Abstract
Article introduces types and characteristics of the basic kinds of unofficial information which were orally communicated at the time of socialism in the former Czechoslovakia. Unofficial information compared to state-administered official information were perceived as unbiased and in some sense true.
Their purpose was different - an effort to entertain, to maintain normative behavior and morality, an effort to deal with uncertainty, confusion and potentially threatening situations or simply to inform, to get the message. Manuscript posts clarify and points out the general problem of information in connection with censorship and with the confidence of citizens in institutional sources of information.
It also elucidates the mechanisms and reasons for their creation and indicates their possible consequences. It turns out that any kind of information play different role in different social situations and that these information are depending on these situations differently perceived and evaluated by actors.