The case study is part of a doctoral dissertation that seeks to reconstruct the everyday life of the seventies and eighties of the Gyergyó Basin in the light of recollections and informality. The present study undertakes to present an entertainment and recreation opportunity of the examined period, and to ethnographically describe the entertainment habits based on Western media products, which were widespread in the Gyergyó Basin in the period under study. I analyze the phenomenon of videography from the point of view of the operators and the participants. I examine how intertwined it was with the authorities, under what informal conditions the necessary tools were procured, the conditions were created and what impact the new kind of media content had on people. On the other hand, I am also reconstructing the operation of an exclusive group of videographers, not only religious-themed film screenings organized within the framework of the religious classes of the parish of Gyergyószárhegy. Videotaping was a modernization adaptation in the period under study, resulting from the slow infiltration of Western media products and consumer goods into Eastern Europe. In parallel, a top-down modernization pressure was also felt by the state, which was the so-called communist modernization. The mixing of the two effects, a typical feature of Eastern European modernity of the era, can be seen in the case study.
Keywords: videotaping, entertaining, informality, modernization, socialism
