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ABSTRACT A variety of counter trends seem to call the idea of a linear process of media globalization into question. Alany of the arguments against it have concentrated on the growth on national media markets throughout the world or on the information gap between developed and developing countries. Amazingly, though, the topic of foreign reporting has not attained a very prominent place in the globalization debate, although numerous content analyses of international news show that foreign reporting in all media systems is usually heavily influenced by particularist views. The content level of the media globalizes much slower than technical and economic aspects of media development make us think. The system of foreign reporting is not an integrated part of the international system of political and societal relations but is still closely connected to the nation-state. Further international and intercultural conflicts and crises might be reinforced by a growing gap between globalization and particularization of international mass communication. A new global-local nexus' is needed, based on a new culture of international media criticism and a reform of the system of foreign reporting.
The widely discussed paradigm of 'globalization' has often been considered applicable to international mass communication. John Lewis Gaddis maintains that due to the communication revolution it is no longer possible for a state or nation to prevent its people from being informed about world affairs (Gaddis, 1991, p. 103). For Anthony Gidde;is globalization is shaped by developments of the world capitalist economy, the nation-state system, the world military order and the global information system (Giddens, 1984, 1985). Like 'modernization' and 'dependency' in former scholarly debates, the phenomena of globalization must be conceptualised on different levels of theory building: politics, economics, as well as international communication and culture.
Indeed, the mass media may be considered agents of globalization. The coverage of sport events like the Olympic games or political highlights like the opening of the Berlin Wall and the signing of the 'Oslo' peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians were covered by most media systems throughout the world. International reports about incidents like the massacre on Tiananmen Square in Bejing are considered necessary though not suffcient- conditions for the emergence of a common value structure, international standards of human rights or even a transnational...