Global news flow (also referred to as international news flow) is a field of study that deals with the news coverage of events in foreign countries. It describes and explains the flow of news from one country to another. Studies on global news flow typically attempt to understand why certain countries are more newsworthy than others.. Along the years it has been found that the

economic power Economic power refers to the ability of countries, businesses or individuals to improve living standards. It increases their ability to make decisions on their own that benefit them. Scholars of international relations also refer to the economic p ...

of countries plays a particularly crucial role in their news prominence as well as the presence of international news agencies. Thus, the US has been found to be very prominent in news mentions around the world (18%), followed by China, Western European and Middle Eastern countries (about 3-5% each). The unequal representation of the world and the under-representation of

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed Industrial sector, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is al ...

have been already of a great concern at least since the 1950s, since they influence the way people perceive the world and the image of countries. This problem was later addressed in the

MacBride report ''Many Voices One World'', also known as the MacBride report, was written in 1980 by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which reports to its International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems ...

, and his set of recommendations for a New World Information and Communication Order. The unequal representation of the world has been also linked to the World System Theory, and the unequal economic structure of the world. A 2014 study, examining 35 popular news website in ten different languages over a two-year study period, found that "the United States is by far the most prominent country in the news sites that we studied from around the world, except for the French and Arabic ones" and the "network structure of news links clearly exhibits he U.S.'skey position as the centerpiece of a global system." A 2015 study published in the journalism ''Journalism'', examining "validity and limits of the news flow theory," found that "Over-represented regional centers in West Europe and Asia overshadow the under-represented regional peripheries in East Europe and the Middle East" and that the United States and Africa "serve as a global center and a periphery respectively."

References

{{reflist News Communication World

See also

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