Global News Flows

Abstract

This article seeks to test certain hypotheses drawn from structural communications theory, hypotheses that tend to support the call for a New World Information Order (NWIO). Structural theorists such as Johan Galtung and NWIO advocates from the Third World have charged that developing nations are dependent upon the West for international news. News dependency, in turn, is said to lead to the adoption of Western news values and subsequent cultural imperialism in the South. Finally, news dependency is said to be neocolonial in the sense that information flows through “vertical” channels (from North to South) and within distinct spheres of communication hegemony. These claims are tested with a news flow study drawn from African and Latin American dailies. Results of the empirical tests show that the Third World is dependent on Western agencies for the bulk of its international news, and that Third World newspapers reflect the news values of Western prestige dailies. Nonaligned newswires, however, are shown to be more resistant to journalistic westernization, as their coverage is markedly different from that of the Western wire services. Finally, news flow patterns do exhibit a pronounced neoimperial character. Agencies from the United States, Great Britain, and France each hold sway over their own regional domains within the Third World.