The New York Times’ Australian expansion and its internal contradictions

Abstract

The New York Times needs to expand to global audiences if it is to grow its digital subscription base. However, to do so it must balance difficult questions of colonial intentions with demands for inclusivity. By juxtaposing the case of the Times’ Australian expansion with its approach to global journalism as a whole, the power dynamics of American journalism imported from abroad to grow markets is explored. But the context is different from what most scholars critique as media imperialism: there is no capital surplus, the Times is not a global media firm, and in the case of Australia, traditional concerns of ‘first-world/third-world’ power flows are not present, although different modes of domination nonetheless prevail.