Abstract

This study challenges the ruling orthodoxy that foreign news tends to be reported in divergent ways, reflecting the interests and identity of the home nation. Instead it concludes that the Greek and US elections in 2012 were reported in very similar ways in the leading news media of five countries located in different continents. In the case of the 2012 Chinese election, there were striking affinities in the news reporting of four out of five countries. Powerful forces that make for global conformity include the dominance of a small number of international news agencies, the emergence of a transnational journalistic culture, the hegemony of market liberal thought, the legacy of the Cold War, and the shared perspectives of allied states.