INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF FOREIGN NEWS COVERAGE: OLD GLOBAL HIERARCHIES IN A NEW ONLINE WORLD.

Theoretically, the Internet allows news organizations to overcome geopolitical hierarchies in international news flow. Practically, do they? Guided by three perspectives--preferential attachment, world system, and triadic world--this study examines patterns of information flow in online news media. Findings from 223 news Web sites in seventy-three countries show that traditional network structures and world hierarchies are reproduced in online media. In cyberspace, news flow takes place predominantly among core countries and from core countries to the periphery. Geography has no predictive power over news flow. News organizations use the Internet to reinforce old practices, perpetuating existing order among nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]