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Based on a case study of the import of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) children's programme Unser Sandmännchen to Sweden in the early 1970s, this article explores the cultural recoding at work in the processes of transnational media exchange. Using archival source material from both Germany and Sweden as well as Swedish press debate, the article argues for an entangled media perspective on Cold War East-West cultural exchanges. In the process of transfer, Unser Sandmännchen, called John Blund in Sweden, was transformed from a calm, socialist hero to an outspoken and sometimes rude capitalist. This was the result of the active agency of individual entrepreneurs as well as the turnout of the political ambitions of Swedish and East German state television institutions. In Sweden, although stripped from its possible ideological content, the cultural transfer of Unser Sandmännchen contributed to strengthening the relations between the two countries and to opening up Swedish relations to the GDR in areas well beyond the media sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the transnational production processes of foreign correspondence in the Cold War. It examines the double role of foreign correspondents as reporters and Cold War political agents. Recent scholarship has explored the activities of Western correspondents reporting from the Communist world. Little is known, however, about Eastern bloc correspondents in the West. Drawing on the rarely studied files on East German foreign correspondents held by the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, the article problematizes the image of GDR journalists as obedient intelligence officers and highlights the dilemmas of journalists deployed to defend national interests. Focusing on the Nordic countries in the mid1970s, the article provides detailed insights into the politics and practices of East German foreign correspondence before the digital revolution. The article thus shows the benefits of going beyond the traditional focus on media content to analyse the daily practices as well as the political and symbolic significance of journalism. It contributes to the growing historical research on foreign correspondents and the media in East Germany and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article opens a new perspective on Finland's Cold War history by highlighting the role of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) in providing information about the German Democratic Republic as a particular polity, economy, and key player in the European Cold War landscape. The analysis is based on search results from the YLE digital database (Metro) from 1970-1989, and it is supported by documents from the German Broadcasting Archive [Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv] and the YLE company archive. The archive documents and metadata testify about a long-term interest in East Germany in Finnish television, as well as long-term contacts and collaboration between East German and Finnish television companies, in the executive as well as at grass roots levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]