News Flow

Galtung, J. & Vincent, R. C. (1992).  Global Glasnost: Toward a New International Information/Communication Order?  Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc. [ISBN 0-881303-331-4 (cloth) — ISBN 0-881303-332-2 (pbk.); P96.I5G35 1992]


                            Abstract


This book is about a major process of our times:  the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO).  The authors contend that the process was formally derailed because of First World resistance and an inability of Third World nations to agree on a common set of objectives and implementation methods.  The book is an effort to look into the background for the process, as it has unfolded.  It is also an effort to spell out what NWICO might mean, in concrete terms, in four major international news communication themes—peace, development, ecology and war—in a quest for a new global journalism which is problem-conscious, socially conscious, and at home in the world as a whole.
Global Glasnost begins by examining global cause-effect chains, and then attempts to locate some of them on a world political map.  The many possible relationships of such a classificatory scheme, and the associated possibilities for change in news communication within the old or new world information and communication order (NWICO), are the subjects of the first chapter.  It is concluded that there is little doubt that a quantitative transformation has been taking place, with somewhat less relative emphasis on the former Center and somewhat more on the former Periphery.  It is difficult to tell, however, whether this is being accompanied by a similar qualitative transformation, changing the character of what is regarded as news itself.  Furthermore, while communication has become more relevant to global problems than ever before, it may also have become increasingly counter-productive.  A vast array of detached space/time events or "atoms" have been seemingly presented as news constitutes a set of events, not a set of problems.  These notions are developed and explored.

The book then turns to a detailed exploration of the research environment in which news flow and international news content has been examined via both qualita-tive and quantitative research techniques.  Prior research is criticized for its failure to look beyond the superficial "flow" of news items, and instead examine deeper themes and messages.  The authors argue that through newer approaches to news analysis, our understanding of international news would benefit.  Another feature is an expanded discussion of the news structure paradigm first introduced by Professor Galtung in 1961.

Global Glasnost goes on to examine the NWICO concept, as it has unfolded.  This is done by thoroughly reviewing U.N./UNESCO conferences, assemblies, discussions and symposia, and various non-aligned movement, government and media organization actions as they pertain to communication from 1946 to the present.  We can see some of the complexities, at the macro level, of the relationship between economics and information-communication within the new international order.

The final chapters of the book are an effort to say something concrete about a new global and human journalism for four major issue-areas: peace, development, environment, and war reporting, with the latter including major discussion of the Persian Gulf War.  The authors explore various trends found in reporting on these topics, and provide a journalistic agenda for future newswriting.  A "high quality" news media, it is argued, would give more attention to periphery people in periphery countries, to how structures operate day in and day out, and to reporting positive factors.  Also included in the complex and comprehensive analysis are many observations on the state of journalism, its relationship with elites, and the education of journalists.

Professors Galtung and Vincent conclude that whereas the old interna¬tional order was grounded in much economic exchange—with exploita¬tion, and not much dialogue—an attractive alternative may be greater dialogue with less economic exchange.  Yet a new global journalism is still far away.  The most likely "development" will be based on much rhetoric that sounds like dialogue and on the structure of the old international economic order, only located at new places.  In short, little progress will be made toward global and human journalism.  The structure of news has been sliding and jumping all over the globe, but the product has remained basically the same.

The News Flow Debate (NFD), which is about the imbalance in the flow of news internationally, has continued to generate interest in communication research. This is because the issues that gave birth to the debate in the first instance have remained fluid, notwithstanding the impact of social media on the unidirectional flow of news and information due to the liberalization and proliferation of the newsgathering and dissemination processes at the grassroots level. This study analyzes the content of U.S. media coverage to determine the impact of social media on the content and flow of news in the United States. In other words, this study hopes to find if traditional media organizations in the U.S. are still setting public agenda in the era of social media networks popularity.

This book adopts a unique perspective on journalism by considering it as a practice of cartography. Through every aspect of their work, journalists describe and define their community and situate that community within the larger world. With words, images, and sounds, journalists: sketch out the boundaries of community; define its values; identify key components of its political, economic, and cultural infrastructure; describe its constituents; position community with respect to neighbouring communities; highlight other constituencies with which this community has important ties; and relegate to the margins great portions of the rest of the world. These news reports create mental maps for news audiences, cartographies of the imagination, from whatever news sources they draw upon. Because access to the world is highly mediated, it is largely through news reporting and commentary that we come to know that world. Thus, these maps of the news wield considerable symbolic power, feeding the social imaginary. News media power is two-fold. First, it is the power of selection, one of inclusion and exclusion, exposure and suppression. Second, it is the power of categorization, entailing classification, definition, and suppression.

This paper addresses the news exchange between Brazil and Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa, as operated by each country's national news agencies. The main goal in this study is to understand how the information flow is carried by those news agencies. For this, a quantitative and comparative survey through content analysis is conducted on the usage of news from each agency in every other, by means of replication or attribution as source among the contents in their respective websites, within the timespan of May 2016 to May 2017. In spite of the great international exposure to developments in Brazil during that period, the exchange was recorded as minimal. In order to analyze this news exchange, we make use of the perspectives from the political economy of news agencies (Boyd-Barrett, 1980), and the circulation of news (Machado, 2008; Medina, 1998.) The paper applies the concept of network-territory to the analysis of news exchange and focuses on analyzing the structures of news production. The geocultural sphere of the Portuguese language is understood as a space of information circulation and an interlocution between the Geographies of Communication and Journalism studies is hereby proposed.