Media and Public Relations Research in Post-Socialist Societies

Book excerpt: Media and Public Relations Research in Post-Socialist Societies tracks the birth, development, and contemporary expansion of communication research, with a focus on public relations and media research in post-socialist societies. This collection illuminates the current state of media and communication studies in Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and Central Asia. Contributors discuss and demonstrate various issues of disciplinary roots and tensions, institutional constraints, study development, and contemporary status. This book also illustrates diverse types of traditional and contemporary communication studies from humanities and social science perspectives, ranging from linguistics to health communication. This collection focuses on both traditional and modern scholarship that has arisen due to international scholarly efforts, the advent of technology, and national research interests. Readers will have the opportunity to intellectually discuss the conceptual, theoretical, and practical issues that have occurred within the past twenty years regarding public relations, mass communication, and media studies in post-socialist societies. The analyses in this book lead readers to consider potential resolutions to some of the current dialectical tensions that are affecting post-socialist communication studies and contemplate how reflecting on these tensions informs the broader field of communication worldwide.