Browsing by Author "Simberg, Nina"

This research examines the flow of African foreign news in two Namibian and two Tanzanian newspapers. The materia] consists of 1424 foreign news articles from two privately and two government owned newspapers in Namibia and Tanzania. The objective of the research is to study what African foreign reporting is like in twoNamibian and two Tanzanian newspapers and how extensive it is. In addition differences and similarities between the countries and the four newspapers are examined. The research also clarifies how African foreign news coverage in Namibia and Tanzania fits into patterns found in previous international news flow research. News flow within Africa is interesting to study because of a strong feeling of African common identity and unity but also because foreign news can affect our worldview. News flow within and into Africa is in this paper studied with the starting point in theories of media imperialism, globalization and in the light of the heated political debate about a New World Information and Communication Order during the 1970s and 1980s. News values and determinants found in research in international news flow are also summarized. African foreign news within Africa is examined with a quantitative content analysis, which is based on an extensive foreign news flow study conducted by UNESCO in 1979. In addition, semi -structured interviews with one editor from each of the examined newspapers have been added to provide explanations and depth to the results. The results show that news flow in these two Sub-Saharan African countries still follow many of the old patterns found in studies from the 1960s onwards. Nevertheless, the flow of international news into Africa has shifted its focus from Western Europe and USA to Asia. Inside the continent the own geopolitical region is still covered most. Topics such as international and domestic politics as well as economic news are covered largely both within and outside Africa. Large international news agencies still play an important role in covering events within Africa. Some alternative sources are, nevertheless, used more frequently especially in feature stories. News from other developing regions in the world is scarce in the examined material. Interestingly, the ownership structure of the four newspapers does not seem to affect the content of foreign African news and the differences between the two examined countries are also relatively small.