Geopolitics of Representation in Foreign News (Lexington Books 2010)
http://tinyurl.com/2dhqw9o
For most people who do not travel, representations of the foreign are all
there is. The Darfur that the Washington Post constructed for its
metropolitan audience was different from the Darfur that People's Daily
constructed for domestic Chinese citizens.
Can any news, and foreign news in particular be "objective," in keeping
with
Walter Lippmann's ideal for the journalism profession? Under what
conditions can news organizations be watchdogs, alerting their readers to
crimes against humanity? The Geopolitics of Representation in Foreign News:
Explaining Darfur (Lexington Books, 2010), produced by students and
professors at the University of Colorado Boulder, compares the output of
ten
news organizations from seven countries in the global South and North over
the first 26 months of the Darfur conflict.
Compared on a 13-item timeliness and comprehensiveness index, only three
news organizations, the BBC's website, the Washington Post and South
Africa's Mail and Guardian Online, received a passing grade of 60 percent
or
higher.
Regression statistics show how each news organization made strategic news
construction decisions on Darfur. News was refracted through four lenses:
national location (high-low current national interest, historical
geopolitical solidarity with the global North or South) and organizational
characteristics (state or private ownership, domestic or foreign intended
audience). The influence of the intended audience in differentiating
coverage has particular relevance in the digital age when multiple editions
are easily devised by the same news organization; for example, the New York
Times's global.nyt.com and its domestic counterpart nytimes.com.
Bella Mody
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Armory, 1511 University Avenue
UCB 478
Boulder, CO 80309-0478
<mailto:(mody /at/ colorado.edu)> (mody /at/ colorado.edu)
New publications
<http://hir.harvard.edu/news-of-sudan-s-growing-pains>
http://hir.harvard.edu/news-of-sudan-s-growing-pains
Harvard International Review Dec 14 2010
Geopolitics of Representation in Foreign News (Lexington Books 2010)
<http://tinyurl.com/2dhqw9o> http://tinyurl.com/2dhqw9o