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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background of the Study

This study sets out to investigate the role of third world News Agencies in the global dissemination of information using News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) as a case study. News agencies are the bodies responsible for the dissemination are the bodies responsible for the dissemination of world information.  They have correspondents who play the role of carrying news across borders. Some correspondents such as those working for television and Newspaper report back to media in their own countries and they approach the news from the viewpoints of specific readers and viewers.  Others report to agencies which distribute their news nationally or internationally circulated magazines and they attempt to achieve a more universal outlook including details of interest to readers from many countries. News agencies are sometimes called wire services. 

This is because their offices are literally lived to their clients by wires and cables over which news and pictures flow.  Some sophisticated system also employs satellite networks. News agencies gather, write edit and send news stories features, analyses and other materials to clients mostly newspaper magazines, radio and television stations.  The service is also available to commercial houses and individuals seeking news such as those wishing market information.  The clients depend on the agencies for the news or information that they cannot gather on their own for economic or other factors. There are three categories of news agencies.  The first category comprises of those agencies known worldwide and often referred to as trans-national news agencies or world news agencies.  The world news agencies include, Associated press (AP) United press International (UPI) felegraphorin Agenstro Sovets Kavo Soiuza (FASKS) Agency France Press (AFP) and Renters. The second category includes new agencies that have clients and correspondents in many countries but whose services are not spread to every part of the globe like those of the world news agencies.  For example, India Press Trust (INPT) pan African news agencies of individual countries of developing countries.  These news agencies are found in African Latin American and Asian Countries.  The news agency of Nigeria (NAN) belongs to the third would news agencies.  The third world National news agencies act as gate keepers in determining what information from the global flow gets their national media in some cases, deciding what internal news gets into the international system as well. They are as varied as the third world itself.  Some news agencies still exist mostly on papers and emphasis on development of national agencies by UNESCO and the I PDC quickly out dates printed summaries. A report to the MAC Bride commission based on data from the India 1970’s claimed that about 120 national had news agencies but that about not, including 24 with population in excess of one million people.  A more recent (SUSSMAN 1982) survey counted 104 third world agencies, there quarters of them operating under three quarters of them operating under some form of government control. NAN was founded as a state enterprise and began operations for about 8 years ago like most news organizations, its charter callers for it to report news and opinion in a professional and objective manner.  According to one assessment (Ugbaja 1980) NAN” must not act as an institutional opponent to say government or interest, but where it is in the public interest to report criticism or public policy, it must do so in a restrained and objective manner”. In most developing countries, news agencies are established, funded and controlled by government.  In most cases, they serve as an arm of the ministry of information or at most government information clearing houses especially for the purpose of exporting news about government to local and foreign media. Initially world news agencies also pre-eminent in the order of the flow were dominated by the European news agencies.  This to alleged unbalance in the news flow and reporting in the third world countries the inadequate and the high cost of telecommunication facilities the greatest obstacles to the foundation of viable news agencies.

In recent decades, the digital revolution, coupled with neoliberal economic policies that promote growing international trade and exchange, has led to the perception that our generation is experiencing unprecedented change. This change has been described by scholars as “globalization” or processes that since the mid-20th century have created: intensified international economic interaction; the rise of multinational businesses and organizations; growing cultural exchange among peoples and countries; compression of time and space via media and technological innovations; greater access to mediated flows of information around the globe; and people’s stronger curiosity about the world beyond their local communities. Robertson (1992) has defined globalization as the world being compressed, with more frequent interaction and interdependence among people from diverse cultural backgrounds, groups, and organizations beyond national borders, to trigger the emergence of transnational or global culture and society. Media organizations and technologies have thus been considered central to processes of globalization. One may argue that the establishment of international news agencies and cable companies in Europe and the United States in the mid 19th century initiated the first modern model of internationalization of media and globalization of news flows first (Boyd-Barrett, 1980). In more recent decades, the development of digital satellite and cable telecommunications, along with broadcasting media’s deregulation and privatization, has further accelerated the international news agencies’ expansion and global flow of news. This global flow has historically been, and continues to be, one dominated by European and U.S. agencies. According to Thussu (2007), the “extensive reach of U.S.-based media, advertising and telecommunications networks contributes to the global flow of the consumer message, helping the U.S. to use its ‘soft power’ to promote its national economic and political interest.” (p. 19). However, this study aims at the role of third world news agencies in global dissemination of information (A case study of News Agency of Nigeria).

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