As you all may be aware, a fire at the Ostankino tower in Moscow knocked out all radio and television broadcasting for the 10 million person Moscow metro area. The last thing I read, it’s still off-line and they have no way to restore service anytime soon. A week before broadcasting recommences is an optomistic estimate! As far as can be gathered, the old Soviet state broadcasting network put all its Moscow region eggs in the Ostankino basket – no backup transmitter – and when private radio and television stations came into being, they just rented transmitter space from Ostankino.
Anyhow, the first thought I had when I read the story was that that every person studying for a sociology degree at any level (undergrad, masters, or doctorate) would beg, borrow, or steal to catch the first plane or train to Moscow right away. A complete cutoff of radio & television in a major city of a modern (well…) society would surely have so many interesting effects – foreseeable and unforeseeable – on people’s behavior. I know from the media on this side of the pond that newspapers are selling like hotcakes and video rental stores are being absolutely mobbed.
So am I right to presume that there would be major sociological lessons to be learned from visiting Moscow while broadcasting is still kaput? Or is every thing that could be learned from this already known from other occurrences (long blackouts, etc.) and studies?