It is essential, however, that we turn our attention to the impact of these new developments on our responsibilities as citizens and individual communicators. There are new imperatives about our understanding of communication in this new razzle-dazzle information society. We face new challenges in educating everyone about this new communication environment. Nationally, there is intense public interest in, attention to, and concern about the role of communication in modern life. Communication policy can and should address social problems.
Important questions arise.
Internationally, the emergence of new political relationships in Eastern Europe has fostered discussions about the democratization of international news media. This issue has raised other normative questions regarding the role of the United States in helping to develop democratic forms of communications in societies struggling out of their recent histories. The growth of ever-larger transnational media conglomerates across changing political boundaries has reopened discussions of the relationships of communication practices to cultural identity and political alliances. Communication policy is of critical international concern where a unified European community is a real possibility. These questions and issues call out for reasoned discussion, informed communication scholarship, and a communications-literate public.