By Anikó Irme
Anikó Imre is a Professor of Cinematic Arts in the Division of Cinema and Media Studies and a member of the faculty advisory board in the Interdivisional Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) Division. She has published, taught and lectured widely on media globalization, television, (post)socialism, gender and sexuality, race and postcoloniality.
Published with Duke University Press, 2016.
In Tv Socialism , Professor Anikó Imre provides an innovative history of television in socialist Europe during and after the Cold War. Rather than uniform propaganda programming, Imre finds rich evidence of hybrid aesthetic and economic practices, including frequent exchanges within the region and with Western media, a steady production of varied genre entertainment, elements of European public service broadcasting, and transcultural, multi-lingual reception practices. These televisual practices challenge conventional understandings of culture under socialism, divisions between East and West, and the divide between socialism and postsocialism. Taking a broad regional perspective encompassing Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Imre foregrounds continuities between socialist television and the region’s shared imperial histories, including the programming trends, distribution patterns, and reception practices that extended into postsocialism. Television, she argues, is key to understanding European socialist cultures and to making sense of developments after the end of the Cold War and the enduring global legacy of socialism.
Hosts: Dr. Swapnil Rai, Oğuz Kayır
Producer: Amber Hardiman
Editor: Edwin Osorio