Massenmedien in der ländlichen Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus – am Beispiel der Agrarpresse

The article investigates the role of the mass media in rural society in Nazi Germany with an emphasis on the agrarian press. An overview of the literature concerning the diffusion of the provincial press, rural broadcast and village cinemas between 1933 and 1945 highlights the importance of the mass media for the ‘cultural modernisation’ of rural society. These insights are being deepened by a case study focusing on an official farmers’ journal in the province of Niederdonau in former Austria from 1938 to 1944. By combining quantitative and qualitative content analyses of about 9.000 headlines, the main strategies of the editors are being explored: the downgrading of the ideological concept of the ‘peasant’ (Bauer) and the upgrading of the more pragmatic concept of the ‘farmer’ (Landwirt); the Germanisation of nationality and other layers of collective identities; the outline of a hierarchically structured ‘rural people’ (Landvolk) governed by the experts of the Reich Food Estate (Reichsnährstand); the construction of German agriculture as a ‘national farm’ led by the state. However, the case of a column in the journal which was abandoned shortly after its introduction reveals the limits of encoding meanings by the editors as well as the possibilities of decoding meanings by the readers as an ‘active audience’.