Page 206 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

Chapter 9
The global newsroom: convergences and
diversities in the globalization of
television news

Michael Gurevitch, Mark R.Levy and Itzhak Roeh

The ideal of the ‘informed citizen’ has always been regarded as central
to the functioning of democracies. An informed citizenry is considered
to be a prerequisite for full citizenship for at least two principles, central
to a democratic system of government: first, because in a democracy,
those who govern should at all times be held accountable to the
governed; and second, because democracy is based on active
participation by citizens in the social and political life of society.
Clearly, both principles are predicated on citizens being informed about
the activities of government and the affairs of society (for a recent
discussion of the relations between communication and citizenship see,
for example, Murdock and Golding 1989). It is because of this that the
mass media, primarily in their ‘information function’, have been hailed,
cliché-style, as ‘the lifeblood of democracies’, pivotal for the
functioning of healthy and vibrant democratic systems.
While citizenship has traditionally been conceptualized in terms of
membership in a given society, over the last few decades the concept
has taken on a global dimension. The notion of ‘global citizenship’
received considerable impetus from post World War II attempts to
structure a new world order, a vision powerfully expressed in the
symbolism associated with the establishment of the United Nations
Organization. ‘Global citizenship’ implied the possibility of a
supranational, global identity. These aspirations were greatly enhanced,
first by the visions, and eventually by the development, of new
technologies of communication that held the promise, for the first time,
of a truly global communication system. Instant global communication,
it was felt, offered the possibility of the emergence of a ‘global village’—
a global community, in which all citizens had access to the same
informational and cultural resources—the foundation of a global
citizenship.