Many features of today’s global media environment—from the pervasive atmosphere of political “virtuality” to the proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theory—found early and potent expression in the media landscape of the Russian 1990s. Post-Soviet Russian society emerged simultaneously with an explosion of new media, especially a newly liberated broadcast, cable, and satellite television and the fledgling Internet. This volume and the accompanying online sourcebook interpret Russian-language print, video, audio, and Web 1.0 media, along with select elements of performance and material culture, dating to the “long 1990s.” This period begins in the late 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his signature policy of glasnost (“publicity” or “openness”), and ends with Putin’s rise to the Russian presidency in 2000. We are especially interested in tracking the origins and assessing the implications of the media’s “Wild West”-like atmosphere during this period, investigating vectors of influence among popular culture, commercial advertising, political journalism, and nascent social media. As a joint platform, this volume and the sourcebook present the media culture of the Russian 1990s as simultaneously rooted in (pre-)Soviet history, and deeply influential on the global present. Forthcoming in 2025 with Amherst College Press.