North-South Divide through a CNN Network Lens

I am taking the second module but will not be working on the following proposed idea.

Background:

Globalization and the digital age has made information sharing possible in the split of a second. The availability and access to information, more specifically global news, has never been simpler. With these facts, it could be assumed that global news flow patterns have significantly altered and harmonized from the famed “north-south” divide. The “north-south” categorization of the world, while debatable, has been used by several socio-economic experts to explain differences in economic status of countries/regions. The “north” is the developed regions (North America, Europe, parts of Asia, Australia) whereas the “south” is considered the developing/underdeveloped countries/regions (Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East). Writing about the globalization and the news revolution, Mark D. Alleyne uses the theory as a base for his “structure of global news” model to make an argument that globalization has still not altered the disproportional structure of news flow between the “north” and the “south”, a model that is characterized by it's hierarchy in the global distribution of news. The following visual chart displays the structure of news flow according to Alleyne:

Source: News Revolution - Political and Economic Decisions about Global Information, Mark D. Alleyne (1997)

The model makes distinct claims about the structure of global news. It states that news flow between the global “north” is very frequent and news bureaus in this region have strong proportional ties. In comparison, the volume of information flow between the “north” and the “south” is significantly less and the directionality of the news flow is vertical with more news flowing towards the “south”. Alleyne further theorizes that there is a “coups and earthquake” syndrome when it comes to looking at news flows from the global “south”. Global news coming from the “south” generally tends to be about natural disasters or the rise and fall of governments within these states. The model also shows a lack of ties between the global “south”, assuming news barely flows between countries in the region.

Is this model accurate?

Alleyne introduced this model in 1997, a period when digital age had still not flourished like it has done today. The pace of globalization and significant changes in geopolitical and economic structures may challenge the current applicability of this model. While there have been qualitative analysis that assess this model, a social network analysis could also be used to establish a network of global news flow patterns.

Trying to find a network pattern between global news bureaus would give significant insight on how and through whom news flows. As it virtually impossible to look at every news bureau in the world in the context of this project, we will only look at how information flows within CNN international, the news bureau with the largest global reach. CNN has 42 editorial offices around the world and claims to be the most viewed news TV Channel/Website. While CNN has evolved as a global news network, it often faces criticism for being too “West” centric with most of it’s news headlines about countries in the global “north”. Therefore, how it’s editorial team communicates could provide a basis for how it presents it’s news as well.

CNN News Bureau Locations (Source: CNN)

The CNN International network should provide answers to three primary questions:

Does the CNN International editorial network, despite its diverse reach, prove the “north-south” divide in the structure of global news flow:

1. Are there stronger ties between editorial teams working in the global “north” in comparison to the global “south”? How well connected are the editorial teams in the global “south”
2. Is there a pattern of communication that establishes distinct “centres” among its global editorial team? Are these centers only in the north?
3. What kinds of information (news) are these editorial teams being connected by?

Methodology

Data has to be accessed internally from the CNN International news bureaus. For the purpose of assessing only news flows, only team members who have the role of producing news content will be a part of the data set. As managerial communication flows are not that important in context of the research question, human resources/administrative/logistics employees will be discounted from the data. Network connections between editors, correspondents, content writers and photographers will be the primary source of information for this research. An online questionnaire could be circulated among editorial teams to gather network information. The questionnaire will have to include communication questions that can help determine the frequency and nature of information flow within the 42 editorial teams. It can include questions based on the following criterias:

1. Role within the editorial team (including area of focus)
2. Frequency of communication with other members
3. Purpose of communication
4. Nature of information communicated

Based on the questionnaire, communication patterns should be visible with a number of attributes which will also be useful in determining the nature of communication flows.

Limitations

There are several challenges of not just conducting an SNA but also to draw conclusions out of it. The first would be the feasibility of doing the research as the data will be internal in nature. Another challenge is the size of the data set. Forty two editorial teams, despite discounting managerial and logistics members, would still make a really large data set. There might be a need to streamline data even further for more accurate communication ties. Drawing conclusions from the network could also be hard because of the difference in the size of the editorial teams. Data could be skewed in favor of larger editorial teams (especially when looking at centrality measures). Therefore, the SNA will need to be backed up by a more qualitative analysis as well.