ABSTRACT
Contemporary mediascapes are characterized more by global flows than containment in national settings, despite the exertions of governments from Washington to Moscow to retain control. Global mediated communion is a central feature of the process that is making people cosmopolitans 'by default'. The media in general and television in particular, have a role to play in the cultivation of cosmopolitan outlook. By virtue of the routine media consumption, the newspaper reader had become part of a community of the imagination. Cosmopolitan citizenship has to do with 'a transformation of vision' and thus with media images of the world. In the political version, citizenship has to do with the right to belong and with the obligation to keep informed about matters of concern to the wider community. The media are a good place to explore cosmopolitan relationships because they are the interface between the political and the cultural.
