1 in 10 undergraduates in the US will study abroad. Extoled by students as personally transformative and celebrated in academia for fostering cross-cultural understanding, study abroad is also promoted by the US government as a form of cultural diplomacy and a bridge to future participation in the global marketplace.

In Documenting the American Student Abroad, Kelly Hankin explores the documentary media cultures that shape these beliefs, drawing our attention to the broad range of stakeholders and documentary modes involved in defining the core values and practices of study abroad. From study abroad video contests and a F.B.I. produced docudrama about student espionage to reality television inspired educational documentaries and docudramas about Amanda Knox, Hankin shows how the institutional values of "global citizenship," "intercultural communication," and "cultural immersion" emerge in contradictory ways through their representation.

By bringing study abroad and media studies into conversation with one another, Documenting the American Student Abroad: The Media Cultures of International Education offers a much needed humanist contribution to the field of international education, as well as a unique approach to the growing scholarship on the intersection of media and institutions. As study abroad practitioners and students increase their engagement with moving images and digital environments, the insights of media scholars are essential for helping the field understand how the mediation of study abroad rhetoric shapes rather than reflects the field's central institutional ideals

Examining Russian-language media from the “long 1990s”—the period beginning with Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost (“openness”) and ending with the election of President Vladimir Putin—Media Cultures of the Russian 1990s shows how post-Soviet civil society emerged simultaneously with the explosion of new media, especially a newly liberated television and internet. A brief and contested period of media independence ensued as explosive creativity collided with rank commercialism, journalistic integrity with burgeoning political ambitions, and fringe with mainstream. By the late 1990s, however, the media landscape had succumbed to economic and political exploitation. The causes and nature of this shift, which set the stage for Putin’s crackdown on independent media after 2000—as well as Russia’s slide into aggressive authoritarianism—are embedded in the era’s media artifacts.

Written by an interdisciplinary group of experts, this edited collection addresses the mutual influence among disparate spheres of public life that enabled the media “Wild West” of the first post-Soviet decade. As a joint platform, the volume and the associated Multimedia Sourcebook of the Russian 1990s present the decade’s media cultures in a manner that reflects their historical interconnectedness and relationship to the global present.

Edited by Maya Vinokour with contributions from Bradley Gorski, Courtney Doucette, Fabrizio Fenghi, Rita Safariants, Daniil Leiderman, Thomas Keenan, and Pavel Khazanov.