Mass-media and the Cultural Identities of European Regions

di Pierre Musso
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 6 (2000), p. 79

Mass-media are promoting a new idea of Europe, the so-called "Regional Europe". On one hand, the new technologic processes are leading to the globalization of Economics and of mass-communication systems and, on the other, to a growing application for information that, in its turn, arouses the regionalization of the media and their differentiation. The mingling of global and local aspects contributes to the constitution of international networks in which regions stand out as a limited and, consequently, more knowable space. Mass-media, including both Press and Television, do not create ex novo: they take part to the creation and representation of the cultural identities of European regions. In this way Europe is able to find in the media the heritage of its own history and, at the same time, its own weakness.