Foreign news coverage and international news flow over three centuries

Abstract

No subject in communication research in recent years has stimulated greater interest on a world-wide level than questions of foreign news reporting and international news flow. This is a result not only of scientific interest but even more of the growing debate on communication policies as they relate to the so-called 'free flow of information' doctrine and the 'new world information order.'The origins of this discussion go back further, of course. When the countries of the world drew together after World War II, it was clear that international communication relationships between states were an important part of international politics [94] . This . was the impetus for programs to promote development of communications systems, mostly under the doctrine of a 'free flow of information' throughout the world. The issue became controversial in the 1970s when Third World countries began to lay claim to greater influence on international communication. In March, 1976, at a symposium of the non-aligned countries in Tunis, a call was made for the first time for a 'new World information order,' analogous to an earlier demand for a new world economic order. Thus international communication became entangled in the tensions of the North-South conflict. Countries of the Third World above all criticized the foreign news coverage of the powerful Western mass media for alleged imbalance in quantity and distortions in quality as well as the dominant Western news agencies for failing to supply them with information they needed for rapid development. Moreover, disputes between

Foreign and domestic news content of Chinese television

“…In his report on more than 30 content analyses, Wilke (1987) reported that patDownloaded by [University of Arizona] at 04:36 04 February 2015 terns of coverage had been found to be characterized by regionalism, that is "a preference for news from nearby countries" (p. 150). This study tended to confirm these findings.…”

Ile Europy w europejskich mediach informacyjnych? Rola mediów w kształtowaniu europejskiej sfery publicznej

“…Wczesne badania (Woodward, 1930;Kayser, 1953) wyraŸnie ukazywa³y znaczenie bliskooeci geograficznej, spo³ecznej i kulturowej (regionalizm) jako czynnika determinuj¹cego proces selekcji informacji zagranicznych. Co wiêcej, potwierdzi³y one swoisty "Europocentryzm", który charakteryzowa³ brytyjsk¹, niemieck¹ i amerykañsk¹ prasê drukowan¹ ju¿ w XVII, XVIII i XIX wieku (Wilke, 1987). Badania z lat 60.…”

The geography of foreign news on television

“…Studies of foreign news are conceptualized in order to describe and explain the selection processes in the mass media. The first authors, dealing with newspapers in the 17th century, raised the question of which events were selected by journalists for publication and which were not (Wilke, 1987). In the 20th century, this became a topic for systematic research.…”

“…Foreign news reporting goes back to the origins of the printed press. Wilke's (1987) historical, long-term study of foreign news in German, French, English and American newspapers shows that there was a steady growth in the amount of foreign news coverage from the early 17th to early 20th century. In the course of this growth, the world view and the cognitive maps which all the newspapers in these countries conveyed were extended.…”