ABSTRACT
The flow of news in the world has been a major issue in international debates at least since the 1970s. The central concern has been a manifest imbalance in the flow of news, from the nations and cultures of the northern hemisphere to those in the southern hemisphere, and, hence, in the representation of the world to itself and the agenda of international politics. Under the heading of a New World Information and Communication Order, UNESCO and other international organizations have addressed the structures and criteria for producing and circulating essential political, economic, and cultural information to citizens around the world. The media themselves have also in some cases been a forum for public debate on access to and balance in the news. In part as a response to the issues raised by public and policy discussions, media research has previously examined the content of foreign news in various settings and, to a degree, the journalistic production of news by international news agencies and by broadcast as well as print media. So far, however, the audience perspective, particularly the culturally specific frames of understanding through which different national audiences decode the news and use it in their respective contexts, has not been examined in similar detail. Addressing the local uses of global news, this volume presents the findings of the first specifically cross-cultural, empirical study of news reception relying on a qualitative, in-depth approach.
