| The uneven flow of news and information between the developed and developing countries has dominated discussions in the field of international communication in recent years resulting in enormous amount of research. Most such studies were primarily descriptive failing to investigate the "structural" forces that resulted in such a flow. This study attempts at such an investigation.For the purpose of this study, the defined "system" of reference is Asia with the selected countries forming the component parts. The countries selected for this purpose are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of (South) Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand. These countries constitute over 50 percent of Asia's population which seem to suggest a pattern of news and information coverage representing Asia.For an examination of international news and information coverage by the United States mass media, four daily newspapers are content analyzed for a period of three years (1977-79). The newspapers selected are: the Washington Post (East), the Los Angeles Times (West), the Chicago Tribune (Midwest) and the Atlanta Constitution (South).Major hypotheses relate to the relationship between the structural variables and the patterns of news and information coverage by the United States mass media.This study used the basic model developed by John Galtung in his structural theory of international relations that deal with communication networks among nations by adapting the dependency concept as an important element in the process of interaction between the United States and the developing countries of Asia. The interaction process is examined by taking three "structural" variables: bilateral trade, cultural contacts and the degree of dependency. The structural forces, conceptualized in terms of these "extra-media" variables, become the predictor (independent) variables of international news and information coverage. The criterion (dependent) variables are the patterns of international news and information coverage by the United States mass media with reference to the countries under study. |
