r DOCU4ENT RESUME a _ . RD 150 626. .CS 203 952 . - . AUVIOR . f Sparkes,Vernone'M.;-ROgnson,Gertrude Joch . TITLEo: International News ip he Canadian and 'American : . ', Press: A'Comparative Newi Flow Study, , ' '. PUB_OATE Aug .7b'6 , t --°414M/---lr-----34--rt-P:tipet-presezrtet- at-the-.irrrntua-tteet tzrlg-cf-t:---77- AssOciation for, education in Journalism (59'th, / College. Parkl,Marylandr AUg0t 1976),. '. , . I: BURS PRICE MF-$'.83 HC-S2.06 Plus Postage.,.'-' DESCRIPTORS - Adults; *Comparative Analysis; feconamic Factorsf *Foreign Codntries;.*Information Dissefination; Information Theory; Internatiosal Relations; .6- . Journalism; News Media; 4ewspapers; *News repeTtinig so -,.. flews Writing; Population Distribution; *tredictbr . , 4.- Variables . -IDENTIFIERS *Canada .. .0 6 ABSTRACT . This study tested the powerfof "elite nation" factors (tr%le, population, and gross'mational product) to predict the amount 'of reign pews coverage for specific countries. A composite week for tile first quarter of 1975 was 'randomly drain, and ten Canadian.aad twenty-nine United States newspapers were coded for all news items, . reported on those days, yielding the total number of column-ihahes of foreign, news coverage(in,each country; with a' breakdown by country op geographical area. Asulexpected, a rather large discrepancy' ras found* .4. between Canadian coverage of the United Stites_ (49% of foreign news) and United States coverage of Canada (1.72%). Moievcr; elite nation factors ,proved to be poor predictors :Or the United States foreign. c©. ... news'coveragei and only'one of the factors, trade, showed any , predictive ability for the Canadian press). The results sngq0st that the .lite nations themselves donot base their foreign news coverage ' r n , ,-econom!F development. (Author/RL) ..- 1 *************1******************************************************** Reprodudtioks supplied byYEDRS. are Om best that caebe made * from the original document. ** *********************************************************************'- U S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH.. EDUCATION A WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION 0 THIS DOCUMENT mAS (SEEN REPRO.' DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM 1mE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN - ATING It POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS SIAIED DO NO1 NECESVRILY REPRE- SEMI OFFICIAL NATIONAL INS1ItU1E OF EDUCAtiON PbSIIION OR POLICY CZ) s INTERNATIONAL NEWS IN THEdANADIAN.AND AMERICAN PRESS: 4 A COMPARATIVE -NEWS FLOW STUDY I r By . Vernone M. Sparkes Gertrude Joch Robinson, Communications Research Center Departmeft ofSocio1ogy School of4Public Communications McGill University Syracuse'University, Syracuse, NY Montreal, Quebec. , 4 "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Vernone M. Sparkes . Gertrude Jbch Robinson, TO TH? EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) AND USERSOF THE Ellic SYSTEM Prbsentation to th'e International. Division, AssociationorEduCatian in Jourhaiism" Auguslik, 1976 Rdsearch'for this study was supported by a grant to the S.I..Newhouse School of Public Communications from the William H.Donner FoUndation .g 1 4 4.; 4 .07 INTERNATIONAL NEWS IN THE CANADIA ND\AMERICAN PRESS: A COMPARATIVE NEWS FLOW STUDY . The study of rinternationalews, nflow t irelatively young end, unlike most . communication analysis, has been largely undertaken outside of the North American . %, 0 . _ continent. As a result, many American investikatorsarevunaware of recent ' 45candinavian rid-A, for example, which has developed and tested k Variety of-hykth- I . S , . eses about international news flow., The study here reported is an attempi.fo N extend theScandinavian work into the North Ameiican continent'. The two objec- tives of the study are first to present basic'descriptir 'dataa bout the current . ' - r i' level of international news in,the Canadian and American press; and second, to . a -' , test.the predictive power for North America of news flowm.theory developed °gor e seas.* Special attention shall be pap to the ever perplexing Problem,of the dif- ferential news flow between the-United States and Canada. AsbothHart1And Scanlon2have documented, the gap appeary(4de. .There is much more coverage of the U.S. in Canadian newspapeA.than of -Canada. in U.S. papers. This paper will _ 6* si, 'seek to further illuminate this exchange by testing it against emerging news ) flow theory. r litInternational'news flow 'first generated attention in the early fifties, * . * . when two European studies formulated the themes which were to preoccupy,analysts foi the following decades In the 'akeW ofcrumbling colonial ties arid U.S. pOli- . tical ascendancy,.UNESCO, How Nations See Each 0/her (1954), began a long tradi- 5 tionof descriptive "image" studies. These'probed.national sterecitylles and the . ,. 4 *c. .generalized'picture of Americain. the press'o.? other countrles. , .G0 -. : The.InternationalPress Institute's Flow of News (1953)ailbthar-germinal-,_:, ,. , stay, for the first time raised issued about the way in which' international :== . "information was-reported and distributed. It noted that dnternational flow is uneven and that the global agencies tend to fOcuson hard news and op p 1, nations."Most accounts, it found, were deVoted to war, politics and foreign relations, ignoring cultural and other huMan activities as well as'the doings of smalleronations.'Thistradition which spawned a series ofAStudies comparing the -flow from highly td less deveroped,copntries irk Latin Americ' Africa and Asia, also led to the investigation of.the news selection process frtm global 4.) agencies to local newspapersT6 Ten years later, in the mid-sixties, Scandinavian, scholars utilized this /foundation of descriptive studies to develop the fijt theoretical perspectives_ I fór the explanation of internatioAt new flow. Ostgaaxd in 1965 pointed out . thatIvis is produced in a politic61-economicecentext And is aditiflopall; affected 7. by "channel" discreiancies, while Galtung and Rugtried to specify what these $ ,- "chatl" characteristics were. 'Accordingto Galtung, psychologi?al theory, an.event is mo, likely to be chosen to 'pete"news" if it has Certain fre- . Auency,-clarity,sonsonance and continuity characteristics and it concerns "ep.te"ItiZnsoipeople and contains peronification and negativism. t4 A _......7StibsOquent scholars have tried to unambiguously Operatio0alize and test t./ . 4 Galtung and Ruge's news factors, vs well as their edditivity and complimentary hypotheses. These state that the more news factors an vent has, the greater its likelihood of selection-into the international. news stream6and the more the news concerns an elite nation; the less negatittely it 45.11 be reported. The ,1 I * rr 4 I S 4 , 3.r - 1. , . , ',..s. --oldielitivityhyothes.4.-coafm-4,4x-ba-cruifimmadthough_th.d....coliipaimeatiryrhypoille, . o . - s. "-.-__.../ , sis is not. "Rospngren in anumber pf,papers,notest that'extra-media ttandar ) , are required for evaluatirigMediaperformancel° and that questions ofr sonable -4 11 geographiCal coeyeAge cannot be answered withbut some standardization Of the data.,. The Factors WhichAffect rhterational New Flows 769 On the basis of the above Cited work, factors affecting the internftional fltv of news can be categorized into four groups; technicil-econdmic, Pont cai- . NN. hiltorical, editorial weighting, and *hat might be called marketplace or-a s, factorS-The fiist two cap be Seen as boundary factorsetting limit's on the . availability, of foreign news. The second two relate more to theeditorial pro- cess, influencing the allotment -bf.the foreign newshole space. a. .. I . 41 . 1., Technical-Econdmic Factiors 1- To understand the structure and corfterit of international newsacqording to Mtgaard, various "givens" must be, kept in mind. A country's news values; which ' , determine the focus and Ontent o its world picture are not created 'in a vacuum. _ . .''' ,. Tfleydepend on the atiailability of communications technology, historical precedents, - as well as economic and'yblitical relations aneditorial judgments? The technical jaclities f7 international communication, as is well known, are not evenly distributed around the world. They are more available in the highly than the'less developed nations. In the age of satellites, UNESCO finds . Z that aS many as 33% ofthe world's, population still lack the most elementary , ,. , . means of dnforming themselves about internationa4 evnts. About ethird(45) , . 4 . _ . : of all states and territories,t in Africa, Asiapand Latin America with over 200 , . I ;a 4 4. %°' Int..people,...1aok---eatioaaknews.--agenclas-aitil the minimum_regiiiia4.nts of ten . newspapers, fiveradio- s, two television lets and twocinema seats per 100vpopula- . I 12 : 13causes 'inter- tied,. Unequal distribution of facilities,ac cordingto Schamm, / . quitional, news to flow fromhigher 'to the less developed countries. In spite of the fact that no s'uoh technologicalbarriers exist beireen they United States and Canada because both have highlydevelopedcommunications tech- 0 conomic factors .have yet created a one - direction news flow-frOm the 1 '6' to.Canada. The organization of4the international newt matket tstva.,,tiered. 0 The global AP, UPI, Agence France-Presse, Reuters,and TASS dominate this .market as wholesalerS, selling theirproduct to 90 national agencies.'ilese agencies in 4 b . turn, retail foreign news.totheir own-press- and broadcagt'outiets and return national coverage...to the globals. In the U.S1-Canadian example this means the . t- , Reuters and AgenceFrance-Presse