In the United States there is a similar number of people reading newspapers as twenty years ago, but the whole population has grown, so the actual proportion of reading is down. In Brazil, compared to many other countries, Brazilian kids are interested in newspapers. There is a concern world wide to get people who are 15 or 20 or 25 to take up the habit of reading newspapers. There's some fear that they will never do it, unlike some earlier generations. On the other hand, big newspapers are threatened, partially because the technology is cheaper, there is a proliferation of little media, of bulletins and newsletters and small magazines, very small print media with very specific audiences.
Some people see that as very promising, as a democratic thing.
It used to be that to afford something you had to have access to a big press, you had to be a professional media company, now you don't. With a computer and a Xerox machine, you can print, you can publish. I think you tend to get a global circulation of ways of doing things that are perceived as successful in other countries, but I also think there's a huge tendency to modify those things, hybridize them in other places. It's one of the ideas of globalization that I don't buy. Yes, so you will get a product standardization, I'm not sure you will get a cultural standardization.