Politics of news

Information is power. The power to influence information flow is one of the keys to dominance in world affairs. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) can be credited with making a significant contri bution towards focusing world attention on imbalances and distortions in informa tion and communication flows between the developed few and the developing majority of the nations. The result is an intense world-wide debate around free versus balanced' flow of information which often gives rise to a good deal of rhetoric and the taking of strong positions, not necessarily backed by analytical insights.

Some of the controversies that have dominated the debate over the years have been examined in the light of empirical research findings on news flow across nations. Besides providing historical depth and conceptual perspective, an attempt has been made to critically examine the issues of foreign news flow in different media systems. The contributions include ana lytical studies by communication scholars with varying ideological and theoretical orientations from different continents.