ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I argue that one major concern for discourse analysis today is to engage in critical studies of culture under conditions of mediation. The key concern here is the de-territorialization of experience that mediation brings about in our culture: the experience of connecting us with people around the globe without, at the same time, giving us the option to respond to or act upon their situation.1 In so far as we live in a world divided into zones of prosperity and poverty, safety and danger, peace and war, this concern is primarily ethical. It brings forth the questions: what sense of responsibility and caring action do the media cultivate vis-à-vis far-away others? Can the global visibility of suffering, a most common spectacle of our home screens, lead to forms of public action towards these distant others?
