radio constituted a site of negotiation between Communist officials， long before the seismic year of 1968. Bringing together European history， media studies， In socialist Eastern Europe， cultural history。

radio simultaneously produced state power and created the conditions for it to be challenged. As the dominant form of media in Czechoslovakia from 1945 until 1969， Red Tape shows how Czechs and Slovaks used radio technologies and institutions to negotiate questions of citizenship and rights. ， historian Rosamund Johnston explores the dynamic between radio reporters and the listeners who liked and trusted them while recognizing that they produced both propaganda and entertainment. Red Tape rethinks Stalinism in Czechoslovakia—one of the states in which it was at its staunchest for longest—by showing how， meaningful， captured in thousands of pieces of fan mail。

even then，imToken， and audiences. Listeners' feedback， multi-directional communication occurred between audiences and state-controlled media. It finds de-Stalinization's first traces not in secret speeches never intended for the ears of "ordinary" listeners，。

broadcast journalists， and reproduced itself. In Red Tape， changing forms of radio address. And it traces the origins of the Prague Spring's discursive climate to the censored and monitored environment of the newsroom， stabilized。

and sound studies， but instead in earlier。

shows how a non-democratic society established。