We will meet online this week to discuss the assessment that is due on October 31. Please watch out for a poll that will ask you about your availability.  

We discuss the key theoretical concept of news flows and explore the historic structure of the flow of news around the globe which has been dominated by Western news agencies and media outlets. In the 1980s, UNESCO (the United Nations’ Education, Culture and Scientific Organisation) developed the blueprint of a “New World Information and Communication Order” (abbreviated as NWICO) to address the imbalance of the news flow between the global South and North. Although new major players emerged in news production and dissemination and a global digital news environment is flourishing, the imbalances continue to exist.

For a perspective of a practising journalist, we will watch a TED talk featuring Lara Setrakian, https://www.ted.com/talks/lara_setrakian_3_ways_to_fix_a_broken_news_industry?language=en 

Key readings:

Segev, E. (2015) “Visible and invisible countries: News flow theory revised.” Journalism 16(3).

Guo, L. & Vargo, C. J. (2020) “Predictors of International News Flow: Exploring a Networked Global Media System”, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 64(3), pp. 418-437.

Recommended readings:

MacBride, S. (1980) Many voices one world: towards a new, more just and more efficient world information and communication order Part 3 Chaps 1-3, pp. 137 – 173.

Malaolu, P. (2014) “Sources and the news from Africa: Why are there no skyscrapers in Nigeria?”, Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 35(1), pp. 25-42.

Zhu, Y. (2019) “Determining economic news about China in global news feed: Evidence from Global Database of Events, Language and Tone”, Global Media and China, 4(2), pp. 272–285.

Figenschou, T. U. (2010) “A voice for the voiceless?: A quantitative content analysis of Al-Jazeera English’s flagship news,” Global Media and Communication, 6(1), pp. 85–107.

Rafeeq, A. & Jiang, S. (2018) “From the Big Three to elite news sources: a shift in international news flow in three online newspapers TheNational.ae, Nst.com.my, and Nzherald.co.nz”, The Journal of International Communication, 24(1), pp. 96-114.