A többiek is próbáltak híradót csinálni, de nem tudtak”: Filmhíradók a koalíciós korszak médiamezőjében Magyarországon, 1945–1948

This paper explores the production, distribution, and consumption of newsreel in the media field during the multi-party coalition era between 1945 and 1948 in Hungary. Although newsreel had been a key medium of political communication in this era, the topic remained rather under-researched. Relying on Bourdieu’s conceptual framework of “fields” and “capitals”, we define the characteristics of the media field during this historical period and locate newsreel within that field. First, we introduce the concept of “audience capital” (a novel theoretical innovation). Audience capital refers to A) the size of the audience reached by a given medium and B) the trust of the public in that medium. We discuss the audience capital of competing newsreel by different producers. The paper uses both primary and secondary sources, concerning the political and media history of the era, including quantitative audience research from the period. The results show that newsreel had a large audience, but the audience probably trusted newsreel less than the contemporary party press. Second, we show that early acquisition of the technological production capacity of newsreel as well as cinemas (for showing newsreel) gave the Hungarian Communist Party an important advantage over other producers in the areas of newsreel production, distribution, and screening. However, economic considerations have remained important to all coalition parties, because party-owned cinemas generated considerable revenue for party financing. Finally, we conduct an original content analysis of the political coverage of the two available newsreels. Our analysis of the Weekly News (the central public service newsreel) shows a cautious, formal-representational approach to politics. In the Mafirt Chronicle (the Communist Party’s newsreel), however, clear political considerations were present all along. In strategic periods, these newsreels were also used openly for the propaganda and election campaign purposes of the Hungarian Communist Party.