Discussion Post

Priyaa

TheMarketizationofForeignNews.pdf

Home >Social Science homework help >Discussion Post

Global Media and Communication 8(2) 99 –115

sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1742766512444339

gmc.sagepub.com

The marketization of foreign news

Bella Mody University of Colorado, USA

Abstract Audience segmentation is generally associated with strategic communication (such as advertising and public relations), where content is manipulated to suit reader preferences. News has generally been considered truth-telling unvarnished by such concerns. This article compares how news of the same humanitarian crisis was designed by 10 news organizations in seven countries for different market segments. Comparisons showed statistically significant differences in representation, influenced in part by what the audience-market was. Like advertising, news seemed to share an attribute with the strategic design of advertising and public relations. Increasingly carried online, news will be vulnerable to click-based customization of content like advertising is, taking us beyond currently observed geopolitical influences on segmentation to advertiser and market-based differences.

Keywords audience segmentation, foreign news, geopolitics, Internet, national interests, news comprehensiveness, news organization ownership

The marketization of foreign news A squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests than people

dying in Africa. (Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook chief executive)1

In the news business, the audience is everything. Some news outlets exploit an unmet niche while others strive to manipulate the news in a way that will better interest larger markets … competition for audience ratings has become global. (Stephen

Gardner, 2004)

Corresponding author: Bella Mody, Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado, 1511 University Avenue, UCB 478, Boulder CO 80309-0478, USA Email: [email protected]

444339GMC8210.1177/1742766512444339ModyGlobal Media and Communication 2012

Article

100 Global Media and Communication 8(2)

Nobelist Amartya Sen emphasized the importance of a press free from state control (Sen, 2004). He wrote:

[T]he rulers of a country are often insulated in their own lives from the misery of common people. They can live through a national calamity such as a famine or some other disaster, without sharing the fate of the victims. If however, they have to face public criticism in the media and to confront elections with an uncensored press, the rulers have to pay a price too, and this gives them a strong incentive to take timely action to avert such crises.

Without detracting from Sen’s emphasis on freedom from state controls, this article draws attention to the role of economic influences that shape the press. This is particularly rele- vant in this era of shrinking budgets and technologically fragmented audiences character- ized by increasing audience segmentation and branding of news. The marketization of global communication has been the focus of attention since the New World Information Order debates in UNESCO in Paris in the 1970s, culminating in its indictment by the McBride Report (Thussu, 2005). This became worse when the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Telecommunication Union and the US-influenced Bretton Woods institutions (the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank) urged countries in the global South to remove regulations against private financing and owner- ship of state enterprises, including media. Driven to bankruptcy by the oil price hike, many states felt they were in a ‘there is no alternative’ situation, often called TINA. They changed their national policies, thus opening up new markets for entertainment and news exporters. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation epitomizes the global expansion of media corporations, delivering both news and entertainment to new markets, often by satellite. While hyper-commercial pressures contributed to the phone-hacking scandal in the UK in 2011, freedom from advertising and Foreign and Commonwealth Office funding of the World Service is an important cause of the BBC’s standing as the queen of news organiza- tions. Scandinavia and Germany’s commercial mass circulation press are qualified by a high level of state intervention.

Branding and market segmentation are central to the advertising and sales of goods and services. Online news organizations can make strategic decisions on how they cus- tom-design and tailor the same event for the different market segments they can now reach via satellite and undersea cable. Thus, some news organizations, such as the Wall Street Journal, have developed distinct domestic, regional and ‘global’ editions. The Paris-based International Herald Tribune (IHT) has become the New York Times’ online ‘global’ edition, with some different articles from the New York and national editions. The Global.nytimes.com’s IHT has a distinct Asia and Europe edition. Even though its signal covers wide areas, CNN International has had to tailor its coverage to the distinct preferences of its elite and hotel audiences in different regions of the world. The BBC Radio World Service has some common global programs (e.g. Newshour) and many regional broadcasts. Although it is technically possible for the same news article or pro- gram to be received across the world instantaneously with three satellites, research indi- cates that audiences prefer national TV (Straubhaar, 2007) and domesticated foreign news (Goldfarb, 2001).

Even within the US, CNN is beginning to understand that it cannot be ‘all things to all people’ (Folkenflik, 2011). Retired journalists recognize that ‘we are no longer a national

Mody 101

audience receiving news from a handful of trusted gatekeepers, we’re now a million or more clusters of consumers, harvesting information from like-minded providers’ (Koppel, 2010). Market segmentation, introduced by EW Scripps in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is being taken to an extreme: Scripps’ business strategy was to seek new working-class readers, rather than compete with the established Pulitzer and Hearst papers (Baldasty, 1999). Since the US-led subprime mortgage debacle, the decline in advertising that finances news has contributed to more fine-tuned market research to identify potential readers and buyers.

Market segmentation on several dimensions (e.g. demographics, psychographics) helps deliver audience-specific messages to consumers and electorates. Diverse national codes of ethics among journalists generally agree on providing a ‘fair and comprehen- sive account of events and issues’ (Society of Professional Journalists, 1996). How might audience segmentation of news affect the foreign news genre? Will comprehensiveness of treatment of each news item vary, based on general relevance to the geographic regional audience, by the current national interest of the state in which the news organi- zation is based, by the historical geopolitical solidarity between the two countries? How will the specifics of the news item influence its treatment for a region, for example who is the villain/victim, what is the nature of the villainy? Would a news organization be more concerned about giving offense to domestic rulers in its national edition than in its foreign edition, which is less accessible to readers within its home country?

Data collected as part of a larger book (Mody, 2010) on the geopolitical influences that shaped the coverage of the first genocide in the 21st century in Darfur, Sudan, enable answers to a few questions about differences in coverage for national audiences as against foreign audiences (on this issue) and help raise many more questions for further research. The framework of influences on the Darfur coverage included macro-level influences that operate at Shoemaker and Reese’s (1996) national ideological level, at the extra-media level and at the meso level of the media firm (see Figure 1). At the national ideological level, influences included both the news organization’s home state’s current interest in the crisis under study (namely Darfur) and the news organization’s home state’s historical solidarity with particular geopolitical groups (e.g. the rich countries of

National ideological influences • Perceived geopolitical

historical standpoint of state

• Perceived current national interest

Media organizational influence • State or private

ownership

Foreign news

• Extra-media political- linguistic composition of audience

• Foreign, national or local

Figure 1. Geopolitical model of influences specially relevant to foreign news

102 Global Media and Communication 8(2)

Table 1. Characteristics of sampled news media

State National interest in Sudan

Name and ownership of news medium

Readership (political-linguistic) segment

China High People’s Daily, state Chinese-speaking majority China High China Daily, state English-speaking international

community & domestic elites Egypt High Al-Ahram (The Pyramids),

state Arabic-speaking majority

Qatar Medium English.AlJazeera.net, royal family’s private equity

English-speaking international community & domestic elites

South Africa Low Mail & Guardian Online, private equity

English-speaking middle class

France Low Le Monde, publicly traded, limited employee shares

French-speaking left-liberal middle class

US Low Washington Post, publicly traded, family controlling interests

English readers, liberal middle class

US Low New York Times, publicly traded, family controlling

English readers, liberal middle class

UK Low The Guardian, family trust English readers UK Low BBC.co.uk, state English readers across the

world

the industrialized North or the countries of the Global South newly independent from European colonizers). At the level of the media organization, state ownership was com- pared with private ownership. The influence of the market or audience was considered an extra-media meso-level force: this is the focus of this article.

The article is organized into four parts. Part I is conceptual. Part II focuses on the research question, design, sampling, coding categories and the construction of an index that categorizes content in terms of its timeliness and comprehensiveness. Part III dis- cusses the findings and implications. Part IV addresses implications and limitations.

I Representational differences in news for different market segments: A foreign versus national domestic illustration

Advertising campaigns, corporate public relations and cultural constructions by Hollywood and Bollywood are designed for markets with particular characteristics. Despite the increasing technological and commercial interconnectedness across coun- tries, editors and audience studies seem to find that it is local manifestations of the for- eign that are of interest, not the distant event per se, and especially not when it is complex. It would appear that editors who staff the gates on what is news suspect their audiences use international and national news to understand their immediate workaday environ- ments, rather than for international education and civic engagement. Researchers have

Mody 103

shown how news organizations actually domesticate extra-national events in terms that will make sense for their markets (Rantanen, 2004). Regional and city-based editions of news brands are proliferating in growth markets such as India, where the largest English- language newspaper has more than 15 print editions. News organizations select and emphasize events differently, based on their perceptions of their audience – its politics, language preferences and economic class backgrounds. While some topics may have blanket legal or informally-enforced prohibitions, professional experience and audience research will indicate what the nuances are and how to communicate to particular lin- guistic-political constituencies (e.g. mass circulation national-language speakers as against elite and foreign-market English-speakers).

Organizational wisdom on appropriate topics of discussion can be audience-specific, sometimes formally so and sometimes based on informal prudence. The Al Jazeera news organization was initiated by a member of the royal family in Qatar to explain the Middle East to the rest of the world, but, for obvious reasons, it rarely puts its spotlight on domestic Qatari problems. Its Arabic channels for the region and its English channel for the rest of the world do not treat topics identically. Another illustration is the Voice of America (VOA), the official external radio and television broadcasting service of the United States federal government, which broadcasts in 40–50 languages. Under Section 501 of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, Voice of America is forbidden from broadcasting directly to American citizens. The intent of the legislation is to protect the American public from propaganda actions by its own government. Distinct from domestic media practices, newspersons are sometimes paid to appear on VOA’s foreign broadcasts. The party press in China may not discuss some proscribed items in its Chinese-language national mass-circulation papers that it does in its English-language papers intended for a small Chinese elite and the foreign diplomatic and business community. Similarly, the state-run Al-Ahram news organization in Egypt may be expected to discuss the same Israeli event differently in its English-language papers designed for foreign readers and a small domestic elite, as against its mass-circulation Arabic-language papers.

II Research design: Question, sampling, coding, index development

What is the influence of differences in audience interests on the content and form of news about the same event? This comparison of news constructed for foreign as against domestic audiences is part of a study that used an inductive design to develop general insights and hypotheses about the genre of foreign news, identify specific influences on its comprehensiveness, and investigate its potential as a source of cross-national interna- tional education. The focus was the specific case of news about the 2003–2005 rebellion in Darfur, Sudan, and the Khartoum regime’s genocidal tactics in repressing it.

The contextual analysis focused on the political economy of news organization own- ership, audience-press relations, locational national interest and historical solidarity with the country/event. Comparative analysis of manifest content that is a staple of journalism research was combined with this contextual analysis to understand the construction of news grounded in specific time-and-place conditions, rather than in a social and political

104 Global Media and Communication 8(2)

vacuum. Ten news organizations and states were purposively selected for content analy- sis from those that covered Darfur and varied on the four predictor variables. They included organizations in Asia (China, Qatar), Africa (South Africa, Egypt), Europe (France, the UK) and the US.

Sample

The content under analysis focused on the struggle of Western Sudan for equitable treat- ment by its national government in Khartoum over the first 26 months of the uprising during 2003–2005. All articles that mentioned the word, ‘Darfur’, in China’s People’s Daily and China Daily, Egypt’s Al-Ahram daily, Qatar’s English.AlJazeera.net, South Africa’s Mail & Guardian Online, France’s Le Monde, the UK’s BBC.co.uk and Guardian, and the US’s Washington Post and New York Times were first identified. Of these 3019 articles, those that had more than 50 percent of paragraphs dedicated to Darfur were then short-listed for content analysis. The sample consisted of 1198 articles.

Coding categories

Variables were coded at the level of the individual article. Each article was analyzed for its focal frame(s), defined as the dominant focus of the majority of the article’s content. The frames included causes (i.e. historical and present-day causes of the Darfur crisis), conduct (i.e. the nature, status, process and conduct of the crisis) and remedies (i.e. pro- posed remedies to the crisis, including peace talks and negotiations to end the crisis, proposed changes, and aid from governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international courts or African courts). In addition, the headlines and text of the articles were analyzed for the presence of three keywords: ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘genocide’, and ‘oil/petroleum’.

Articles that discussed causes were coded for the specific reason(s) that they cited for causing the crisis, as well as the parties that they identified as responsible for causing the crisis. The reasons for the crisis consisted of ethnic/racial tensions, religious differences, access to oil fields, government inequity in terms of distribution of resources to the Darfur region, outside factors (i.e. interference in Sudan’s affairs by other nations), scar- city of environmental resources, other causes, and no cause identified. If articles con- tained multiple reasons, the first two reasons that were mentioned were coded. Coding categories for groups that caused the crisis included the Janjaweed militia, the Khartoum government, the rebels, a combination of the Khartoum government and its militia, a combination of all three domestic groups (i.e. the Khartoum government, the militia and the rebels), other groups, and no group identified.

Groups that the news media named as responsible for ending the crisis also were coded. These groups included the Khartoum government, its militia, the rebels, the com- bination of the Khartoum government and the militia, the combination of all three domestic groups (i.e. the Khartoum government, the militia and the rebels), Sudan’s neighbors (i.e. the African Union (AU), Arab League groups or individual neighboring nations), the United Nations (UN) and its specialized agencies, the International Criminal

Mody 105

Court (ICC), foreign countries (i.e. countries or governmental organizations such as the US, the UK and the European Union (EU)), a combination of the UN and foreign coun- tries, a combination of the UN and domestic, neighboring and foreign groups, and no group identified.

Articles were also coded for the presence of direct quotes from the following sources: the Khartoum government, the militia, the rebels, Darfuris, other Sudanese leaders (i.e. former leaders not connected to the current government), Arabs outside Sudan, non-Arab Africans outside Sudan, NGOs, human rights monitors, the UN, the US, the UK, the AU, the EU, other foreign leaders (i.e. leaders of nations such as France and Japan), and the media.

Coders rated the emotional intensity of the articles as high, medium or low. High emotional intensity articles devoted at least half of their coverage to describing the conditions on the ground in Sudan; included descriptions of atrocities committed against civilians; had more than three uses of terms that indicated the atrocities such as ‘genocide’, ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘humanitarian crisis’, ‘growing disaster’ and ‘rape’; included photos of victims or refugees; quoted sources who assisted with the humani- tarian needs of the refugees; and/or included quotes from refugees describing the events they had witnessed. Medium emotional intensity articles provided some description of the events and atrocities; used terms such as ‘genocide’, ‘ethnic cleans- ing’, ‘humanitarian crisis’ and ‘rape’ between one and three times; devoted less than half of their coverage to describing the situation on the ground; included quotes that questioned the veracity of reports, even if there were high intensity descriptions from survivors; and/or referred to government policies rather than graphic details of local conditions. Also, if photos were included, they depicted leaders or non-dramatic events. Low emotional intensity articles recited numbers with no descriptive context; reported on policies; discussed negotiations or peace talks with no description of con- ditions on the ground in Sudan; characterized Darfur as an internal dispute or a regional conflict that the Khartoum government was moving to control; covered offi- cials as they toured areas as opposed to the conflict itself; covered a press event that discussed what was occurring or denied that the situation was as bad as media reports indicated; and/or described the situation with terms such as ‘conflict’, ‘rebellion’ or ‘uprising’, as opposed to using terms such as ‘genocide’, ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘humani- tarian crisis’ or ‘rape’. Finally, the articles were coded for their publication date, word count (including headlines, bylines, datelines and captions), presence of author byline, presence of news agency credit (i.e. Associated Press, Asian Press Service, Guardian, Kyodo News Agency, New York Times Press Service, Reuters, South African Press Agency, Washington Post, Inter Press Service, Xinhua, China Daily, Irin, AFP, multi- ple agencies, and other agencies) and article type (i.e. hard news, news brief, press event, news features and background, and opinion column). Letters to the editor were not included in the study.

Content was coded by student native speakers of Arabic, French, English and Chinese. After receiving training on the coding scheme, the same 10 percent of selected articles per news medium were coded by a pair of coders to establish reliabil- ity. Scott’s pi (used to measure reliability) ranged from .71 to .94 for all coded variables.

106 Global Media and Communication 8(2)

Timeliness and comprehensiveness index

Rather than merely compare space dedicated to a topic or look for variations in objectivity, the representations of Darfur by the 10 news organizations were ranked on 13 indicators to form a timeliness and comprehensiveness index: total articles with mention of Darfur; the monthly average of articles with substantial coverage of Darfur; the date of the first article with more than 50 percent of paragraphs (‘substantial coverage’) on Darfur; the percentage of articles longer than 500 words; the percentage of news features and background articles; the percentage of articles that went beyond who, what, where and when to address causes (why) and remedies (so what); the percentage of articles that provided details such as the names of the groups that had caused the crisis and the names of the groups held responsible for remedies; and the percentage of quotes from non- traditional sources (i.e. Darfuris on the ground, human rights monitors, NGOs, rebels and the AU). Comparative ranks were assigned on each of the dimensions. Standard competitive ranking (10997) was followed, where tied ranks were followed by a skipped rank. The rank score on all 13 indicators was summed up to produce an index score. Consistent with Carey’s (1986) point that a news organization should be judged on its total output or ‘curriculum’, the score on the comprehensiveness index is an organizational- level variable and not per article. Since there are only 10 scores weighted by the number of articles, there is less error. ‘Double value’ (Gurevitch and Blumler, 2004) was obtained by studying the object of study (news content) and its associated political-economic contextual linkages.

III Findings

This section presents a fine-grained comparison between the quantity and quality of coverage intended for foreign audiences and domestic audiences. Nationally focused news editions included the state-run Al-Ahram Arabic daily, China’s Chinese-language People’s Daily, the UK’s Guardian, the French-language Le Monde daily, and the English-language Washington Post and New York Times from the US. News that focused on foreign audience segments included BBC.co.uk, English.AlJazeera.net, South Africa’s Mail & Guardian Online, and China’s English-language China Daily.

Figure 2 shows the total number of articles, breaking out those with more than 50 percent of paragraphs on Darfur. The differences were large, ranging from 726 in Al-Ahram in neighboring Egypt to a low of 45 in the Chinese-language People’s Daily.

News designed for each of the two audience segments (national and foreign) was compared on the nature of coverage dimensions, which included the percentage of news articles versus opinion columns, the focus of framing (causes of the crisis, unfolding conditions and remedies), specific causes indicated, use of keywords (e.g. oil, genocide, race), identification of who was responsible, use of quotes and emotional intensity. The scores for articles published by the Mail & Guardian Online, China Daily, BBC.co.uk and English.AlJazeera.net were compared with the scores for the domestically-focused New York Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, Guardian, People’s Daily and Al-Ahram on 24 dimensions. Table 2 shows that the differences between the characteristics of news

Mody 107

0 50

100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 850 900 950

1000 1050 1100 1150 1200 1250 1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550

Articles with mention of Darfur, but less than 50% paragraphs on Darfur

Articles with more than 50% paragraphs on Darfur

Figure 2. Total articles with mention of Darfur, January 2003–February 2005

Table 2. Differences in news media coverage of Darfur by audience type

Nature of news coverage Domestic audience

Foreign audience

Significance of difference

Total articles with mention of ‘Darfur’ 2259 837 N/A Total articles with more than 50% paragraphs on Darfur

800 398 N/A

Percentage of news articles 82.00 97.49 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 56.91, p < .001

Percentage of opinion columns 18.00 2.51 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 56.91, p < .001

Percentage of articles with agency credits 35.38 36.93 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 0.28, ns

(Continued)

108 Global Media and Communication 8(2)

Nature of news coverage Domestic audience

Foreign audience

Significance of difference

Focal frame combinations: percentage of news articles on conduct of crisis

63.53 71.21 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 6.87, p < .01

Focal frame combinations: percentage of news articles on remedies to the conflict

56.02 63.50 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 6.03, p < .05

Focal frame combinations: percentage of news articles on causes of the conflict

14.16 19.02 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 4.66, p < .05

Regional inequity as cause of crisis* 10.63 15.58 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 6.06, p < .05

Environmental change as cause of crisis* 4.00 6.53 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 3.70, ns

Ethnic or racial differences as cause of crisis*

6.63 28.39 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 105.50, p < .001

Keyword use in text: ethnicity-race 12.88 22.61 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 18.65, p < .001

Keyword use in text: genocide 30.25 28.64 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 0.33, ns

Keyword use in text: oil 10.13 15.08 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 6.27, p < .05

News articles that named groups who caused the crisis

47.88 78.64 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 103.40, p < .001

News articles that named groups responsible for ending the crisis

50.38 71.36 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 47.83, p < .001

Mean quotes per article 0.91 1.58 t(1194) = 9.49, p < .001

Percentage of quotes from Khartoum government sources

16.00 34.92 χ2(1, N = 1198)= 54.96, p < .001

Percentage of quotes from human rights monitors

6.51 6.28 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 0.02, ns

Percentage of quotes from NGOs 5.75 14.32 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 24.85, p < .001

Percentage of quotes from AU 3.13 9.57 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 22.12, p < .001

Percentage of quotes from Darfuris 8.25 8.04 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 0.02, ns

Percentage of quotes from rebels 5.00 15.08 χ2(1, N = 1198)= 35.27, p < .001

Percentage of news articles of low emotional intensity

66.88 39.95 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 79.06, p < .001

Percentage of medium-intensity news articles

19.50 34.17 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 31.03, p < .001

Percentage of high-intensity news articles 13.63 25.88 χ2(1, N = 1198) = 27.40, p < .001

Note: *Based on the first cause that was listed.

Table 2. (Continued)

Mody 109

for foreign and domestic audiences were significant on 19 of the 24 variables. The group of news organizations that focused on foreign audiences achieved significantly higher scores on the percentage of news articles (over opinion), the percentage of articles that focused on the conduct of the crisis, the percentage that focused on remedies and the percentage that focused on causes.

Regional inequity and ethnic reasons were listed as causes of the conflict significantly more often. Oil was used as a keyword more often in news designed for foreign audi- ences than local audiences as were also the names of the groups responsible for ending the crisis. The percentage of quotes from some sources was higher for this group, namely the Khartoum government as a source, NGOs, the AU and the rebels. Emotional intensity was significantly higher for news organizations in this audience segment.

Table 3 focuses on the performance of each news organization’s coverage on the time- liness and comprehensiveness index that ranked values on 13 indicators. Comparative ranks were assigned on each of the following dimensions: total articles with mention of Darfur; the monthly average of articles with substantial coverage of Darfur; the date of the first article with substantial Darfur content; the percentage of articles longer than 500 words; the percentage of news features and background articles; the percentage of arti- cles that went beyond who, what, where and when to address causes (why) and remedies (how to remedy the problem); the percentage of articles that provided details such as the names of the groups who had caused the crisis and the names of the groups held respon- sible for remedies; and the percentage of quotes from non-traditional sources (i.e. Darfuris on the ground, human rights monitors and NGOs, rebels and the AU). Standard competitive ranking (10997) was followed, where tied ranks were followed by a skipped rank. The rank scores on all 13 indicators were summed up to produce an index score. No news organization received more than a 70 percent score on the comprehensiveness index, indicating room for improvement. Only half of the news organizations achieved passing grades of 60 percent or higher. The BBC took first place with a score of 86 (67% of the total possible score of 130). It is clear that the UK license fee and Foreign Office allocations to the BBC World Service provide knowledge of consequence to global pub- lic education. The Washington Post came in second with a score of 85 (66%), while the Mail & Guardian Online took third place with a score of 84 (65%). The New York Times was in fourth place (80, 62%) and Le Monde, in fifth place (78, 60%). Mid-range per- formers on comprehensiveness were English.AlJazeera.net in sixth place (73, 57%), the Guardian in seventh place (70, 54%) and China Daily in eighth place (60, 47%). Al-Ahram was in ninth place (56, 44%) and the People’s Daily in 10th place (48, 37%). The lowest three performers were news organizations owned by the state in countries with high current national interests in Sudan and historical geopolitical affinity with the former colony in the global South.

Table 4 shows that the two sets of news organizations (national-audience focused and foreign-audience focused) were significantly different on the comprehensiveness and timeliness coverage index scores, too. News organizations that constructed news on Darfur that was intended for foreign audiences scored higher on comprehensive cover- age (80%) on average than news organizations that were concerned about potentially offending political guidelines on domestic political communication (63%). The Communist Party-owned China Daily, produced for the English-speaking international

110 Global Media and Communication 8(2) T

a b

le 3

. Pe

rf o rm

an ce

o n

in di

ca to

rs o

f ti m

el y

an d

co m

pr eh

en si

ve c

o ve

ra ge

f o r

al l d

ai lie

s an

d w

eb si

te s

(r an

k pe

r di

m en

si o n

in b

ra ck

et s

in e

ac h

ro w

: 1 0

= h

ig h;

1 =

lo w

N ew

Y o rk

im es

W as

hi ng

to n

Po st

Le M

o nd

e G

ua rd

ia n

A l- A

hr am

Pe o pl

e’ s

D ai

ly C

hi na

ai ly

B B

C En

gl is

h. A

lJa ze

er a.

ne t

M ai

l & G

ua rd

ia n

o nl

in e

C o un

tr y

U S

Fr an

ce U

K Eg

yp t

C hi

na C

hi na

U K

Q at

ar So

ut h

A fr

ic a

G eo

po lit

ic al

lo ca

ti o n

G lo

ba l

N o rt

h G

lo ba

l N o rt

h G

lo ba

l N

o rt

h G

lo ba

l N

o rt

h G

lo ba

l So

ut h

G lo

ba l

So ut

h G

lo ba

l So

ut h

G lo

ba l

N o rt

h G

lo ba

l S o ut

h G

lo ba

l S o ut

N at

io na

l i nt

er es

t in

S ud

an Lo

w Lo

w H

ig h

H ig

h H

ig h

Lo w

M ed

iu m

Lo w

St at

e ro

le in

o w

ne rs

hi p

N o

Y es

N o

G lo

ba l a

ud ie

nc e

N o

Y es

T o ta

l a rt

ic le

s w

it h

m en

ti o n

o f

D ar

fu r

33 7

(8 )

18 2

(9 6)

11 6

(4 )

99 (

3) 14

56 (

10 )

69 (

1) 79

( 2)

39 8

(9 )

16 9

(5 )

19 1

(7 )

M o nt

hl y

av er

ag e

o f ar

ti cl

es w

it h

su bs

ta nt

ia l*

* D

ar fu

r co

nt en

t 5.

15 (

6) 4.

73 (

5) 2.

00 (

2) 3.

19 (

4) 27

.9 2

(1 0)

1. 73

( 1)

2. 65

( 3)

13 .4

6 (9

) 5.

85 (

7) 6.

00 (

D at

e o f fir

st a

rt ic

le w

it h

su bs

ta nt

ia l D

ar fu

r co

nt en

t Ja

n 04

( 5)

Fe b

04 (

2) Ja

n 04

( 5)

Ja n

04 (

5) M

ar 0

3 (1

0) M

ar 0

4 (1

) A

ug 0

3 (7

) M

ar 0

3 (1

0) A

pr 0

3 (8

) N

o v

03 (

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f ar

ti cl

es >

5 00

o rd

s 67

.1 6

(8 )

79 .6

7 (9

) 92

.3 1

(1 0)

63 .8

6 (7

) 24

.5 2

(2 )

28 .8

9 (4

) 14

.4 9

(1 )

47 .4

3 (5

) 25

.0 0

(3 )

56 .4

1 (6

)

Pe rc

en ta

ge s

o f ne

w s

fe at

ur es

d ba

ck gr

o un

d ar

ti cl

es 20

.9 0

(7 )

12 .2

0 (5

) 36

.5 4

(1 0)

19 .2

8 (6

) 9.

64 (

4) 0

(2 )

2. 90

( 3)

28 .5

7 (9

) 0

(2 )

23 .0

8 (8

)

T o

p ic

a l fr

a m

in g

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f ca

us es

a lo

ne a

in c

o m

bi na

ti o n

23 .3

9 (9

) 21

.9 5

(8 )

21 .1

5 (6

) 21

.6 9

(7 )

5. 23

( 1)

17 .7

8 (4

) 18

.8 4

(5 )

17 .7

1 (3

) 24

.3 2

(1 0)

15 .3

8 (2

)

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f re

m ed

ie s

al o ne

d in

c o m

bi na

ti o n

62 .6

9 (4

) 79

.6 7

(9 )

71 .1

5 (7

) 65

.0 6

(6 )

36 .9

1 (1

) 91

.1 1

(1 0)

73 .9

1 (8

) 64

.4 3

(5 )

54 .0

5 (2

) 61

.5 4

(3 )

D e ta

il s

in a

rt ic

le s

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f ar

ti cl

es n

am in

g gr

o up

s re

sp o ns

ib le

f o r

ca us

in g

th e

cr is

79 .1

0 (5

) 95

.1 2

(1 0)

38 .4

6 (3

) 84

.3 4

(8 )

15 .9

8 (1

) 26

.6 7

(2 )

49 .2

8 (4

) 83

.4 3

(7 )

81 .5

8 (6

) 89

.7 4

(9 )

Mody 111

N ew

Y o rk

im es

W as

hi ng

to n

Po st

Le M

o nd

e G

ua rd

ia n

A l- A

hr am

Pe o pl

e’ s

D ai

ly C

hi na

ai ly

B B

C En

gl is

h. A

lJa ze

er a.

ne t

M ai

l & G

ua rd

ia n

o nl

in e

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f ar

ti cl

es n

am in

g gr

o up

s re

sp o ns

ib le

f o r

en di

th e

cr is

49 .2

5 (2

) 75

.6 1

(7 )

76 .9

2 (8

) 68

.6 7

(4 )

28 .6

5 (1

) 95

.5 6

(1 0)

89 .8

6 (9

) 64

.0 0

(3 )

71 .0

5 (5

) 71

.7 9

(6 )

S o

u rc

e s

o f

q u

o te

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f qu

o te

s fr

o m

ar fu

ri s

13 .4

8 (1

0) 10

.1 1

(9 )

6. 58

( 6)

6. 06

( 5)

3. 26

( 4)

0 (1

) 1.

34 (

2) 6.

60 (

7) 2.

17 (

3) 6.

98 (

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f qu

o te

s fr

o m

m an

r ig

ht s

m o ni

to rs

a nd

G O

10 .8

7 (5

) 15

.4 3

(7 )

18 .4

2 (9

) 20

.4 5

(1 0)

3. 26

( 2)

0 (1

) 5.

48 (

3) 17

.3 6

(8 )

9. 42

( 4)

11 .6

3 (6

)

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f qu

o te

s fr

o m

be ls

5. 65

( 5)

4. 26

( 3)

6. 58

( 6)

3. 79

( 2)

9. 78

( 9)

0 (1

) 5.

48 (

3) 6.

94 (

7) 17

.3 9

(1 0)

9. 30

( 8)

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f qu

o te

s fr

o m

A U

4. 35

( 6)

3. 72

( 5)

1. 32

( 2)

1. 52

( 3)

1. 09

( 1)

33 .3

3 (1

0) 13

.7 0

(9 )

3. 47

( 4)

8. 70

( 8)

4. 65

( 7)

In de

x sc

o re

( su

m o

f ra

nk v

al ue

s o f 13

in di

ca to

rs )

8 0

8 5

7 8

56 48

60 8

6 7

3 8

Pe rc

en ta

ge o

f to

ta l p

o ss

ib le

o re

( 13

0) 6

2 6

6 6

0 54

37 47

6 7

5 7

6 5

N ot

es : *

St an

da rd

c o m

pe ti ti ve

r an

ki ng

( 10

99 7)

is f o llo

w ed

w he

re t

ie d

ra nk

s ar

e fo

llo w

ed b

y a

sk ip

pe d

ra nk

;* *a

rt ic

le s

w it h

m o re

t ha

n 50

.0 0%

o f pa

ra gr

ap hs

o n

D ar

fu r

T a b

le 3

. (C

o nt

in ue

112 Global Media and Communication 8(2)

and diplomatic community, strategically provided much more comprehensive coverage than the Chinese-language daily designed for domestic consumption. This is because English-language readers of the China Daily can also read the New York Times and the Washington Post. The majority of Chinese-language readers of the People’s Daily do not have alternative sources of information. Some Chinese work in Sudan, and a few have even been kidnapped by the rebels. What the Chinese public knows about Darfur and its government’s complicity with the ruling regime in Khartoum could influence their willingness to work overseas. News organizations seem to have made strategic decisions in the light of their readership’s lack of a political constituency, as if it were easier to speak the truth to a public with no power. The news message is different for distinct audiences, although for reasons that are different from advertising design. Ulrich Beck’s hope that transnational media might promote cosmopolitanism is worth investigating.

The relative impact of each of these predictors – ownership, geopolitical location, national interest in Sudan, and global audience – on comprehensiveness index scores was assessed through multiple regression analysis. Table 5 shows that each of these predic- tors made a statistically significant contribution to higher comprehensiveness index scores. National interest in Sudan was the strongest predictor, followed by intended audi- ence, under study here. Historical geopolitical vantage point in the Global North or South was third, speaking to the possible declining influence of historical geopolitical solidar- ity. Ownership type had the least influence on comprehensiveness of coverage. Overall, the four predictors accounted for a large percentage of the variance: 95 percent. News organizations appeared to design news on Darfur strategically in the light of these four

Table 4. Rankings on comprehensive coverage index by national versus foreign audience

News organization Comprehensive coverage index score % Ranking*

National audience New York Times 83 63.85 Washington Post 87 66.92 Le Monde 74 56.92 Guardian 72 55.38 People’s Daily 46 35.38 Al-Ahram 47 36.15 Mean comprehensive coverage index score = 63.47**

Foreign audience Mail & Guardian Online 85 65.38 China Daily 62 47.69 BBC.co.uk 87 66.92 English.AlJazeera.Net 77 59.23 Mean comprehensive coverage index score = 80.36**

Notes: *Percentage of total possible score (130); **means are significantly different, t(1196) = 18.10, p < .001.

Mody 113

influences. Whether the audience was foreign or domestic explained a large part of the variation in comprehensiveness.

IV Discussion

This study found that each news organization made strategic, systematic, predictable and significantly different news construction decisions on the genocidal put-down of a regional rebellion by the national government in Sudan, bearing in mind who its intended audience was (in addition to national interest, geopolitical solidarity and ownership influences). On average, coverage by news organizations edited for foreign audiences (BBC.co.uk, Mail and Guardian Online, English.AlJazeera.net and China Daily) was more comprehensive and timely than news designed for domestic audiences. Could rep- resentations of news on human abuse be a curriculum then for cross-national public education and inoculation against, say, genocide? Would it be easier for foreign coverage to consistently report on pressing problems to enable resolution, also pinpointing who was responsible, as per Iyengar’s advice (1991)? Would problem-prevention journalism, as advocated by Power (2004), be easier to conduct in foreign editions with low domestic readership, thus avoiding national retribution? This is a question for future research.

Was the cause of the observed difference between news intended for foreign and domestic audiences confounded with the technological platforms in this study, since three of the four foreign audience-targeting organizations were online and none of the others were? This is possible. Findings from studies of differences between online and print versions of the same event are slowly becoming available, e.g. audiences do not read long articles online (Kinsley, 2010), but these are transitional times. As print news firms with their own traditions move online, they could bring their organizational and cultural conventions with them, maintaining their current brand images despite techno- logical influences. Given the global expansion of financing by advertising despite state ownership and control, it is timely to ask how vulnerable many ‘news brands’ are to the audience commodification of Google. To maximize users, Internet companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! use invisible algorithmic personalization filters devel- oped by harvesting mouse clicks. The success of the online Financial Times (FT) of the UK in harvesting reader clicks was a major factor in an almost 25 percent increase in digital sales in 2010 (Pfanner, 2011). The FT’s ability to give advertisers more informa- tion about customers led to a doubling of its advertising revenues. Eli Pariser (2011)

Table 5. Predictors of scores on timeliness and comprehensiveness index

Adjusted R square Predictors Beta*

Comprehensiveness index score

0.95 Low national interest in Sudan Global audience

0.53 0.40

Geopolitical location in the Global North 0.21 Private ownership 0.19

Note: *All Betas are significant at the p < .001 level.

114 Global Media and Communication 8(2)

mourned the loss of his illusions about the democratizing potential of Internet news as he slowly understood that the new gatekeepers who had replaced the newsroom editors were engineers who wrote programming code. News organizations such as the Washington Post and the New York Times use these filters to personalize and custom- design the news to fit in with viewer search histories. Thus, the serendipitous exposure to multiple viewpoints and diverse issues that was possible with the printed newspaper is ruled out. Individual Internet users have interests of commercial consequence for news- paper brands, like the national interests of states. While many computer users personal- ize the news they get from different sites, will personalization of news by news organizations result in individualized My News versions of the FT? Are we at a juncture where we need to weigh the public-sphere-creation goals of journalism against this intensified commodification of audiences by news suppliers or should we be changing our rhetoric about the role of journalism in these new times?

This study was intended to generate conceptually sound hypotheses for subsequent testing. It has focused attention on the relative influence of four shapers of the foreign news genre. The influence of the intended audience has not been documented before. Future research might investigate how robust these influences are on a variety of foreign news topics, such as the coverage of the events in Libya in 2011. The complexities in studying audience segmentation were listed earlier. An additional area is the relative influence of different motivations for audience segmentation (political, as in the case of the China Daily-People’s Daily, as against the FT’s Internet-enabled market expansion) on the precise nature of news differentiation, for example topical foci, sources, attribu- tion. What are the political and economic conditions under which foreign-targeted news on international topics will be more comprehensive as observed here? Under what geo- political location, historical solidarity, ownership and audience conditions will online foreign-targeted news be likely to carry Beck’s (2006) cosmopolitan vision? Other than the observed differences found between foreign and domestic constituencies in Chinese state media coverage of the Darfur crisis, what are the differences between the different versions of news produced by privately owned organizations, such as the New York Times and Washington Post? What are the results of the other bases of audience segmentation (e.g. large metropolitan areas as against small-town markets) in domestic news for com- prehensiveness of coverage? Or other measures of news quality? Which professional norms will emerge as objectivity as a strategic ritual gives way to audience segmentation for news customized by gender, class, ethnicity, income, profession, education and national market?

Note

1. Quoted in Pariser (2011).

References

Baldasty G (1999) E.W. Scripps and the Business of Newspapers. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Beck U (2006) Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity Press. Carey JW (1986) The dark continent of American journalism. In: Manoff RK and Schudson M

(eds) Reading the News. New York: Pantheon Books.

Mody 115

Folkenflik D (2011) New CNN news chief takes stock. NPR, 1 July. Available at: http://www.npr. org/2011/07/01/137538689/new-cnn-news-chief-takes-stock (accessed July 2011).

Gardner S (2004) News outlets plug into new markets. Brandchannel, 11 October. Available at: http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=233 (accessed 25 January 2012).

Goldfarb M (2001) All journalism is local: Reporting on the Middle East. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 6(3): 110–115.

Gurevitch P and Blumler J (2004) State of the art of comparative political communication. In: Esser F and Pfetsch B (eds) Comparing Political Communication. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp.325–344.

Iyengar S (1991) Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kinsley M (2010) Cut this story! The Atlantic, January–February. Available at: http://www. theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/cut-this-story/7823/ (accessed October 2010).

Koppel T (2010) Olbermann, O’Reilly and the death of real news. The Washington Post, 14 November. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/ AR2010111202857.html (accessed May 2011).

Mody B (2010), The Geopolitics of Representation in Foreign News. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Pariser E (2011) When the Internet thinks it knows you. New York Times, 22 May. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/opinion/23pariser.html?scp=1&sq=When%20the%20 Internet%20thinks%20it%20knows%20you&st=cse (accessed 20 September 2011).

Pfanner E (2011) Financial Times digs gold out of data. New York Times, 6 March. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/business/media/07iht-cache07.html (accessed 15 April 2011).

Power S (2004) Reporting atrocity. International Journal of Press-Politics 9(3): 3–11. Rantanen T (2004) European news agencies and their sources in the Iraq War coverage. In: Allan

S and Zelizer B (eds) Reporting War. Oxford: Routledge. Sen A (2004) What’s the point of press freedom? World Association of Newspapers, 3 March.

Available at: http://www.wan-press.org/article3881.html (consulted 17 April 2012). Shoemaker P and Reese S (1996) Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media

Content. White Plains, NY: Longman. Society of Professional Journalists (1996) Code of Ethics. Available at: http://www.spj.org/

ethicscode.asp (consulted April 2012). Straubhaar J (2007) World Television: From Global to Local. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Thussu DK (2005) From MacBride to Murdoch: The marketisation of global communication.

Javnost/The Public 12(3): 47–60.

Biography

Bella Mody teaches in the Journalism and Mass Communication program at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She specializes in international applications of communication technologies, the political economy of media in developing countries, and design research on public service applications of media. Mody’s authored/edited books include The Geopolitics of Representation in Foreign News: Explaining Darfur, International and Development Communication: A 21st Century Perspective, The Handbook of International and Intercultural Communication, Telecommunication Politics, and Designing Messages for Development Communication.