Promoting Free Media: Informing the 1989 Velvet Revolution and the Challenge Today
Czechs and Slovaks regained their freedom in November 1989 through non-violent protests in Prague, Bratislava, and other towns of then Czechoslovakia. Their Velvet Revolution climaxed a decade of renewed civic challenges to a repressive Communist regime that began with Charter 77 dissidents including Vaclav Havel and accelerated after 1986. Twenty five years after the Velvet Revolution, Europe today is whole and free, but democracy and prerequisite independent media are on the decline in much of the former Soviet Union and elsewhere. RFE/RL, now operating from Prague, VOA, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Network, and Radio Marti, all publicly funded by the U.S. Congress, work to redress the information deficit.
Overview
The Woodrow Wilson Center, in cooperation with the Embassy of the Czech Republic & Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, present
Promoting Free Media:聽Informing the 1989 Velvet Revolution and the Challenge Today
Thursday, October 16, 2014, 2:00pm-6:00pm
Woodrow Wilson Center, 6th Floor Auditorium
Czechs and Slovaks regained their freedom in November 1989 through non-violent protests in Prague, Bratislava, and other towns of then Czechoslovakia. Their Velvet Revolution climaxed a decade of renewed civic challenges to a repressive Communist regime that began with Charter 77 dissidents including Vaclav Havel and accelerated after 1986. Deprived of objective information about developments in their own country, Czechs and Slovaks turned to the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and other Western broadcasters for information. Only through Western radio did they learn about accelerating challenges to Communist orthodoxy in Poland, Hungary, and the Soviet Union and about ferment in their own country.
Twenty five years after the Velvet Revolution, Europe today is whole and free, but democracy and prerequisite independent聽media are on the decline in much of the former Soviet Union and elsewhere. RFE/RL, now operating from Prague, VOA, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Network, and Radio Marti, all publicly funded by the U.S. Congress, work to redress the information deficit.
This Wilson Center event will feature two panels. A first panel will review the contribution of Western broadcasting to the successful Velvet Revolution and consider lessons from that experience. A second panel will examine the challenge faced today by the United States in providing objective information to authoritarian countries and in applying principles of successful Cold War broadcasting to communicating with unfree societies.
Speakers
A. Ross Johnson
Senior Adviser, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; former Director, Radio Free Europe
David Kramer
R. Eugene Parta
Jiri Pehe
Petr Gandalovic
Alexandr Vondra
Kevin Klose
Nenad Pejic
Tania Chomiak-Salvi
Pavel Pechacek
Hosted By
History and Public Policy Program
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Cold War International History Project
The Cold War International History Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War. Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporary聽legacies.聽It is part of 澳门六合彩's History and Public Policy Program. Read more
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