The Social Construction of International News: We're Talking about Them, They're Talking about Us

(Hardback)

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Compares U.S. news reports on a variety of major political events with those produced by the media abroad. Wasburn compares U.S. commercial news reports on a wide variety of events with those produced by the news media of several other nations. The events include the Falklands War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Tiananmen Square Uprising, several political assassinations, major trade disputes between the U.S. and Japan, the Intifada, U.S. presidential nominating conventions and a presidential inauguration. Different patterns of coverage--amount of attention given an event, language used to describe an event, selection of particular occurrences to characterize an event, and descriptions of U.S. and international public opinion of the event--are shown to reflect different political, economic, and strategic interests of nations, historical contexts in which news was constructed, national differences in values that influence the production of news, and differences in historically specific relations between news media and the governments of their countries. Attention is given to contrasts between the national image of the United States constructed by U.S. commercial news media and the images of the United States produced by various foreign news media. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, students, and researchers involved with political communication, journalism, political science, and political sociology.

Reviews

Academics and other serious consumers of international news will find this discourse-centered analysis of journalistic practice very rewarding. The most important organizing concept in the book is that of the symbolic universe--an unexamined, uncontested, and taken-for-granted vision of the basic moral values and historical narratives that define the identities and presumed motivations of nations and their leaders, thereby explaining the meanings of newsworthy events....Recommended. General readers and upper-division undergraduates and above.-Choice
Philo Wasburn presents a lucid account of the nature and consequences of news and public information.-Contemporary Sociology
The book's strength is its comparitive method. Scholars of media and politics are increasingly turning to this kind of work to show how taken-for-granted framings of international events are peculiar to particular countries or media outlets, and how nations' unique histories and media systems influence coverage and shape public opinion....Because the writing is accessible to undergraduates, case study chapters could be used in courses on international communication, or media and politics.-Communication Research Trends
This quality work raises many questions. For example, we often hear that American audiences receive very little international news, and that this leads to ethnocentric views about the world. Ironically, Wasburn suggests, international news can also be distorting in its reflection of the audience's "symbolic universe." Any news that does not do such mirroring may not be accepted as relevant to the audience. Another concern is whether these findings, like numorous other studies of the mass media, could inform jounalists and policymakers. It is time for jounalists to pay attention to decades of research delineating how news routines are creating reality that clouds audience's understanding of international relations. Perhaps awareness of ethnocentric reporting would encourage journalists to talk with researchers. We should surely hope so.-Contemporary Sociology
"Academics and other serious consumers of international news will find this discourse-centered analysis of journalistic practice very rewarding. The most important organizing concept in the book is that of the symbolic universe--an unexamined, uncontested, and taken-for-granted vision of the basic moral values and historical narratives that define the identities and presumed motivations of nations and their leaders, thereby explaining the meanings of newsworthy events....Recommended. General readers and upper-division undergraduates and above."-Choice
"Philo Wasburn presents a lucid account of the nature and consequences of news and public information."-Contemporary Sociology
"The book's strength is its comparitive method. Scholars of media and politics are increasingly turning to this kind of work to show how taken-for-granted framings of international events are peculiar to particular countries or media outlets, and how nations' unique histories and media systems influence coverage and shape public opinion....Because the writing is accessible to undergraduates, case study chapters could be used in courses on international communication, or media and politics."-Communication Research Trends
"This quality work raises many questions. For example, we often hear that American audiences receive very little international news, and that this leads to ethnocentric views about the world. Ironically, Wasburn suggests, international news can also be distorting in its reflection of the audience's "symbolic universe." Any news that does not do such mirroring may not be accepted as relevant to the audience. Another concern is whether these findings, like numorous other studies of the mass media, could inform jounalists and policymakers. It is time for jounalists to pay attention to decades of research delineating how news routines are creating reality that clouds audience's understanding of international relations. Perhaps awareness of ethnocentric reporting would encourage journalists to talk with researchers. We should surely hope so."-Contemporary Sociology

Author Bio

PHILO C. WASBURN is Professor of Sociology at Purdue University.