Underexplored social history of Latvian Radio and Latvian Television: radio and television audience research in Soviet Latvia

Based on a study of the archives of letters and sociological studies of the former LPSR Television and Radio Broadcasting Committee and other evidence of history, the study explores Soviet radio and television relations within the 20th century in Latvia.
An analysis of the results of audience studies conducted by Soviet radio and TV sociologists will provide an insight into the practices of radio and television use of its time. In addition to this task, research into the discourse of radio and TV programme makers, functionalists of these institutions and ideologues, encouraged by the results of the sociological survey of the audience, is planned. This will explain not only how people consumed Soviet radio and TV, but also how these radio and TV practices were interpreted by content makers, radio and TV management, ideological supervisors of these institutions.
Although historical media audience research has recently been becoming more popular outside Latvia, this research direction is still underdeveloped in Latvia. This applies to historical popular culture consumption research in general. The Latvian Soviet radio and TV institutional history, content, but little knowledge of the audience, has been studied alongside the memoir literature. This project will thus contribute significantly to the development of this research field in Latvia and to the strengthening of the social history research tradition in general.