This book incisively explores the close interconnections between Central Asia’s multiple media landscapes and pressing issues that face the region, including violent extremism, labor migration, sex and gender identity, climate change and the environment, and the heavy influence of Russian media. It examines the rapidly changing persona of Central Asian media and journalism in the context of the public’s expanding access to social media, the persistence of post-Soviet authoritarianism, traditional cultural and societal values, and constraints on freedom of expression.

Eric Freedman, Michigan State University

This volume, written by both local and international experts on Central Asia, is an impressive collection of essays, essential for any scholar and researcher in media and communication field. It covers a wide range of issues dealing with the history, development, the current state, and contemporary challenges the media, technologies, and practitioners face in the region today.

Lana V. Kulik, Thiel College

It is now conventional wisdom that media plays a crucial role in shaping society and individual choices, but we know little about how the media works in various political contexts and how different issues are treated. This ground-breaking book is the fruit of a remarkable collaboration between many scholars. This volume is a touchstone for students and scholars in media studies and the broader research community that seeks to understand the drivers of social processes in the region.

Bohdan Krawchenko, University of Central Asia

This book fills a gap in research on the media, provides rich material on statistics, trends in terms of capacity of media, freedom of expression, and countries development priorities. For the first time an overview of curricula in the context of evolving digital technologies is made. The topic of gender and media runs through the publication, in addition to being investigated separately. The limitations around media studies and freedom of expression in the region are worth exploring on their own. This book will be of interest to media researchers, policy makers, journalism universities, and management professionals. I gladly recommend it for reading.

Sergey Karpov, communication and information specialist, UNESCO Almaty Cluster Office

Mapping the Media and Communication Landscape of Central Asia is an all-encompassing volume that offers new perspectives on social, political, and economic developments in the region. The contributions provide insights by scholars from Central Asia who skillfully combine their academic knowledge and personal ties with the area. Highly recommended.

Erica Marat, National Defense University

Central Asia is a critical sphere of influence for at least one great power, and as the war in Ukraine has shown, it is increasingly so for the other. Its communication ecology is vital to study as the processes of propaganda and political muscle flexing transforms the region from a series of Soviet outposts into sovereign nations of significance. To examine Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan in their post-Soviet incarnations, where media freedom is lacking or under threat, is timely. For this examination to be undertaken by local and other scholars is not only timely but novel. Having reported on this region as a foreign correspondent and later visited as a journalism educator, it is heartening to know so many young Central Asians wish to work in the field of communications and are being given the scholastic basis to do so. This book will be a major contribution to their education as well as the wider scholastic community.

Monica Attard, University of Technology Sydney