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

Subjects:

• Communications » Political Communications
• Sociology » Sociology (General)
• Political Science » International Relations

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 September 2003
• 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 2003
• 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 .
• Philo Wasburn presents a lucid account of the nature and consequences of news and public information.
  —Contemporary Sociology .

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• What Our News Media Say
• We're Talking about Us: The Social Construction of the United States by America's News Media
• We're Talking about Them: U.S. News Media Construction of Wars between Other Nations
• We're Talking about Them: U.S. News Media Construction of Other Nation's Internal Wars and Assassinations
• What Their News Media Say: Four Case Studies
• The U.S. as a Former Enemy: Russian National Television Construction of the U.S. After the Collapse of the Soviet Union
• The U.S. as a World Military Power: An Indonesian Newspaper's View of the U.S. in the Persian Gulf Crisis
• The U.S. as a World Economic Power: Radio Japan's View of the U.S. in International Trade Disputes
• The U.S. as a Friend-at-a-Distance: Views of the 1996 Presidential Nominating Conventions and the Presidential Inauguration on British, Canadian, and French Television
• Implication
• Reassessing Our News Media and Reassessing Our Understanding of Others and of Ourselves
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index