World news at the Newseum: Interactive imaginings of international news reporting

Abstract

This article analyzes the Newseum’s attention to questions of the international in an attempt to answer two related research questions: (1) how does the Newseum represent the ‘world news’ story, and (2) how does it represent the world’s various journalism industries? In order to answer these questions, the article first reviews the existing scholarly literature on museums and tourism with the goal of clarifying the Newseum’s positioning within a larger tradition of engaging (and governing) the museum visitor. The article then provides some background information on the Newseum’s creation, shedding light on the very specific sociocultural context that engendered the Newseum – and its view of the ‘world’. Finally, the article discusses the author’s findings from a site study of the Newseum’s 9/11 Memorial Gallery and its Time Warner World News Gallery.