Uniting disparate cultures with like-minded journalism: A case study of U.S.A. Today and The European

Abstract

Both Europe and the United States are large bodies of land occupied by a collection of individual states drawn into a common national identity for economic, cultural, political and social purposes) But the extent to which the national governing bodies in Brussels or Washington successfully forge common policies is largely dependent on a public perception of commonality between the individual states or countries. A key player in correlating individual cultures to a national conscience are the mass media. 2 By providing the audience with a standardised message about the customs and practices that individual cultures share, the media publicly cultivate a perceived sense of commonality2 McLuhan referred to the process as 'implosion', where media are used by the individual as a kind of external nervous system to internalise events from the outside world so that a sense of community can be grasped. 4 Understandably, the news media play a central role in creating a particular national consciousness by presenting a regular and somewhat serious 'heartbeat' of national events to an otherwise segmented audience. Jensen argues that 'news and public affairs are perhaps the quintessential elements of the public sphere, since information is the basic prerequisite for political participation' (p. 11). 5 The special authority of news to deliver a certified ideology has been examined by scholars interested in how its language presents a particular outlook ascribed to by media producers and consumers. 57 One focus of this research has been on how the news media practically designate the public's perception of the important issues of the day. s i0 This study compares two newspapers, The European and U.S.A. Today, in an effort to reveal how the content of each paper implies to its readers important issues in the relations between individual cultures and the national governing body. The purpose is not to offer a comprehensive examination of all the details of each paper, but to spotcheck for impressions left by symbols or text that the average reader would notice. In addressing this subject I do take into account that there are many differences between Europe and the U.S.: Europe's member states are more culturally individual than the U.S.; Europe has a million more people than the U.S.; Europe has many more natural languages than the U.S. Europe has an older history than the U.S.; and Europe is in a much earlier and more tentative stage of forming consensual government policy than the U.S. However, three similarities between the two land masses are close enough to make for a valid comparison: both the U.S. and Europe require united