Boldog, Dalma:

How Hungarian Television reported on the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster

Previous research on the Hungarian media representation of the Chernobyl nuclear accident looked into written and audio sources. Findings show that in the Soviet/communist media system, the daily newspapers have only communicated the danger indirectly, with only implicit hints. Despite a few hours of censorshipfree broadcasting on Hungarian Radio, the communication of the potential health effects of the disaster was neither accurate, nor satisfactory. Using the records of Hungarian Television, this paper attempts to explore the visual communication of the disaster and tries to reveal how state television applied visual communication tools. It asks the question of whether television viewers received more factual and detailed information about the accident than newspaper readers and radio listeners did.

Keywords: Chernobyl, Hungarian information policy, Hungarian Television, nuclear disaster, Soviet/communist media system, state socialism, visual communication