ABSTRACT
The global space within which much news and media comment are produced and circulate has never been clearer than in the contentious build-up to the recent UK/USA war in Iraq. As disputes within and between national governments over the very definition of the issues at stake intensified, the global circulation of critical perspectives on the expected war was striking and cut across the divisions between official government positions. Whatever the local tendencies toward closure of the issues from a specific national perspective (and as the war began in the UK, those tendencies intensified), in order to understand the conflict fully, it is essential to comprehend the global character of dissent and opposition. The global nature of elite media and political discourse was matched by the globalization of opposition to a UK/USA invasion of Iraq. On February 15 over 8 million people marched in five continents to express their dissent (although the large majority of them marched through the streets of major cities in western and southern Europe). The analysis of both media discourse and popular dissent as a consequence demands a cosmopolitan approach (Beck 2000). In this chapter we will focus on press discourse in the UK but we see this very much as a contribution to a broader cosmopolitan project that does not, however, overlook national specificities.
