Birgit Beumers is Reader in Russian at the University of Bristol. She specialises on contemporary Russian culture, especially cinema and theatre. She is editor of KinoKultura (online) and of Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema. She is currently working on a Leverhulme-funded project that investigates Russian animation.Stephen Hutchings has a Chair in Russian Studies at the University of Manchester, having previously been Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Surrey, UK, and Associate Professor of Russian at the University of Rochester, New York.Natalia Rulyova is a lecturer in Russian at the University of Birmingham, having previously worked as temporary Lecturer and Research Fellow on the AHRC-funded project Post-Soviet Television Culture led by Professor Hutchings at the University of Surrey, UK.

• Symposium Editors’ Introduction Birgit Beumers, Stephen Hutchings and Natalia RulyovaThe Struggle for Press Freedom in Russia: Reflections of a Russian Journalist Nadezhda AzhgikhinaThe Next General Elections in Russia: What Role for the Media? Daphne SkillenThe Neo-Soviet Model of the Media Sarah OatesMass Media and the Information Climate in Russia Hedwig de SmaeleThe Local and the International in Russian Business Journalism: Structures and Practices Katja KoikkalainenOfficial Media Discourse and the Self-Representation of Entrepreneurs in Belarus Galina MiazhevichThe Image of the Terrorist Threat in the Official Russian Press: the Moscow Theatre Crisis (2002) and the Beslan Hostage Crisis (2004) Aglaya SnetkovDomesticating the Western Format on Russian TV: Subversive Glocalisation in the Game Show Pole Chudes (The Field of Miracles) Natalia RulyovaDrinking to the Nation: Russian Television Advertising and Cultural Differentiation Jeremy Morris