Abstract

Since the 1960's, communication scholars have conducted numerous studies to identify determinants of international news flow and coverage. Most of these studies have failed to recognize the fact that different news categories are governed by different criteria of newsworthiness. Also, there has been a lack of research that investigates non-Western, especially non-U.S. news media, and a lack of comparative studies examining media in different parts of the world. The current study was designed to address the two problems. Using quantitative content analysis, four newspapers, which were published in Canada, India, China and the United States, were investigated. Their international news outputs in four news categories were compared. The four categories were political news, military news, economic news and news on natural disasters. Two hypotheses were tested: (1) In a newspaper, the determinants of international news coverage vary among different news categories; (2) The determinants of international news coverage in a particular news category are similar among newspapers from different countries. Hypothesis I was generally supported by the data; however, hypothesis II was only partially supported. The results suggest that research should be conducted to understand news-making processes in different news categories. More comparative studies are required to further explore similarities and variations in news values and practices in different countries.