Gone are the days of conventional media history, the editors of this volume tell their readers. Rather than being preoccupied with the history of institutions and technologies and seeing the media as mere reflections of different parts of the public, contemporary media historians write the history of political communications. How did journalists influence the rules of politics? How did political actors react to the changing media sphere in which they had to act? Which means of directing the media and influencing politics were developed and how effective were they? (pp. 9-10) Yet rather than just adding to the growing literature on the politicisation of the media and the medialisation of politics this book promises to bring something new to the table: an analysis of the role of journalists as international or transnational actors. This is filling a gaping hole in the existing literature: international history and transnational studies have yet to discover the mass media; cultural history and the history of political communications have mainly concentrated on processes within one country and largely ignored the transnational dimension of political discourses and their formation.