Does an increased flow of information make journalism redundant? The question is almost too ridiculous to ask when it is put in that way. Yet, this is what some scholars think will happen. (e.g. Bardoel 1996) It might of course be a provocative way for them to rally defense of journalism, and in that case it has succeeded.
   I will explain why journalism will not be any less needed in an age of increasing information density. I will also mention some difficulties in the development that have to be considered.

New information technology is said to threaten the traditional journalism, since it allows almost anyone to produce, seek and find information. My point is that this is essentially irrelevant. Journalism has other qualities that mere technological advances cannot make redundant.

My definitions of some key words
   · GLOBALIZATION According to Collins English Dictionary and Thesaurus, globalization is "the process enabling financial and investment markets to operate internationally, largely as a result of deregulation and improved communications". I would like to add that this deregulation may not always be the cause but the effect of globalization. Globalization does not imply cultural homogenization (McGrew 1992: 65), but it does imply political interdependence. Policies that traditionally were considered "internal" will be affected by other countries (McGrew 1992: 88). The "currency of power" is transformed from military to economic capabilities (McGrew 1992: 88), since democracies (which are another advantage of improved communications) do not wage war on each other. McGrew also quotes Garret and Lange (McGrew 1992: 91): "Governments no longer posess the autonomy to pursue independent macroeconomic strategies effectively, even if they were to seek to do so." A world more diverse than nation states can control. This also applies to information. There are many world-wide problems that in this way motivate globalization, both as a way of controlling the uncontrollable and to some extent as a way to evade that control. Globalization is not mere interconnectedness, as McGrew claims (1992: 94), because such connecting has been going on since the first transatlantic telegraph cable was put in place in 1858, and global communications have only got better since. "Globalization" in our time is socio-political, naturally prompted by the advances that the globalization of communications (i.e. interconnectedness) has been offering to both individuals and nations for the past 140 years.
   · ELECTRONIC MEDIA Bardoel is the only one to make the distinction that I would like to have between "audiovisual" and "electronic" media, but mentions it only in passing. (1996: 285)
   · INFORMATION SOCIETY The society in which we live, basically. Information is so essential (to quote CNN hotel ads) to our lives that it permeates almost every profession there is. This can, of course, be the result of effectively used IT jargon (see below) and other changes of our perception of the world--"the computer is becoming the key symbol of the present. [...] Thus humans begin to think of themselves as 'information processors' and nature as information to be processed." (Lyon 1995: 66)--but it is nonetheless a reality that we all need to communicate in order to survive. This situation has been developing throughout the 1900s, and earlier still. (The information society has come a long way when a writer can speak of people "who cannot read or type" [Frederick 1993: 288].)
   · IT JARGON So many prophecies about the future start with assuming that some fad of the moment will continue forever and become more and more important. Words like "cyberspace", "information highways", "multimedia", "virtual reality" and "IT" show clear signs of overuse. These are catch phrases that in effect mean very little. "Cyberspace" has been around since the 1800s, when people started meeting on the "information highway" which was the telephone network (a kind of "Information Technology" if you will)--in a space where none of the parties was actually physically located. Peter Dahlgren defines cyberspace as "the vast universe created by the linkage of computers" (Dahlgren 1996: 59), which is a very practical definition for the word should the need to use it arise. "Multimedia" is simply several traditional media (text, sound, images, animation) consumed in parallel, like TV with a more powerful remote control. Computers have been doing this for a long time, more or less well; it is not news to the 1990s. "Virtual reality" is a computer simulation, but the expression was so catchy that almost anything to do with computers or information technology now can be called virtual by otherwise half-sane people (both Iain A Boal and Manuel Castells, for example) who are only almost joking.
   · INTERACTIVITY It is not just a catch phrase, but actually something which is new. Compared to the very sporadic phone calls that newsrooms get from readers or viewers, e-mail can be encouraged since it does not require any editors' time to simply receive the opinions. E-mail is also much more akin to letters, since it can be quoted--and in addition answered in the same form, when the editor has had time to compose an intelligent reply. (When a neo-nazi calls the newsroom at half past seven in the evening to object to the article about concentration camps and to abuse the journalist who wrote it, it is much more difficult to find words.)
   · JOURNALISM To seek, find, and edit information, with an aim to objectivity, perspective, diversity, and critique, offering the audience a reference point and a common language, having the time to look deeper and provide the background of events. Hunting, gathering, and cooking the information, if you will. Journalism makes it possible for all the people who do other things to keep up with events that would otherwise take too much time to sort out.

Benefits of journalism
   What journalism has to offer (in both senses: what it does offer and what it must offer) is a range of aspects of information gathering and information handling that non-journalists cannot easily attain for themselves, partially due to lack of training and partially due to lack of time. People have other things to do, so they turn to journalists to get a compressed version of the most important events (how such events are journalistically chosen I will return to later).
   The most important journalistic features can be summarised thus:

• objectivity (to provide trustworthy information)
  
• collecting and compressing (to gather and edit information)
  
• research (to have time to look deeper)
  
• background (what caused an event, who the people involved are)
  
• perspective (what an event might lead to)
  
• language (to provide a common language)
  
• reference point (to create a common knowledge that can help individuals be critical)
  
• critique (to find things that are important but not publicly known)
  
• diversity (to show many different aspects of society)
  
• forum (to further debate by audience participation)

I will explore some of these features further in my discussion.

Trends interrelated with globalization are deregulation and digitalization (Hamelink, quoted in Dahlgren 1996: 61). It is mostly the latter which has prompted Jo Bardoel to theorize about the redundance of "classical journalism".
   Bardoel rather provocatively says: "Over the past years, it has often been stated that the traditional function of journalism will erode with the advance of the 'information society'. Direct news supply by satellite television and computer networks, the explosion of information and the increasing communication autonomy of citizens, less public service and more commercial exploitation of the media all suggest that critical journalism is becoming redundant." (Bardoel 1996: 283; my emphasis) What is then the traditional function of journalism, and why would it erode? As I have defined journalism above, there will always be a need for it.
   Redundant means "unnecessary". How could information gathering and editing become unnecessary when the information flow is increasing? The "explosion of information" and "less public service and more commercial exploitation of the media" may perhaps make critical journalism scarce, but that does not mean redundant. This is rather an argument for more of critical journalism--to point to which information is important, to make the "commercial exploitation of the media" less of a threat to intelligent thought and debate, and even to be the "direct news supply by satellite television and computer networks". Or does Bardoel mean that such journalism is not critical?
   Bardoel then asks the question that I am trying to answer: "Is journalism becoming redundant?" (Bardoel 1996: 283) No, I would say, it is not. In my view, the Internet is proof of that. Among the first personal web pages in the 1990s boom were collections of links to interesting sites. There still is a journalistic value in sifting through information and presenting it to others. In that sense, some of even the simplest Internet pages can be a form of journalism.
   In addition, there will never be an Internet search engine that can do what journalists do. Such a program would have to take into consideration what is kept secret and why, and whether it can be disclosed without legal consequences. The program would also have to interact with informants in order to gather facts, and then edit the information. I am not saying that it can not be done, but on that day no other human will be needed either, so the demise of journalism will be one of the lesser problems.
   Some find the new medium hard to define, and even suggest that electronic newspapers will replace the paper editions. But, as Nick Stevenson says: "Print supplements oral culture rather than replacing it." (Stevenson 1995: 129) That is the way all media have worked so far, complementing each other rather than eliminating each other. Why would the Internet be an exception? One who finds it more problematic is Colin Sparks: "to the extent that the electronic version of the newspaper draws readers away from its printed parent, it presumably reduces the readership of the latter." (Sparks 1996: 52) I definitely lean more toward Stevenson's theory, mostly because it is proven by history. Of course, Sparks is right if one reads him as describing probable changes in audience sizes--and even media functions--since that has taken place in the past.
   Sparks seems to believe firmly that electronic newspapers are out to get the paper tabloids: "It is, however, difficult to see how the electronic newspaper can easily replace the existential functionality of the printed tabloid for the mass market." (Sparks 1996: 55) In my view, it is not meant to replace the tabloid. If the electronic newspaper indeed replaces anything, it will be the TV news--and even then it is more a matter of merging.
   Bardoel draws a parallel on electronic newspapers (of 1996, n.b.): "In the beginning, new services are apt to resemble the old and it will take some time before they are applied according to their own functionality. The first automobiles were coaches without horses and for a long time, television was regarded--and still is by some--as a mixture of radio, cinema, and theatre." (Bardoel 1996: 295) But still, journalism is not so different in newspapers, on the radio, or on TV, that you cannot work in all three formats. It is important not to confuse format with thought process. Internet journalism will still have to follow journalistic principles.
   "More than ever, the task of journalism will lie in filtering relevant issues from an increasing supply of information in a crowded public domain and its fragmented segments. Journalism evolves from the provision of facts to the provision of meaning." (Bardoel 1996: 297) That is what journalism has been doing all along, and it is also the reason why journalism will not become redundant--and why I think that Bardoel is being provocative and not plain stupid. The provision of facts is closely linked with the provision of meaning; it is the facts that receive meaning through the explanations and discussions that journalism provides. (And the public domain can not become crowded, since it is an immaterial area which grows as new communicators join in.)

Journalistic objectivity
   Objectivity is less a feature which journalism provides and more a part of its very foundation. If you are going to get your information from someone else, you want your source to be trustworthy. Therefore, objectivity becomes important to journalists and to this discussion. Without it, journalists would not be trusted by their readers. There is of course a difference between news and editorials, where the format indicates a lesser amount of objectivity (as it also does in columns). It is easy for a company to mimic objectivity by avoiding particular formats, thereby perhaps gaining the trust of the audience for their commercials. But how can objectivity be defined?
   There has of course been research on the subject. One question that arises is whether journalists should try to find the truth behind the claims of different sources, or just report what has been said. My opinion is that the newsroom that adopts the policy to always just report what has been said and never look deeper will have very little interesting news. And if it is not reported what has been said, there will be no point in looking deeper. Both might not be in the same report, but they are definitely two journalistically valid and important tasks.
   Monroe E Price quotes Habermas, who coined the term "Ideal Speech Situation". That is the fact that "every time we speak we are making four validity claims: to comprehensibility, truth, appropriateness and sincerity. Ideal speech is inconsistent with an intention to distort, or to use overweening power or wealth purposely to manipulate." (Price 1995: 27) That goes for journalism too. Price states that "a medium cannot be considered truly a participant in the public sphere if those who habitually use it do not, in their speech, abide by a high standard of truth, comprehensibility, appropriateness, and sincerity." (Price 1995: 27) That is why journalism needs objectivity.
   Wolfgang Donsbach and Bettina Klett constructed five different definitions of objectivity, and then asked journalists in different countries which was the closest to their own. The definitions were: "No subjectivity" (that the journalist's political beliefs must not affect the presentation of the subject), "Fair representation" (to express the position of each side in a political dispute), "Fair scepticism" (an equally thorough questioning of the position of each side), "Hard facts" (to go beyond the statements to find the facts of a political dispute), and "Value judgment" (to make clear which side has the better position). (Donsbach & Klett 1993: 63-64) Very few journalists said that the "Value judgment" was the best definition, but they differed on which of the other four was the best. For an individual journalist it most likely varies which is the better approach for each article, but a journalist could compare one single story to the definitions and see how she or he would define "objectivity" in that case. In a political matter even the middle alternative, "Fair scepticism", with its questioning of either position, is well nigh impossible without seeming to take sides. In the Swedish EU debate, most articles were just referring to what both sides had said. Few wanted to get more deeply involved and risk to seem partial.
   Ellen Hume quotes Lani Guinier, who says that "fairness does not mean simply looking for extremes on either end of the spectrum in order to present a controversy, but being prepared to show the nuance, to show the complexity, to show the range of viewpoints that may enlighten, not just entertain." (quoted in Hume 1996) This seems to be particularly important in the US, where objectivity is closely related to "balance", which is often misenterpreted to mean that both sides of a conflict should get an equal amount of good or bad publicity--and that practice is not really objective by any standard.
   Mark Pedelty argues against this American view of balance as objectivity. As Donsbach and Klett showed, there are at least four other notions of objectivity, and "Fair representation" is not even in the middle; it is one of the two where the reporter does very little to reach some sort of truth. (Key concepts of objectivity, such as Truth and Fact, can ironically vary a great deal. I simply mean them to mean "that which we can know if we look hard".)
   Several of the reporters that Pedelty interviewed talk about "building a case" for the audience. Even if they are convinced of what is going on, and of whether it is good or bad, the reporters want to offer the audience a nuanced image of the events. Even one of the journalists who disagrees says: "It is not a question of presenting it and letting the reader sort it out. You sort it out first." (Pedelty 1995: 179) Still, this person does not believe in telling the reader which side is right, just in sorting out the evidence. So they all actually agree.
   Not only writing, but all forms of editing reality, are confronted with the objectivity discussion. Michael Gurevitch points to the different uses of seemingly neutral news agency pictures. Pictures of a sunny beach can also be used as pictures of an empty beach. Neither can be said to be wrong, even if the photographer went there to report on the weather and not the tourism revenues. In that sense, I would even agree with his statement that pictures from satellite feeds could be regarded "almost as 'an empty vessel'" (Gurevitch 1996: 220).
   As I said, the format influences the audience's perception of objectivity. "The interpretive conventions of reporters, sources, and editors are made to seem quite minimal when news is written according to the accepted conventions." (Pedelty 1995: 190) Pedelty then says: "Conformity feels like freedom." In the news sense, conformity might actually be freedom, since it will help the journalist communicate with the audience and thereby give more time to explain the story. But it is a freedom that has to be changed constantly by breaking the rules from time to time.
   Another problem is that reporting in itself interferes with the events (Gurevitch 1996: 214; Serfaty 1990: 9). This is the same problem that faces many sciences; where to draw the line between the observer and the observed, how to be certain that the observation instrument does not change that which it is supposed to observe. In that same field, Gurevitch points out that for lack of global polls, global public opinion is what the media say it is (Gurevitch 1996: 218).

Language and the benefits of communication
   That leads us to another important factor in journalism: language. The ability and power to define things is the primary function of the language (because I just said so). A children's book told the story of a goat who learned how to count, and the goat counted all the other animals and they were very upset. "He's counting us! Stop it!" This is what language does--you are number one, you are number two, you are number three. (And these last three phrases even have social connotations...)
   Journalism uses language to define the world to us all. Therefore, this language is important. The professional grasp of language (for radio journalists it also includes sounds, and for TV journalists pictures) is an ability that can be used to inform or to disinform, since it is also used in advertising. Journalism will still be needed in this area. Not only to define the world in an "objective" way, but to provide a common language in which to discuss the democratic governing of society (more on the democratic implications later).
   The importance of a common language is irrefutable, but for democracy to work it cannot be decided by just anyone--e.g. governments or non-journalistic companies. For it to be useful, the language has to be correct, and vice versa. Jaap van Ginneken discusses how important our very words are to frame people in the minds of others (van Ginneken 1998: 11-15). This important function of journalistic and other language is actually mocked by some as "political correctness". But language is political, and there is no way of getting around it. There is a difference in using slang or correct language on every other occasion, so it is naturally the same with words that describe minorities or women (who are a majority, by the way).
   Words in the media have an impact on the way we think. As Pedelty remarks: "The news has us think almost solely in terms of imagined communities (the state) and subordinate institutions (family), rather than in terms of the corporate structures in which we spend the majority of our time." (Pedelty 1995: 186)
   Roger Wallis and Stanley J Baran describe the creation of prejudice. By naming a group (hooligans), journalists make the public sensitive to its existence (even if it does not exist). This is then followed by over-estimation and escalation (Wallis & Baran 1990: 236). It is a question of definitions of the words used to "create" society and the world in the media. It is one of the most important tasks for journalism, now and in the future, so it is imperative that it be performed responsibly by people who are at least trying to be objective.
   A sculptor once said: To make a real animal is difficult, because then you have to get it right. Making a monster is much easier, because then I am the only one who knows what the monster looks like.
   David Morley and Kevin Robins quote Ricoeur: "Suddenly, it becomes possible that there are just Others, that we ourselves are an 'other' among Others." (Morley & Robins 1995: 25) This was written in 1965, when it was perhaps not as self-evident. But Morley and Robins call "difference as a resource and as a source of enrichment" a "utopian possibility"! (Morley & Robins 1995: 25) In this day and age. Fortunately, it is not a "utopian possibility", it is a fact. Businesses all over the world are using this very resource to improve themselves. Maybe it is a result of the information society, where a differing opinion is worth more than "Yes, sir. Right away, sir." It sharpens the mind to express something, and the thought expressed will be sharpened by it too.
   As far as Bardoel's provocative question is concerned, I would say that the Internet is more of a threat to some kinds of scientific jargon, and only after doing away with them can it in turn threaten journalism. Until then, journalism will be needed to put in layman's terms what the scholars write. Sometimes, scholars themselves would be better off doing just that. It has been shown in studies at a law school that laws written in plain language are actually better understood and better applied in court compared to traditional, more "exact" laws. (Esaias Tegnér said in 1820, more than 175 years ago: "Vad du ej klart kan säga vet du ej; med tanken ordet föds på mannens läppar; det dunkelt sagda är det dunkelt tänkta." What you cannot say clearly, you do not know; word is borne by thought; that which is dimly said was dimly thought.)
   Another view on language, or communication, is given by Gurevitch. He says that the "blue Skies" attitude to technological advances is "a perspective based on the implicit assumption that 'communication is a good thing', that tensions and conflicts stem from 'breakdowns in communication', and that if we only have 'better communication' a more harmonious global order will come about." (Gurevitch 1996: 204) As always, ironic words like these amaze me. Of course communication contributes to a better world. If he did not believe this, why would he bother to try? It is the basis of all knowledge and science--and without any trust in science it must be rather agonizing to be a scientist. This argument also answers the question of whether journalists should contribute to peace in the world or be "value neutral"--there simply is no choice but to "contribute", because it is the function of journalism.
   Tom Lehrer says on his record That Was The Year That Was: "Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love. Husbands and wives who can't communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on--and in real life, I might add--spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel, that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up!" (Lehrer 1965: 30'38") I agree with him.
   Some feel like I do about the value of communication, blue skies or not, and however exaggerated their Utopian prognoses. David Lyon mentions one social forecast: "New communications technologies hold out the next promise--the demise of war (as slavery disappeared in the industrial era [...])." (Lyon 1995: 57)

Choosing what is important
   What is important? What is news? One of the tasks of journalism is to choose what is news and what is not. ("Man bites dog" is a classic example, and that particular story does occur in the news once in a while.) News should give the audience a reference point, create a common knowledge, because people want to keep up with events and know enough to be critical of what they hear. That is actually a good criterion for what is news, or to measure news value: that many other people know about it (Löfgren 1995: 7, 16). An alternative is that many people ought to know; this is the basis for investigative reporting.
   Paul Grosswiler makes an important point on the selection of news: "By failing to portray blacks regularly and in the context of U.S. society, the news media contributed to racial disorder. Minorities are not covered except in times of crisis and are associated with problems of crime, drugs, and school dropouts." (Grosswiler 1995: 111) What we choose to present can affect our view of society in the same way as how we choose to present it (i.e. the language aspect, above). According to van Ginneken, the very first definition of a news event also tends to define much of the subsequent coverage (van Ginneken 1998: 113-114). This is related to the sensitizing process that Wallis and Baran described (above), and it shows the need for journalists to look for other angles--something which non-journalists may be less likely to do.
   Foreign news is particularly vulnerable to twists in journalism. "The media, in other words, can mould reality. We propose that the tendency to do this is greater with foreign than with domestic news events, since a) immediate response to inaccuracies is less common--foreign authorities trying to redress inaccuracies are less likely to have an impact than domestic authorities--and b) collecting correct information is often harder in a foreign country than at home." (Wallis & Baran 1990: 231) It would not be less so without journalists.
   Journalism has to deal with several problems that would definitely be just as big if people were supposed to find their information for themselves. "Groups and collective categories without titular leaders, such as 'the people' of El Salvador, are generally either missing from the news or represented by these same elites." (Pedelty 1995: 180)
   To many non-journalists, news is what is in the media--and because it is in the media, it is important. "Förenklat förefaller resonemanget vara att nyheter är sådant som står i tidningen, och sådant som står i tidningen är viktigt." (Löfgren 1995: 26) But to journalists, things that for some reason seem important are judged to be news and end up in the media. One crucial aspect of journalism is thus to find things that are important and that people should get to hear, since people do not (have the time to) do this for themselves. That coverage infers that an event is important can actually be considered one of the problems of journalism.
   Helena Löfgren's interviews show that the audience is sometimes not completely aware of what journalism is. Even CNN's ad agency produced an example of that, in an advertisement about the coverage of operation Desert Storm and the recent Gulf crisis: "In the end it became clear that CNN was the mouthpiece of no-one. It offered no interpretation of events." (CNN International 1998) That is not true and it would not be a good thing if it were. Offering an interpretation of events is the most important part of journalism, the very reason for journalism. Simply by putting together a news item about what is happening and why, the journalist is interpreting the event for the audience so that the event can be understood in the short time (or, in newspapers, small space) of the item.
   Levy wondered: "Had television news, and especially CNN, 'won' the journalistic war but lost forever its ability and desire to interpose editorial judgment between event and audiences?" (quoted in Bardoel 1996: 284) Now CNN seems to have answered that, even though "Ed Turner of CNN" had said: "We are chroniclers of events. It is our responsibility, first and above all, to try to explain to our viewers what happened today, why it happened, and what maybe it will mean for tomorrow." (quoted in Hume 1996)
   Elihu Katz has objections to the CNN version of live television news. "Rather than collecting information and trying to make sense of it in time for the evening news broadcast, the CNN ideal is to do simultaneous, almost-live editing, or better yet, no editing at all." (quoted in Bardoel 1996: 284) My view on live news in general is that there is a point in showing what is happening live. There is a possibility that something sensational happens right in front of the camera, as the fire in Waco or the siege of the parliament in Moscow. Those images are now part of journalistic history, not because they were live on TV when it happened but because the events themselves were significant. When we see any news pictures, they were all taken while events were unfolding and then saved for later use. Some will live forever. Whether or not they were also broadcast at the time of the event is of course less important.
   Live television is also less likely to be manipulated, even though there are many "events" that are staged, directed and very much commercialized, and even though there has to be a certain amount of producing to get it on the air. In spite of the problems, there is a point in showing not only the "first draft of history"--as journalism has been called--but also history in the making. That alone is a good argument for treating live events as if they were important. Without journalism, there would only be staged events of rather dubious significance. Even journalism runs the risk of getting stuck in pre-planned calendar reporting which makes reporters quite dependent on the people in power.
   The audience can affect the selection of news more actively by switching channels or by flipping past pages in a newspaper. Electronically it is even easier. However, Sparks claims that "the dream of individualised news resources delivered through electronic means is unrealisable. [...] The simple economies of news means that it must necessarily have an audience with a 'mass' character. The best that the 'Daily Me' will ever produce is a personalised selection from news material produced for much larger audiences." (Sparks 1996: 48) I have to object to that. These news resources exist already. And it is nothing economic about the reasons for news being directed towards a mass market. A "selection from news material produced for larger audiences" matches the concept of "news" exactly, whichever way you see it: recent events that others know of too. But all this news is produced by real, living, non-virtual journalists, no matter how electronically it is then distributed.

Diversity, regulation, and imperialism
   The media should show every possible aspect of society in order to retain legitimacy, but commercialization is making this difficult. There are also fears that the Western (or even just the US) cultural or media imperialism threatens other cultures of the world. Some suggest regulations to protect them (mostly for the entertainment industry, but the boundary between entertainment and journalism is seldom clear cut). Would commercialization stop if people were to decide that journalism is no longer necessary? I think not.
   Internet journalism sometimes seems to be considered as a free service, which could explain why some think it will not survive. But there are ways to make Internet journalism commercially viable, and they are being used and developed further.
   One problem for journalism is how to keep both the audience and the reliability and seriousness that is so important. "One of the simple equations which is true for most versions of the overall model is: no content = no readers = no profit. One major aim of the activities of journalists, whether they are producing high-minded political commentary, grubby stories about drug-abusing popular entertainers, or truly astonishing revelations about the sexual activities of the British Royal Family, is the need to win and retain readers." (Sparks 1996: 45) But there are lots of varieties, not just Boring and Garbage, and there is a difference between "profit" to pay the rent and highest-possible-profit to compete with child labour investments in Asia (to put it drastically). It is when management raises the desired profit margin from 3 % to 25 % that things start going bad ("Studio Ett" 1998). Journalism must be performed primarily for the sake of journalism. I am not saying that journalists should work for nothing, but company awareness of the core function of the company is absolutely paramount. No business except perhaps banking can have as its primary goal to make money.
   Not only do we risk that more and more poorly backed or sensational stories make their way into the media, but in order to please the audience, media are becoming more and more hypocritical of politicians and other powerful celebreties when these are involved in "scandals". Wallis and Baran say that "Assumptions about audience expectations, as a rule, can be expected to push to [the far end of the scale] (not wishing to offend or shock listeners or viewers)." (Wallis & Baran 1990: 243) This is something that the former president of Sweden's journalists trade union, Claes Leo Lindwall, says even influences politics and the atmosphere in society. "Långsiktigt kommer urvalet av [politiska] kandidater att begränsas, de som på något sätt avviker från det som människor betecknar som 'normalt' kommer att avstå från det politiska livet. Och till slut är inte medierna 'folkets röst' utan 'de fördomsfullas röst'." (Lindwall 1998)
   This problem is specifically journalistic, since it would not exist if journalism did not work by pointing out what is important. But will it disappear if journalism does? It might, but there would still be people out to spread rumours and "scandals"--to raise the value of their stock or to defame competitors or rivals, or for a million other reasons. Without journalism, we would have to research the rumours for ourselves to see if they are true.
   Are then the media mainly economic or mainly cultural products? The cultural part of journalism is needed for its economy, which is needed for the cultural part, and modern market economy and journalism need each other. Making money is only something that is necessary to keep doing the things one likes to do, wants to do, needs to do--or must do, as is the case with journalism, the privately owned and operated branch of government. (That phrase can be taken as more than a mere analogy. In a democracy, the information on which decisions are made is what determines them.) In this sense, information has always been a commodity. Knowledge is power. And, to fill the cliché quota, time is money. The time that one spends at work is converted into money, with which one buys things that one has no time to make for oneself. Therefore, there will always be a connection between journalism (i.e. culture) and economy, in the sense that it will be natural to charge money for information--in some way or another. The person who has less time to gather and structure information pays someone, the journalist, who has more time to do that.
   The commodification of information power reduces diversity. The power that an information empire gives is also part of the basis for the audience's trust in those media. When Rupert Murdoch uses his influence to keep critical voices away from his papers and TV networks in order to make the Chinese government like him, the audience actually loses trust in his media. (And then what good is he to the Chinese government? Greed stupidifies.) His acquisition of The Times has not given him more credibility, it has reduced the credibility of The Times. According to Kerstin Brostrand ("Studio Ett" 1998), readers are instead turning to the public service television and radio of the BBC. That Murdoch for economic reasons got his newspaper The Sun to support Labour instead of the Tory Party in the latest elections is part of the same trend of using all media possibilities to make money. But money for the sake of money does not in the long run build journalistic trust, and that trust is what media organisations live by. Murdoch can probably go much further on this road, but one day it will stop--whether forced by law or simply by the economy. Journalism as a profit machine will be impossible because it thereby removes its own foundation: trust.
   US President James Madison wrote, 200 years ago: "A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prelude to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." (quoted in Rheingold 1996) This is why journalism is so important in an age of increasing information flow.
   PR officials or "news managers", supplying news stories to the media and thus contributing to that flow, is another matter of growing concern. "News management can be positive (supplying news, but in a form satisfactory to the giver) or negative (restricting access to information except under the giver's terms)." (Wallis & Baran 1990: 243) Bardoel also mentions these "information brokers" (1996: 299), who are working as "the natural antipodes of journalists" (1996: 287). The professional definitions are becoming blurred. "Who is and who is not a journalist in this context may not always be so clear in the years ahead, as a variety of information functions arise to sort, sift and funnel data electronically. The boundaries between journalism and non-journalism in cyberspace may become even more problematic than it has become in the mass media." (Dahlgren 1996: 70)
   What Bardoel sees as the redundance of journalism, others have described as a fragmentation of the audience (Dahlgren 1996: 63) and a wide diversity that now transforms the phrase "the medium is the message" into "the message is the message" (Castells 1996: 368).
   Will the Western news media and media empires threaten other cultures of the world? The US cultural dominance has been challanged on several occasions. François Mitterrand invoked "the right of every country to create its own images. A society which abandons the means of depicting itself would soon be an enslaved society." (quoted in Schlesinger 1997: 376) I agree with this statement (see also the language discussion above), but I do not see that free trade in the information sector would mean abandoning said means (the statement was connected with the GATT negotiations).
   Philip Schlesinger mentions an interesting way to explain the different views on cultural politics in Europe and the USA. "The US position on GATT stems from a key unstated premise. As the ruling official conception of Americanness is a juridico-political image of the collectivity, rather than a national cultural one, there is little official inclination to see mediated culture as an object of policy for conferring national identity." (Schlesinger 1997: 376)
   Free trade under fair conditions is the best way to get the most out of the trade. Whether or not GATT accomplished that, I am in no position to say. International media should not be regulated beyond what is reasonable, and there are of course many views on what is reasonable in this case. Censorship in whatever form can never be accepted. However, economic limits can be imposed on companies that are growing too large to be reached by democratic control--i.e. threatening to eliminate too many of their competitors--but this is not so much a cultural regulation as it is a business regulation like so many others. In this respect, journalism can be treated like just any other company. Of course, it is more important for democracy to have many sources of information than to have many sources of toothpicks, but the principles of regulation would be the same as for any business.
   Gurevitch describes the media imperialism theory in this way: "the media were seen as creating connections that resulted in undermining the cultural integrity and coherence of nation-states." (Gurevitch 1996: 207) Such a view of the media actually implies that there are cultures that are better than others, that they will "win" simply by coming in contact with others. This, I do not believe. Cultures are, after all, the will of the individuals that perpetuate them. If these individuals no longer want to sacrifice humans at midwinter, it might not be such a bad thing to stop. Especially not for the serfs in turn to be sacrificed. (I know that this is an idealistic and democratic way of seeing changes in culture, but as I will try to show below, the threat to culture may not be so powerful after all.)
   John B Thompson argues against cultural imperialism theory: "A second problem with Schiller's argument is that it tends to assume that before the electronic invasion led by the United States most Third World countries had indigenous, authentic traditions and cultural heritages which were largely untainted by values imposed from outside. [...] But this vision of the cultural integrity of Third World countries is a somewhat romantic view which, in many cases, does not stand up to careful scrutiny." (Thompson 1995: 169) Instead, Thompson argues a different view of culture. "Most forms of culture in the world today are, to varying extents, hybrid cultures in which different values, beliefs and practices have become deeply entwined." (Thompson 1995: 170) I could not agree more.
   Castells quotes the title of a paper by Umberto Eco: "Does the Audience Have Bad Effects on Television?" (Castells 1996: 335) This is a good way of reminding oneself of the constant interpretation that goes on when we expose ourselves to media. For example, there is a study on the perception of Dallas that suggests that audiences in different cultures focus on different aspects of even such a set programme.
   Another thing that speaks against cultural imperialism theory, at least when it comes to news, is mentioned by CNNI vice-president Peter Vesey. "You're going to have to speak English fairly well to understand what we're saying. And usually, if you can do that, you're educated and insulated from what evil influences we might also represent to your culture." (quoted in Johnston 1995: 76) If this language barrier can be seen as protecting local culture, there are also arguments about its downside. Alinta Thornton claims that on the Internet, we have to speak cyber-English, "the latest stage in a historical procession of geopolitical domination that uses language as a tool of domination." (Thornton 1996: Chapter 3) Thornton quotes Lockard: "Learn it or else. Speak so 'we' understand, or take a hike and be damned." But that is the very point of any language--that one has to speak according to certain norms if one wants to be understood. The function of journalism in this context can be to make language less of a barrier and less of a "tool of domination" respectively. In order for journalism to become redundant, the potential audience will have to reject most interpretation of things unknown, including foreign languages.
   On the subject of "national and post-national identity" Price mentions youth culture in India, where MTV is leaving its mark (Price 1995: 58). I would like to point out the global cultural importance of the old stories, songs, and traditions that may be "out-competed". If the young favour MTV it is their prerogative to do so, but it reminds us that in our constantly changing times, efforts must be made to keep a record of what life is like in the present. Even the music on MTV will eventually benefit from influences from the songs of other cultures, as will Western drama from other traditions of storytelling. This way the "global" culture will be truly enriched, instead of just seeming powerful because other cultures are weaker in comparison. It would be a horrible thing if songs were forgotten and stories never told.
   I actually see diminishing cultural differences through global media influence and the slow emergence of a multicultural global society as something good. The reason for that is "the rise of what has been labelled 'cultural fundamentalism', the post-racist doctrine in which sacralized cultural difference replaces racial superiority as the ground for refusing pluralism" (Schlesinger 1997: 370; my emphasis). If we all realize that we carry part of the Other in ourselves, democracy will stand a better chance.

Problems and perks of electronic journalism
   Now that I have explained why journalism is needed and why I do not believe that it will become redundant, I will briefly discuss a few aspects of journalism in the new medium.
   Dahlgren mentions the trend toward more self-referential media (Dahlgren 1996: 62-63). This brings to mind a note on copyright law. "Some [court] rulings have recognized that the growth of scholarship depends on using previous works, particularly in writing biographies or history." (Crews 1998) Reference is thus an important feature of knowledge. But the use of previous works can actually be changed with an increasing amount of information. Copyright can be enforced in more effective ways with more effective technologies, and thereby prevent the use of certain works. But journalism and science alike also run the risk of having so much new information that they have difficulties connecting it to the old information, in spite of the improved technology. The gathered knowledge of mankind is said to have doubled since 1980, compared to all of history before that year.
   And history itself is at risk. When an article is written electronically, it can be changed at any time, often without traces that are visible to the surfer. Soon this will also apply to radio and television recordings. The fact that archives already have problems with electromagnetically stored information that is deteriorating can be countered by re-saving it or putting it on Internet servers that keep copying the information around the world, so the biggest problem is then to make sure that the information is not changed.
   "At the speed of news"? Wallis and Baran also discuss the problem of continuous in-depth coverage. One breaking story blots out the follow-up of the previous one, and so on (Wallis & Baran 1990: 226-227). This is less of a problem in electronic journalism, where the subscribed electronic news about that first event will keep coming, but what is to say that the audience does not lose interest too? "The life of public issues is shortened as the publicity process speeds up. This whirling communication carousel of immediate action and reaction within the publicity process decreases rather than increases the scope for journalistic signification." (Bardoel 1996: 286) The problem of public issues having a shorter life span nowadays is very real, and most likely studies will be made on that subject. But does this new speed reduce journalistic signification? If people form their opinions of an event based on less coverage now, the existing coverage is actually more important. Of course, to constantly change topics may have as a result that an issue can "deserve" more coverage than it gets. However, since the Internet makes it possible to access any information whenever one likes, one can examine news events more closely than before, even though their media life span may be shorter.
   Stevenson states that "the historical development of a particular field of media should be related to other fields of cultural production. The technical hybridisation of media forms has produced radical effects, restructuring related fields of production." (Stevenson 1995: 124) The Internet will definitely continue in this tradition, blending the different media even more. Some have difficulties grasping this new situation. "On the other hand, the rate of growth of the home-based PC market is everywhere slowing down, so it may not be that the PC will ever achieve the high level of penetration of, for example, the television set." (Sparks 1996: 53) Is it not rather likely that the PC will be the television set, or vice versa? Time will tell.
   Finally, many enjoy the fact that hyperlinks offer the prospect of "a bottomless news hole" (i.e. the space where news had to fit after the advertisements were placed on the paper page). I agree that this is one of the greatest benefits that the Internet brings to journalism.

Summation
   Journalism is not and will never become redundant. There will always be a need for edited news reports, and those reports are best produced using journalistic principles, some of which I have described in this discussion: objectivity, definition by language, the professional news values, and the benefits of diversity.
   Democratic society cannot do without journalism, and journalism is also of great importance to the economy by which it is sometimes so threatened. The struggle between economy and culture (of which journalism is a part) will go on--for should one of them win, both will die.
   "At the end of the 20th century, journalism must once again seek its place in a changing society." (Bardoel 1996: 299) All times are times of change. And still so little changes. McGrew asks if we are possibly moving towards the first truly global civilization (1992: 63). I would say so. However, I am not so sure that it is an entirely new era. The Global Village might not be around the corner, but we do see how technology is moving us backwards through the ages, to a time when it was not too difficult to contact everyone, when people knew all about their neighbours-for good and for bad-and when it was easy for someone powerful to do have evil things done. The stories and the flickering light in our midst are all but the same as they always have been.

References
Bardoel, Jo 1996: "Beyond Journalism" in European Journal of Communication vol. 11(3): 283-302

Boal, Iain A 1995: "A Flow of Monsters: Luddism and Virtual Technologies" in Brooks and Boal (eds) Resisting the Virtual Life (San Francisco: City Lights)

Castells, Manuel 1996: The Rise of the Network Society (Oxford: Blackwell)

CNN International 1998: "That was then. This is now." (advertisement) in Dagens Nyheter, 21 February 1998

Crews, Kenneth D 1998: Indiana University Online Copyright Tutorial, message 19 (University of Indiana, 23 March 1998) Information on this mailing list is available at http://www.iupui.edu/it/copyinfo/Online_Tutorial.html

Dahlgren, Peter 1996: "Media Logic in Cyberspace: Repositioning Journalism and Its Publics" in Javnost/The Public vol. 3 no. 3: 59-72

Donsbach, Wolfgang, and Klett, Bettina 1993: "Subjective objectivity. How journalists in four countries define a key term of their profession" in Gazette vol. 51: 53-83

Frederick, Howard 1993: "Computer Networks and the Emergence of Global Civil Society" in Harasim (ed.) Global Networks (London: MIT Press)

Grosswiler, Paul 1995: "Continuing Media Controversies" in Merrill (ed.) Global Journalism (New York: Longman)

Gurevitch, Michael 1996: "The Globalization of Electronic Journalism" in Curran and Gurevitch (eds) Mass Media and Society (London: Edward Arnold)

Hume, Ellen 1996: The Future of News: The Consumer Wakes (http://www.annenberg.nwu.edu/pubs/tabloids/)

Johnston, Carla Brooks 1995: Winning the Global TV News Game (Boston: Focal Press)

Lehrer, Tom 1965: That Was The Year That Was (Reprise Records 6179-2)

Lindwall, Claes Leo 1998: "Sex, moral och politik blir ett" in Journalisten 1998, no. 6, page 3

Lyon, David 1995: "The Roots of the Information Society Idea" in Heap et alii (eds) Information Technology and Society (London: Sage)

Löfgren, Helena 1995: Läsarnas egna sidor (level C paper; Department of Journalism, Media and Communication, Stockholm University)

McGrew, Anthony 1992: "A Global Society?" in Hall, Held and McGrew (eds) Modernity and Its Futures (Polity Press)

Morley, David, and Robins, Kevin 1995: Spaces of Identity (London: Routledge)

Pedelty, Mark 1995: War Stories: The Culture of Foreign Correspondents (New York: Routledge)

Price, Monroe E 1995: Television-The Public Sphere and National Identity (Oxford: Clarendon Press)

Rheingold, Howard 1996: The Future of News (a text on paper where the source was scribbled: "off the Internet" [sic!]), edited by Marklein, Mary Beth--some key words: BBS, citizens, Habermas, Postman, public, the WELL

Schlesinger, Philip 1997: "From cultural defence to political culture: media, politics and collective identity in the European Union" in Media, Culture & Society vol. 19: 369-391

Serfaty, Simon 1990: "The Media and Foreign Policy" in Serfaty (ed.) The Media and Foreign Policy (Houndmills: Macmillan)

Sparks, Colin 1996: "Newspapers, the Internet and Democracy" in Javnost/The Public vol. 3 no. 3: 43-57

Stevenson, Nick 1995: Understanding Media Cultures (London: Sage)

"Studio Ett" 1998: radio discussion on media moguls; in Sveriges Radio P1, 24 March 1998 16:03-16:45

Thompson, John B 1995: The Media and Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press)

Thornton, Alinta 1996: Will Internet Revitalize Democracy in the Public Sphere?, now changed to does internet create democracy? (http://www.wr.com.au/democracy/intro.htm)

van Ginneken, Jaap 1998: Understanding Global News (London: Sage)

Wallis, Roger, and Baran, Stanley J 1990: The Known World of Broadcast News (London: Routledge)

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