Loughborough University
Leicestershire, UK
LE11 3TU
+44 (0)1509 222222
Loughborough University

Screening Socialism

News

21 February 2018

The Screening Socialism book is in press

The book arising from the Screening socialism project, entitled “From Media Systems to Media Cultures: Understanding Socialist Television” is now in press with Cambridge University Press, and will be published in the Communication, Politics and Society series in 2018. From the book cover blurb:

“In this major intervention into comparative media research, Sabina Mihelj and Simon Huxtable delve into the fascinating world of television under communism, using it to test a new framework for comparative media analysis. To understand the societal consequences of mass communication, the authors argue that we need to move beyond the analysis of media systems, and instead focus on the role of the media in shaping cultural ideals and narratives, everyday practices and routines. Drawing on a wealth of original data derived from archival sources, programme and schedule analysis, and oral history interviews, the authors show how communist authorities managed to harness the power of television to shape new habits and rituals, yet failed to inspire a deeper belief in communist ideals. Their analysis has important implications for the understanding of mass communication in non-democratic settings, and provides tools for the analysis of media cultures globally.”  

21 October 2017

Exhibition on the Television Revolution in LA

The results of the Screening Socialism project will serve to inform an exhibition dedicated to Cold War television, entitled The Television Revolution, which is due to open at the Wende Museum in Los Angeles, USA, in February 2019. The exhibition will investigate selected aspects of television history in different communist countries, focusing on its cultural aspects and on the period from the post-World War II years to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1989/91. It will highlight both the specific trajectory of the medium in the communist world, as well as note the shared features of television cultures on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The exhibition is co-curated by Sabina Mihelj, Susan Reid and Joes Segal.

15 June 2017

Screening Socialism in San Diego and Budapest

In May and June 2017, the results of the Screening Socialism project were presented at two international conferences. In May, Sabina Mihelj gave a keynote at the Communication History pre-conference of the International Communication Association Conference in San Diego, USA. Her keynote was entitled “Historical Audience Research: Why Does it Matter and How Should We Do It?” and used the experience of the Screening Socialism project as a basis for reflecting on the wider significance of historical audience research. In June, Sabina participated in the workshop international workshop Cold War Mobilities and Immobilities: Entangled Histories of Postwar Eastern and Southern Europe, 1945-1989, which took place in Budapest, Hungary. She presented a paper “Borderless Screens: Television, Transnationalism, and the Cold War”.

 

26 April 2016

Screening Socialism to contribute to a British Museum exhibition

An exhibition dedicated to communism is scheduled to open at the British Museum in October 2017, curated by Thomas Hockenhull. Sabina Mihelj will advise on the development of the exhibition, including the selection and contextualisation of exhibits, in collaboration with Susan E. Reid, Professor of History at Loughborough’s Department of Politics, History and International relations.

More information to follow …

22 March 2016

Screening Socialism at the Material Cultures of Television conference

In March Sabina Mihelj presented a paper on the role of television as a domestic object in state socialist Eastern Europe at the international conference Material Cultures of Television, held in Hull and organised by Dr Iris Kleinecke-Bates. Drawing on oral history interviews, family photos, archival documents and popular and professional publications from the era, the paper sought to reconstruct the process of “domestication” that saw television turn from a prized luxury and status symbol into an everyday commodity needed in every home. In doing so, the paper also reflected on differences and similarities between domestic cultures of television east and west of the Iron Curtain. While similar processes of domestication were at work in both, they were also inflected by divergent visions of modernity and progress. As a result,  the domestic material cultures of television in the communist world formed part of a type of domesticity that was embedded in distinctly communist structures of economy, politics and society, marked by different patterns of social stratification and distinction, smaller sizes of private dwellings, housing shortages, and higher levels of women’s employment.

More details

25 November 2015

Project presented at the 'Comparative Studies of Communism' conference

A paper outlining the comparative framework developed for the purpose of the Screening Socialism project was presented at the international conference Comparative Studies of Communism: Regime and Society in the Countries of Eastern Europe, which took place in Sofia, Bulgaria on 24-25 November 2015. The paper was very positively received.

Conference Programme

20 October 2015

Exhibition on everyday life travels to Sarajevo

After its initial launch at the Museum of Yugoslav History in Belgrade in 2014, the exhibition They Never Had it Better? Everyday Life in Yugoslavia has now opened its doors to audiences in Sarajevo where it is hosted by the Historical Museum oh Bosnia and Herzegovina. The exhibition features materials prepared by Dr Sabina Mihelj and her researchers working on the project Screening Socialism: Popular Television and Everyday Life in Socialist Eastern Europe. Among other things, the exhibition recreates the typical living spaces of family homes in the region, including a living room complete with a television set. The exhibition was conceived by the curator Ana Panic, in collaboration with Dr Igor Duda and Dr Ivana Dobrivojevic, and with Dr Sabina Mihelj as an external consultant.

Photos and report [Bosnian] More on exhibition

19 September 2015

Sabina attends a workshop on transnational audovisual memory

Dr Sabina Mihelj presented a paper on television, memory and revolution at the international workshop ‘The audiovisual production of transcultural memory in Europe’. The workshop took place between 17 and 19 September in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and was organised by the EU-funded COST Action In search of transcultural memory in Europe. Sabina’s paper focused on the transnational ‘memory boom’ that swept across East European television screens in the 1970s and gave rise to a wide range of commemorative event TV programming, documentaries and serial fiction dedicated to historical events and personalities central to the communist revolution. These developments are interpreted in light of local political contexts as well as transnational social and cultural developments.

For more information on the COST Action In search of transcultural memory in Europe click on the link below.

Workshop website

25 August 2015

Screening Socialism enters its final year!

During its second year, the project’s research focus has moved from the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia to Poland, Romania and Germany. Over the course of the year, we have conducted 90 interviews, conducted archival research, analysed a sample of television schedules spanning three decades, coded over two thousand domestic and imported television series broadcast in the three countries, and analysed numerous programmes in depth. In addition, we have also presented fourteen conference and seminar papers in seven different countries across Europe and beyond, organised three panels at major conferences, and submitted one book chapter and six journal articles. Three themes in particular have been at the forefront of our investigation during this year: depictions of history on socialist television, the transnational aspects of socialist television, and television and post-socialist memory. We are now looking forward to the final year, during which we will complete a comparative analysis of materials from all the five countries, and write a book on socialist television.

1 August 2015

Simon attends symposium and summer school in Tallinn

Simon recently attended a symposium and summer school in Tallinn. The symposium on late socialism was held in Kurtna, near Tallinn, where Simon presented his research on the historicity of the Brezhnev era. At the summer school at Tallinn University, Simon taught a class on late socialist media, alongside Soviet television historian Christine Evans, where clips of popular socialist TV shows were shown and discussed.

Summer School home

29 April 2015

Sabina to present at seminar in London

If you're in London you have a chance to hear about our research. On May 7 at 6pm, Sabina Mihelj will be giving a general introduction to the project at the Media History seminar run by the Institute of Historical Research and the Institute of English Studies at the University of London. The venue will be room G34 in Senate House.

Seminar homepage

30 April 2015

Alice, Sabina and Sylwia to speak at NECS conference in Łódź

Between June 18-20, 2015, Sabina Mihelj, Alice Bardan and Sylwia Szostak will take part in the workshop
"Doing Archival Research on the Socialist Past” at 9th NECS conference  "ARCHIVES OF/FOR THE FUTURE,” hosted by the University of Łódź (Poland). This workshop brings together participants who have done archival and empirical research on socialist television history and will share practices of accessing, collecting and researching different types of historical sources related to the socialist (television) past: from audiovisual to written and oral sources. Drawing upon experiences of researching documents accessed at broadcast archives and secret service archives, and from oral interviews with television staff, the workshop seeks to foreground broader discussions on the historiography of the socialist television past and will tap into the conceptual, methodological and archival challenges that this past brings forward.

Between June 18-20, 2015, Sabina Mihelj, Alice Bardan and Sylwia Szostak will take part in the workshop 
"Doing Archival Research on the Socialist Past” at 9th NECS conference  "ARCHIVES OF/FOR THE FUTURE,” hosted by the University of Łódź (Poland). This workshop brings together participants who have done archival and empirical research on socialist television history and aims to share practices of accessing, collecting and researching different types of historical sources related to the socialist (television) past: from audiovisual to written and oral sources. Drawing upon experiences of researching documents accessed at broadcast archives and secret services archives, and from oral interviews with television staff, the workshop seeks to foreground broader discussions on the historiography of the socialist television past and will tap into the conceptual, methodological and archival challenges that this past brings forward.
NECS 2015

29 April 2015

Alice speaks at conference on consumption at UC Berkeley

Alice Bardan attended the conference “The Pleasures of Backwardness: Consumer Desire and Modernity in Eastern Europe” organized at The University of California-Berkeley between April 23-25, 2015.   The conference brought together junior and senior scholars to examine the place of consumption, entertainment and leisure in Eastern Europe and to explore the implications of the latest consumer studies for the region’s wider history. Alice’s presentation, titled “Consuming Foreign Films and TV Series in Socialist & Post-Socialist Romania,” argued that despite low theatrical attendance, Romanian cinephilia is vigorously present and rife with complex social and cultural implications, inextricably linked to progressively emerging technologies such as the VCR, the DVD player, and the Internet. 

Conference website

29 March 2015

Research team present at BASEES 2015

The Screening Socialist research team presented their research at the annual conference of the British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge. Sabina Mihelj gave a general introduction to the project; Simon Huxtable presented on the rise of the TV psychics during perestroika in the Soviet Union, while Alice Bardan spoke about New Year's programming on Romanian television.

Conference website

3 July 2014

Sabina and Simon publish articles in the VIEW journal

Articles by Sabina and Simon have appeared in the VIEW journal in a issue devoted to 'Television Histories in (Post)Socialist Europe'. Sabina's article, 'Understanding Socialist Television: Concepts, Objects, Methods' seeks to set the agenda for future study of socialist television, while Simon's article, 'The Problem of Personality on the Soviet Screen, 1950s-1960s' looks at the changing role of the television personality in Soviet television's formative decades.

Read Sabina's article Read Simon's article Go to VIEW issue

21 June 2014

Sabina and Simon present their research at conferences in Europe and the USA

Over the course of May and June, Sabina Mihelj and Simon Huxtable presented their latest research to audiences in Europe and the USA.

  • In May, Sabina presented a paper in Seattle on “Socialist Television and Everyday Life between Memory and History” at the International Communication Association's 'Making Sense of Memory and History' preconference.

  • In June both Sabina and Simon presented work at the 'Cold War and Entertainment Television' conference in Paris. Simon's paper was entitled "Real Socialism, Socialist Realism: Representing Soviet Normality in Day after Day" and focused on the first Soviet 'soap', while Sabina's paper, “Comparing Socialist Entertainment: Popular Television Series in Yugoslavia and the USSR”, presented the initial results of quantitative research into popular TV series in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.

  • In June, Simon spoke at the Annual Conference of the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies in Milan. His paper, entitled "Tears on the Small Screen: Bodies and Gestures on Soviet Television" looked at changes in presentation styles on Soviet television between the Thaw and perestroika.
ICA Conference Cold War Television NECS conference

13 January 2014

New 'Screening Socialism' website launches!

The new 'Screening Socialism' website launched today. The site, which will be updated on a regular basis, contains a summary of the project and its main areas of enquiry, details of publications, and a series of short national histories of the development of socialist TV, which will be of use to students and scholars.

7 December 2013

Sabina Mihelj gives talk in Erlangen

On December 6, 2013, Sabina Mihelj gave a talk in Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg at the 'Television in Europe Beyond the Iron Curtain' conference. Sabina's paper focused on the connection of entertainment television to the privatisation of politics in post-war Europe.

Television in Europe beyond the Iron Curtain

7 November 2013

Sabina Mihelj gives keynote address at international seminar in Sweden

On November 7, 2013, Sabina Mihelj gave the keynote address at an international seminar on 'Television Histories in (Post)Socialist Europe', which took place in Södertörn University, Stockholm. The seminar, which was organised by the European (Post)Socialist Television History Network, focused on setting an agenda for the study of television in socialist and post-socialist Europe.

28 November 2014

Sabina and Simon present research in Norway and Germany

Sabina and Simon presented their research at conferences in Norway and Germany in Nvember. Sabina gave a presentation entitled 'Screening Socialism: Television and the Politics of Privacy and History in Late Socialism' at Media and the Cold War, 1975-1991 at Volda University College in November. Sabina and Simon then co-presented a paper entitled 'The transnational spaces of state socialist television: Soviet Union and Yugoslavia compared’ at the conference Transnational Media Relationships during the Cold War: Programme Transfer and Cultural Communication through Radio and Television between 1945 and 1990 in Postdam.

23 January 2015

Screening Socialism contributes to an exhibition on everyday life

Interested in the history of everyday in South-eastern Europe, and the role of television in it? Then head to the Museum of Yugoslav History in Belgrade, which currently hosts the exhibition They Never Had it Better? Everyday Life in Yugoslavia. The exhibition explores the modernization of everyday life in socialist Yugoslavia between 1950 and 1990, and features more than 200 objects, 400 photographs and 26 video clips, including several related to the history of television . The exhibition was conceived by the curator Ana Panic, in collaboration with Dr Igor Duda and Dr Ivana Dobrivojevic, and with Screening Socialism as an external consultant.

Website Exhibition catalogue (English) Exhibition catalogue (Serbian)

6 November 2014

Sabina attends EU Screen conference and FIAT-IFTA meeting

Sabina Mihelj attends the EU Screen conference in Rome and participates in a meeting with members of the Television Studies Commission (TSC) of the International Federation of Television Archives FIAT-IFTA and the European (Post)Socialist Television History Network. Members of the network presented the results of the pilot study 'Counter Screens: Best Practices of Enriching Television Material from Eastern European Archives', and discussed the organisation of an international workshop dedicated to the challenges and opportunities of broadcast archiving, with a particular focus on Eastern Europe. 

FIAT-IFTA EU Screen Conference

5 November 2014

Simon presents research at ASEEES

Simon will be presenting his research on Soviet television at the annual Association for Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) convention in San Antonio, TX. His paper will be on the Soviet drama "Day After Day", which was broadcast in the early-1970s.

ASEEES Convention website

5 November 2014

Researchers away on research

Between September and December, Alice, Simon and Sylwia are on research trips in Bucharest, Berlin and Warsaw respectively, working in libraries and archives and conducting interviews.

1 August 2014

Two new Research Associates start work on the project

We are pleased to announce that two new Research Associates have started work on the Screening Socialism project! Alice Bardan will be working on Romanian television and Sylwia Szostak will be looking at television in Poland.

21 October 2017

Exhibition on the Television Revolution in LA

The results of the Screening Socialism project will serve to inform an exhibition dedicated to Cold War television, entitled The Television Revolution, which is due to open at the Wende Museum in Los Angeles, USA, in February 2019. The exhibition will investigate selected aspects of television history in different communist countries, focusing on its cultural aspects and on the period from the post-World War II years to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1989/91. It will highlight both the specific trajectory of the medium in the communist world, as well as note the shared features of television cultures on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The exhibition is co-curated by Sabina Mihelj, Susan Reid and Joes Segal.

 

Contact us

  • +44 (0)1509 223363
  • Screening Socialism
    Brockington Building
    Loughborough University
    Leicestershire
    LE11 3TU