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.