De-colonizing Global News-flows: A Historical Perspective

The colonial roots of the global news system have received relatively limited academic scrutiny, especially from a global South perspective. This article discusses the colonial nature of global news media by examining how the US–UK “news duopoly” has deep colonial connections: the news agency Reuters was described as “an empire within the British empire”. It then examines the 1970s debates during the Cold War within UNESCO for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), the demand to redress the imbalances in global media systems and flow of news between the West and its erstwhile colonies championed by what was then called the Third World. The article then argues that, in the post-Cold War world of globalized communication, a new kind of neo-colonialism in news media emerged, as Western-owned satellite and cable networks extended their footprints across the world, supplemented by the digital empires of the new millennium.