Cultural Integration and Globalisation Reflections on the ESF-programme Changing Media – Changing Europe

European integration and European cooperation are already very high on the political agenda in most European countries. No matter what we think and feel about the EU, the European question is already deeply imbedded in our public life, in our media culture and in our everyday life. The strong emotional reactions for and against questions of European integration and culture and to the processes of globalisation as such, are, however, an indication of one of the problems facing cultural and social globalisation and European integration. We do witness an overall process of homogenisation on different levels, but there is also an underlying differentiation and regionalisation within the national cultures which are undergoing globalisation and European integration. We still live and think very much as local and national citizens and not as the European and global citizens we are also slowly becoming. The rising gap between the A-team of globalisation, the global elites of politics, finance and media, and the B-team of ordinary national citizens is already very visible around the beginning of this new millennium which will most certainly mean a rise in virtual technological globalisation and a cultural and social globalisation in real time. The media culture and the cultural industries are already among the globally strongest sectors of growth, and the fight between large companies and the vertical integration of all media sectors has long been very fierce, resulting in a stronger pressure against the wellknown European public service model and traditional cultural institutions and politics.