Cosmopolitanism on Demand? Television and the Narrowing of Mediated Social Connection

Abstract

Cosmopolitanism requires individuals to imagine themselves not just as members of local and national groups but as part of a global and, to some degree, abstract “community” of strangers. In doing so, it raises questions about how we can communicate with and imagine others beyond the horizon of local community or even the nation state (James 1996). Theorising the formation of cosmopolitan identities requires examining how we engage with, create, and reify this community of strangers through global publics—those public forums and spaces in which this attachment to others is made manifest—and the manner by which they are mediated by technologies of communication.

We investigate specifically the role of on-demand television in shaping cosmopolitan publics and argue that two contrary principles are operative. Television provides the basis for a heightened cosmopolitan awareness that differs from classical cosmopolitanism insofar as there is the capacity to “know” others beyond immediate community and national boundaries. However, on-demand television has the potential to limit engagement and global awareness through the promotion of individually tailored patterns of consumption. On-demand television operates in a media environment in which there is a surfeit of content and this allows individuals to create their own programming schedules based on what is familiar. There is a much greater capacity to preclude content that does not correspond with existing tastes and the already known, and by doing so can lead to disengagement from national and cosmopolitan debates.