The international flow of news regarding the 2003 Irag War : a comparative analysis

Abstract

This comparative study conducted within the framework of world system theory aimed to analyse the international flow of news regarding the 2003 Iraq War in online newspapers representative of centre, semi-peripheral and peripheral countries. Two of the newspapers represent centre nations directly involved in the war. Overall, the findings confirmed that the extensive war coverage of the newspapers can in part be attributed to the status of the USA and the UK as centre nations. The findings furthermore indicate the importance of both event and context-related factors as filters in the selection of items for news coverage of the war. Distinct differences emerged in the coverage of newspapers from the three spheres of the world system. These differences can be ascribed to the attitudes of the newspapers towards the war, the use of sources in the war coverage, the propaganda strategies deployed and the framing of the events