Melissa Beattie addresses the problems and potentials of creating fictitious countries in film and media, interrogating the methods and motivations of their construction and – perhaps more importantly – who they purport to represent.

Nations fabricated for fictional media often comprise elements of multiple already-existing countries with their own geopolitical realities, lending the resulting narratives the tendency to express discourses already extant about the regions being synthesized. Drawing upon aesthetics and industrial analyses, Beattie argues that, in doing so, these media texts prioritize characters from “real” countries and dominant groups, ultimately replicating existing geopolitical and sociocultural power imbalances.

Through case studies of fictitious countries drawn from four regions – Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and post-Soviet states – this book encourages critique and reflection from media theorists, practitioners, students and audiences alike to work toward better understanding and better representing the societies and (sub)cultures in which these texts are produced and consumed.