Media and the Making of Post-Communist Consumers in Eastern Europe

FAIN: FT-61931-14

Nadia Kaneva
Colorado Seminary (Denver, CO 80210-4711)

This book offers a critical cultural history of the mass media's role in legitimizing the rise of consumerism in the former communist world. The book's main argument is that the rapid adoption of consumerist values in Eastern Europe would have been impossible without profound changes in the region's media systems, and without related shifts in mediated discourses about collective and personal identities. The book focuses specifically on how the media helped to transform three central markers of belonging and exclusion: political, national, and gender identities. As we approach the 25th anniversary of the end of the Cold War, this study invites critical reflection on the social and cultural implications of the status of consumerism as the global "winning" ideology. Through an analysis of mediated consumer culture, the book aims to shed light on the cultural legacies of the Cold War.

Media Coverage

Ibroscheva to discuss women in politics (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Logan Cameron
Publication: The Edwardsville Intelligencer
Date: 10/30/2015
Abstract: local news article
URL: http://www.theintelligencer.com/local_news/article_b4c36a6e-8704-11e5-8546-9fd70359d484.html

Professor Incorporates International Research Into Curriculum (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Kaley Anderson
Publication: AHSS Expressions
Date: 6/5/2016
Abstract: Faculty Spotlight in the monthly newsletter of the Division of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Denver.
URL: http://www.du.edu/ahss/newsevents/faculty_spotlight.html

Associated Products

Pin-ups, strippers and centerfolds: Gendered mediation and post-socialist political culture (Article)
Title: Pin-ups, strippers and centerfolds: Gendered mediation and post-socialist political culture
Author: Nadia Kaneva
Author: Elza Ibroscheva
Abstract: This article focuses on a ‘new generation’ of female politicians in Central and Eastern Europe who have emerged in the post-socialist context. These women are found in various countries and their political affiliations and agendas are diverse. However, they share a peculiar penchant for using the mass media to offer provocatively packaged public displays of their bodies in ways that relate to their political careers. These strategies of mediated self-exposure include posing for erotic magazines or using sexualized messages in various other video and print formats. In addition to drawing attention at home and abroad, these sensationalized and sexualized displays of female politicians’ bodies highlight the changing tastes and manners of post-socialist political culture. This article examines emblematic examples of female politicians’ mediated self-exposure and uses them to raise critical questions about the gendered nature of post-socialist political culture as it intersects with commercial media culture.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: http://ecs.sagepub.com/content/18/2/224.abstract
Access Model: subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: European Journal of Cultural Studies
Publisher: Sage

Prizes

Heldt Prize, Best Article Honorable Mention
Date: 11/1/2015
Organization: Association for Women in Slavic Studies

MFJS 4912: Post-Socialist Media and Cultural Change (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: MFJS 4912: Post-Socialist Media and Cultural Change
Author: Nadia Kaneva
Abstract: This seminar examines the relationships between media and cultural change in the historical and political context of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union since the end of the Cold War. Adopting a cultural studies perspective, we will explore how the privatization and commercialization of the media industries led to changes in media content and, in turn, helped to bring about major shifts in the cultural and political environment of post-communist societies. The topics we will discuss include: the role of media ownership in journalistic freedom, the rise of advertising and consumerism in the former communist world; the media’s role in changing ideas about national identity, political participation, and gender relations; and the enduring legacies of communism and the Cold War on today’s cultural and political realities in the world.
Year: 2015
Audience: Graduate

Mediating post-socialist femininities: Contested histories and visibilities (Article)
Title: Mediating post-socialist femininities: Contested histories and visibilities
Author: Kaneva, Nadia
Abstract: In the context of feminist media studies, it is not unusual in Western academe today to discuss the evolution of the field in relation to various “waves” or “paths” of feminism, without paying much attention to the Western-centric biases of such historiographies. While post-colonial and black feminisms have had some success in “globalizing” feminist media studies, the particular challenges presented by the post-socialist experience remain largely unexplored in Anglo-American scholarly discourse. Yet, twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, the previously heavily policed borders between “East” and “West” have faded, and feminist scholars must revisit some of the sedimented ideas about the politics and theories of feminism in the global age.
Year: 2015
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Feminist Media Studies, 15(1): 1-18

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