1144 Ch. 27 • Rebuilding Divided Europe
Delivering Coca-Cola in Venice.
few were without one. In the mid-1980s, the U.S.-based CNN network
began to reach across the world. Just as television coverage of dramatic
news events could be seen around the world, so sports took on an increas
ingly global dimension as well (above all, the World Cup and the Olympics,
but also games of the National Basketball Association, with the globaliza
tion of that sport).
The era of television and radio ended the great age of the newspaper.
During the first years after the war, Europeans read more—and arguably
better—newspapers than ever before or since. As Europeans increasingly
received their news and their entertainment from television and radio,
however, newspapers merged and many folded. With the exception of the
stately, serious dailies like Le Monde of Paris, the British Manchester
Guardian, the German Frankfurter Allgemeine, and La Stampa of iMilan,
an increasing number of tabloid papers relied upon sensationalism, scan
dals, and the proclamation of juicy unsubstantiated rumor as truth to
attract readers. In the Soviet Union, where the state was the only source
of printed news, more than 7 million copies of Pravda were printed every
day.
Credit cards and then personal computers transformed the way people
make purchases. In the context of the ongoing revolution in communica
tions, the advent of computer viruses demonstrated the extent to which
the world has become increasingly interconnected. The apparent vulnera
bility of even the most sophisticated computer systems to knowledgeable
hackers has led to fears for national security systems. In this way, too, Eu
rope entered a new era.