This book explores the structure of mediated social space in Russian and Swedish metropolises, focusing on the representations of material and ethnic divides, social classes, ordinary persons and elites in mainstream news and popular media. Based on several sets of data gathered over a decade - including surveys, interviews, qualitative and quantitative content analyses - as well as analyses of large scale international surveys, the authors offer a comparison of urban spaces in two neighbouring countries, in order to shed light upon the role of media in society, where mediated space is increasingly characterised by global flows and actors. Challenging the prevailing conceptions in the West of today's Russia - the political rule of which is often described as authoritarian and marked by ever more censorship - and of the West, which is judged by contrast to be a stronghold of democracy and tolerance, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology and media studies.