Abstract:
The issue of international news flow has been debated for more than a decade. The emergence of more democratic societies in the 70s brought forth the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) fueled by Third World criticism of Western news and supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).Several studies at that time, as well as throughout the 1980s, indicated that the non-aligned nations were justified in their criticism. The main criticisms included: the Western world neglecting the news of the Third World: the Western media focusing most of their attention on the developed world, thus providing an unbalanced news flow; attention not being given to different regions of the world; concentration of communication services among a few, leading to one way flow of information; Western news values influencing copy given to developing nations; negative images of the Third world painted by the western media-focusing on conflict, famine and disaster.Research, for the most part, has supported this list of criticisms. There are some differences in the amount of coverage of the less developed nations.This study will examine international news flow in two American newspapers. It was inspired by the recent changes in the world, such as the fall of communism, U.S involvement in peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Bosnia-Herzogovina,and elsewhere, not to mention the Gulf War.After reviewing the literature in this area and finding similar studies, the results of this study should probably be similar to those of previous studies.