Predicting the Spatial Pattern of Global News Flow

초록

Why certain regions and countries in the world dominate information and media markets and contents is a long-standing issue in communication study. An approach that gained currency in international news studies is the structural/logistic approach. Communication scholars in this line of research tried to explain the direction, volume, and content of international news based on Galtung and Wallerstein’s theories of the spatial and temporal organization of the world. However, despite holistic approaches emphasized by Galtung, Wallerstein, and other dependency theorists, most international news studies were rarely global. This study examined the pattern of international news flow as a whole from social network perspective. This study performed a QAP multiple regression on newspaper trades among 64 countries. According to the findings of this study, the structural pattern predicted by Galtung and Wallerstein is still useful to explain the structure of global international newspaper trade. The QAP multiple regression analysis showed that international contexts such as geographic, economic, and cultural connections among countries were significant determinants of the pattern of international news flow as a whole.