The Soviet project of creating a new culture and society entailed a planfor the modeling of "new" persons who embodied and fulfilled the promiseof socialism, and this vision was expressed in the institutions of government. Usingarchival sources, essays, and interviews with journalists, Thomas C. Wolfe providesan account of the final four decades of Soviet history viewed through the lens ofjournalism and media. Whereas most studies of the Soviet press approach its historyin terms of propaganda or ideology, Wolfe's focus is on the effort to imagine adifferent kind of person and polity. Foucault's concept of governmentalityilluminates the relationship between the idea of the socialist person and everydayjournalistic representation, from the Khrushchev period to the 1990s and theappearance of the tabloid press. This thought-provoking study provides insights intothe institutions of the Soviet press and the lives of journalists who experiencedimportant transformations of their work.