This article examines the role of values in the shaping of futures from the perspective of global communication. It argues that the prospects for a democratic world society depend on the creation of global deliberative publics as a necessary, albeit not sufficient, condition. It explores how the new media that facilitate globalization of trade and production can also provide technical infrastructures for grassroots dialogue across borders. The contrast between alternative trajectories is used to indicate the stakes and available value choices. Rejecting resilient notions of technological determinism, the article analyses how different social actors create the new mediascapes according to diverging values and abilities of involvement. Corporate interests command more resources and better access to law-makers and treaty negotiators, but users and civil society initiatives can increase leverage through imaginative practices and value appeals.
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