A cosmopolitan, by definition, is a “citizen of the universe” — someone who engages with issues across the globe, from politics, to war, to climate change. For example, we listen to WAMC, read the newspaper, check our Facebook pages and act like dutifully connected people.
But the Director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, Ethan Zuckerman, argues that we’re living in a state of “imaginary cosmopolitanism.” We expose ourselves to limited kinds of information, particularly that which is already of interest to us or to those closest to us. He confronts this issue in his new book, Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection.