Predictors of International News Flow: Exploring a Networked Global Media System

This study examines a networked global media system by discerning what drives international news flow in multiple dimensions. A network analysis of news coverage from news websites in 67 countries and their interactions in 2015 reveals that structural factors not only predict a country's international attention - but also its transnational intermedia agenda-setting (IAS) power - the power to influence international discourse. Rationales that drive different dimensions of news flow vary. For instance, our results show that economically influential and more populous countries continue to set the world news agenda in reporting international politics, but smaller countries may have the potential to determine how their own countries are portrayed by the outside world. In addition, trade volume explains international news flow in several ways. Overall, this article advances prior literature by demonstrating that international news flow is multilayered, networked, and possesses systemness and fluidity.