Київські історичні студії (Jun 2025)
Soviet Chernobyl vs American Three Mile Island: Information Space as a Factor in Social Crisis
Abstract
The article is devoted to the study of the features of communication and information policy during the periods of the two most famous nuclear accidents of the 20th century: at the Three Mile Island NPP in the USA (1979) and at the Chernobyl NPP in the USSR (1986). The author studies the communicative, media and psychological aspects that determined the information policy of both countries during the crisis period. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that these aspects are considered in connection for the first time. The main attention is paid to comparing the level of openness of information and the methods of its presentation in the conditions of two different political systems – democratic and totalitarian. In the USA, the Three Mile Island accident was accompanied by problems in coordinating messages, which caused some confusion in informing the public. At the same time, the American media had the opportunity to promptly cover the events, which contributed to the rapid formation of public discourse. In the USSR, information about the Chernobyl disaster was subject to strict state control: in the early stages, the authorities resorted to silence, and later to distortion of facts, which significantly influenced public opinion both in the country and abroad. The study also examines the role of the psychological factor in the perception of accidents through the prism of the information space. In the USA, the inconsistency of official messages led to an increase in distrust of the government, but the open information space allowed society to quickly adapt to reality. In contrast, in the USSR, information isolation contributed to the spread of rumors and panic, which subsequently led to an increase in social tension and a crisis of trust in the authorities. The author concludes that the nature of the provision of information directly influenced the level of public anxiety, the behavioral reactions of the population, and the political consequences of the disasters. The experience of the two accidents became an important lesson for the further development of crisis communication, in particular in the field of nuclear energy. The methodological toolkit for revealing the topic is based on a comprehensive approach that combines comparative analysis, media content analysis, discourse analysis, and the case study method.
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