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the differences between us' and them'. Every report on violence or pressing issues in other countries allows us to appreciate our own stability, or our version of it. If Philip Bobbit's predictions materialize into reality, us' will become them'. Media in a cosmopolitan society would have to unify us instead of classify us into different sections, which would promote detachment from one another. The role of the media must always adapt to the political atmosphere.

For now, mass media is run by the most powerful institutions- for the moment it is the government, or the nation-state. These institutions have the ability to gage our awareness as citizens. In many cases, and in the past, government control has gone to dangerous extremes with dangerous consequences (Soviet Union) and some are working paradoxically wellfor the moment (China).

As the world shrinks, the opportunity to spread information widens. An enhanced free flow of information may result in instability or increased stability, depending on the political system in which it is received. In terms of responsibility, each media outlet has its own interests in mind and has no definite code to adhere to. Rather, the term "media" will adapt as the population of the world grows and technology becomes more readily available.

The fluidity of the responsibility of media puts journalists in an unfavorable position. Those above the poverty level are perpetually guilty because they know they are luckier than billions of people. Those below the poverty line become angry because they are the unlucky ones. As Huntington warned in the 1960's, overexposure is one of the leading causes of democratic instability. In many cases, media is the cause of future conflict. Journalists must ask themselves, "how much is too much?" The political atmosphere may not be ripe for awareness of so much information. There must be a balance in the responsibility of the media to maintain stability as well as report facts accurately and without bias.

Certain circumstances call for the dire need of media attentionand these are usually misinterpreted, never paid attention to, never published, or outshined by another story. In the developed world, the media has a responsibility to gage the importance of issues being published and fed to the public. However, this pushes us toward another impossible questionwhat makes one country's poverty level more important than another's ethnic conflict? Counting number of injuries or deaths isn't necessarily a factor in determining extreme urgency of a situation.

As Aristotle said, man is a political animal. Power is at the root of all politics. Media as a mass enterprise has a tragic entanglement with politics that is seemingly inherent. If we can manage to untangle the two in a politically stable manner, it is possible that the true responsibilities of the media will solidify more completely.

Learn more about this author, Marisela Feldman.
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