Abstract:
The objective of this research is to study the influences of globalization of communication on the
working process of international news agencies in Thailand, in this case the English News Agency, Reuters
and the Chinese News Agency, Xinhua. Research methodologies used in this study are document research
and in-depth interviews. The research findings indicate that globalization of communication impacts on the
news agencies in 3 ways as follows:
1. Technological convergence as a result of globalization of communication has led to a
transformation of Reuters in terms of the business operation and types of news produced by the new
agency. The convergence of technology induces 2 significant changes, which are Reuters merger with a
giant information company, Thomson Corporation, and multiplicity of news channels from citizen journalists
on the Internet. After the merger, Reuters major customers have changed from media to investors and
private organizations. This influences Reuters to switch its focus to financial news and market moving stories
rather than general news. At the same time, with multiple channels of news, Reuters has to emphasis more
on analytic and in-depth news. In contrast, Xinhua News Agency does not have an issue of merger. The
change in its operation results from Chinas Open-Door policy, which influences Xinhua, as Chinas
representative, to become a national news agency that provides services internationally. Types of news
produced by Xinhua have not changed much, but it focuses on producing as much as possible news, both
in Chinese and English.
2. In terms of the regime and its impacts on news values applied by each news agency, it is found
that Reuters, as the new agency of democratic countries, still uses the news values of the first world.
However, as it considers customers demands most important, types of news Reuters gives importance to
are financial and market moving news. On the other hand, Xinhua still clings to the news values of the
second world as it is the news agency of the Communist Party of China. Nevertheless, there begin to be a
change for English news in which Xinhua uses more first world news values, but it still focuses mainly on
China-related news.
3. Globalization of communication allows for an appearance of local contents in the case of
Reuters. Reuters has just started providing Thai news services, in which the Thai editor has full authority to
edit the news, independently of western editors, to serve Thai customers. However, it is not real localization
of content but rather glocalization which is an integration of local contents and an organizational policy of the
western news agency.