Soviet psychiatry and American psychiatry have different histories. Yet, both were conceived, each in their own way, as instruments of control aimed at repressing deviant behavior.
Despite strict censorship and control, the Chinese party-state and journalists also sometimes interact in a collaborative manner. Constructive investigative reports serve as governance tools to better control local officials and project the image of a responsive government.
In authoritarian China, control of the media exists, but so does control by the media. Two recent books explain how the government has strategically allowed investigative journalism to flourish, strengthened by the market and the expectations of the Chinese population.
Film censorship in post-Stalin Russia was neither rational, nor a product of ideology. As, historian Martine Godet convincingly shows, it was rather the result of a fluid and unpredictable process, where status and stratagems played a key role.
