ABSTRACT
In 1996, Elihu Katz advanced a commanding thesis: changes in the communications order are weakening the foundations of liberal democracy. His argument is built on three apparently solid pillars. The first is that people are no longer connected to each other through the central meeting-ground of mass television, watching the same programmes and participating in the same dialogue about the public direction of society. Instead, the public is being dispersed and fragmented by the multiplication of channels. ‘Television’, according to Katz, ‘has all but ceased to function as a shared public space. Except for occasional media events, the nation no longer gathers together’ (Katz 1996:22).
