First- and Third-World newspapers on world opinion: Imagined communities in the Cold War and post-Cold War eras

This study of usages of the concept of ''world opinion'' in a sample of first- and third-world newspapers during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras proceeds in three steps. First, I separate the concept of world opinion into its component parts, and compare the manner in which they were employed by region and historical era. Second, I factor analyze the concept's components within each of the comparative categories and describe the different ways in which the concept is constructed by region and area. Third, I explain regional differences with reference to Herman and Chomsky's (1988) thesis that national ''filtering'' of news stories reflects the dominant private and regime interests in a given country. I also explain Cold War and post-Cold War differences in interpretation by Benedict Anderson's (1995) thesis that an imagined ''international community'' may be emerging due to the globalization of media. World opinion, asa concept, reflects these two trends in modern political communication.