Eric West

Russia in Transition: Coverage by American Newspapers in the 1990s: Geography, Ideology, and Emotion in the Narration of Political-economic Change Eric West

American foreign correspondence about Russia during the 1990s focused on neo-liberal political and economic reforms designed to Westernize the formerly Communist state. Some stories imagined the transition abstractly, relying on the preconceived and ideological notions of outsiders as well as national conceptions of Russian territory. Other stories emphasized regional geographies and historical events that were materially meaningful to Russians. These remarkable differences in ontology lead to a broad analysis of the geographic and textual underpinnings of newspaper-journalism about Russia. This book explores representations of Russian territory in transition including Russian and international conflicts over economic development and political power. The resulting critical geopolitics lays bare both grandiose and local geographies promulgated in American foreign correspondence and the textual devices that made the events in Eurasia understandable for a general, American audience. The analysis is informative for professionals in international relations, media or cultural studies, and geopolitics and also for anyone interested in how American journalists explain foreign places.