The steering of the press in the socialist states of Eastern Europe: the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as a case study

The present essay will examine the practice of media steering in the GDR to demonstrate how newspapers were used as tools of political public relations. In the struggle to achieve recognition from the population and the outside world, the GDR regime suppressed any information that might prove harmful to its own interests. This theoretical approach and the results of the present study contradict previous research that largely draws on theories about propaganda and totalitarianism, and conclude that the press in the GDR was monotonous, uniform and lacking in informational content.