IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE AFRICAN CONTINENT HAS ALWAYS occupied an ambiguous and in the last analysis unhealthy place in the Western mind. To some its vast empty spaces have promised the riches of a new El Dorado together with the piratical thrills associated with their plunder, to others the challenge of a last frontier along which to stake out and defend their interests; while for many Africa was either the dark continent, a corrupt and corruptin place, or the last stronghold of barbarism waiting upon the enlightenment, or a refuge of worldly innocence where a breed of New Men might at last transcend their own past (and ours) and build a society based not on exploitation and conflict but on social justice.

THE POLITICAL GAINS EXPECTED FROM HOLDING DIRECT ELECtions to the European Parliament were bound to depend on the nature and extent of mass communication. Information flows released during the campaign in the various Community countries, and how they were received by electoral audiences, would determine, for example, whether: European awareness would spread beyond the confines of cosmopolitan élites into the ranks of mass publics; the legitimacy of the Euro ean Parliament would be strengthened by enhancing its visibility, intelligibility and relevance in the eyes of European citizens; and whether the seeds of a European-level body of public opinion would begin to sprout and flourish. As Emdio Colombo once put it, ‘The elections to the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage provide an opportunity of bringing the debate on Europe into the public forum and of enlisting the active support of the man in the street for the construction of Europe.’