The chilean public’s perception about foreign news in television

Summary

The present article analyzes the importance of including foreign news in local newscasts from the public’s point of view. The analysis is based on the results of a survey and focus groups held during 2009 in the context of Foreign TV News Around the World project. It identifies the perceptions of the Chilean public about this type of news considering the low coverage of them on Chilean newscasts. Considering the public’s opinions this paper discusses some concepts of newsworthiness such as proximity, social significance and deviance; and some news treatment factors like contextualization and sensationalism.