IMBALANCE as an issue that lead to the debate

Imbalance according to Encarta dictionaries is -an unevenness, inequality, or bias existing between two or more people or things, especially in their degree of emphasis, proportions, or function

 According to (Ekeanyanwu, 2008)- imbalance in international communication refers to the unequal flow of mass media messages from the …industrial world to the third …or developing world. This imbalance e says is the reason for the international debate for new world information order.

Imbalance can be measured or assessed in terms of its forms or levels at wic it occurs

The forms of imbalance include:

      Qualitative imbalance – this refers to the image portrayed for Africa in the global media. Most if not all the western owned media are prone to exaerate the crisis, unrest, uner, poverty or any other predicament of the third world while avoiding any good or pleasant report wic may actually be more than the unrests.

Also the western media has fed on the predicament of the third world and as used it to increase positive popularity for the west

      Quantitative imbalance: in this form of imbalance, there is little or no mention of the third world in the so called global media. Only news about industrialized countries fill the top headline and sometimes toward the end of the bulletin (and sometimes in a manner of – o lest we forget) the third world is mention. So by this manner of news reporting the global media is telling the world that the third world is not as important as other parts of the world because the news bulletin is always arranged in order of importance from the most important to the least important and therefore these issues have given rise to the third worlds struggles for a free and balanced flow of news.

  The diagram below by  (Domatob, 1994) illustrates the quantitative and qualitative forms of imbalance in the global media about Africa