Soviet and Russian press coverage of the United States

Jonathan A. Becker

"This book examines changing Soviet and Russian press coverage of the United States from the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Communist Party through Boris Yeltsin's re-election as Russian President in 1996. Becker argues that, owing to the absence of a language to support the reform strategy, the Soviet press presented positive images of its chief ideological and military opponent, the United States, as a means of supporting political, social and economic reform. Indeed, journalists were so overcome by a desire to present a 'new America' that, if anything, the United States was idealized where it was once reviled."--BOOK JACKET.