ABSTRACT
Television has no borders, a quality that long provided the name for the European Commission’s audiovisual policy. The digital onslaught of recent years has made it apparent that contemporary mediascapes are characterized more by global flows than containment in national settings, despite the exertions of governments from Washington to Beijing to retain control. Over the past decade, audiences across the planet have watched together as people lost their homes and lives in terrorist attacks and natural catastrophes, as Obama placed his hand on Lincoln’s Bible, as Neda died on the streets of Tehran, as diplomats blushed then paled in the face of serial Wikileaks disclosures, and as legions of athletes and musicians competed in Olympic games, World Cup football matches and Eurovision song contests. Such global mediated communion is a central feature of the process which, according to Beck (2006), is making people cosmopolitans ‘by default’.
