Community is just another way of expressing shared interest. In the media those shared interests can cross political and state boundaries (for example business news, some sports and pornography).

But where they can’t cross those boundaries is in politics itself. If you want to get people interested in politics you have to create a shared interest and an opportunity to express that interest.

That has implications for journalism and it’s a theme take up by Simon Jenkins:

Of all nationalisations in British history, none has been so corrosive of the public good as the nationalisation of social responsibility.

I am not starry eyed about the vigour of local democracy abroad. It is messy, bureaucratic and often corrupt. But it appears to yield communities more able to discipline themselves and their young, and more satisfied at the delivery of their public services. They do not throw nearly so many people in jail.

Local newspapers are not, as in Britain, filled with impotent whinges against central government. Local leadership is considered a duty by citizens permitted to exercise it.

Read the comments to his piece. If you want to reinvingorate local news start campaigning for more local democracy.