Proposes an original framework for comparative media research, and uses it to provide fascinating insights into television under communist rule.

Sabina Mihelj is Professor of Media and Cultural Analysis at the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture at Loughborough University. She has written extensively on issues of media and nationalism, comparative media research, television studies, Eastern and Central European media, and Cold War media and culture. Her books include Media Nations: Communicating Belonging and Exclusion in the Modern World (2011) and Central and Eastern European Media in Comparative Perspective: Politics, Economy and Culture (2012). Her research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy, and the Leverhulme Trust.

1. Introduction; 2. Media cultures; 3. Historical context; 4. Varieties of modernity; 5. Publications; 6. Privacy; 7. Transnationalism; 8. Everyday time; 9. History; 10. Extraordinary time; 11. Conclusion.