Glasnost and After

This text chronicles and analyses the involvement in and effects of the media on the dramatic political change in what was once the Soviet empire. The book begins with four background essays that establish the theoretical context of the myriad and complex relationships between the media and political change. The heart of the book consists of six original, never-before-published studies. Written by distinguished scholars, almost all of them natives of the countries themselves, and some of them participants in the events they describe, these chapters cover the USSR, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Romania. After characterising the pre-reform situation, they then focus on the struggles over and within the media as the communist rulers of these states, often unwillingly, unleashed glasnost. They show how and explain why the media varyingly resisted or facilitated the forces of political change. The book concludes with a chapter considering the problematic future of the media in these countries.