As a metaphor, Marshall McLuhan’s ‘global village’ has seen better days.1 During optimistic times, it succinctly conveyed the image of an ever more closely connected world in which people separated by vast distances could easily have a chat, as if across the garden fence or at the local pub. Nowadays, however, it is described at best as a pastoral front for enduring colonial power structures in the global media system, and at worst as inspired by colonial warfare.2 Yet during the second half of the twentieth century, the villages of the world were central to journalistic projects that sought to change the colonial structure of the global media system.
Continue reading Human Interest in the Global South: The Gemini News Service (1967–2002)