Deglobalization and the Disintegration of the European News System, 1918–34
In the late-nineteenth century, the world's news was shared among three European news agencies. This cooperation created an efficient and organized system of information exchange that distributed news to newspapers around the world. But by the interwar period that system had fallen into disarray. News that had taken hours to make its way from Austria to Australia could now take weeks. The League of Nations attempted to reconstruct a global system of information exchange and to regulate communications systems and tariffs that impeded the flow of news and information. Those efforts, however, failed. This article explores the phenomenon of deglobalization by using the breakup of the European news agency cartel in the interwar period as a lens. It is the story of how the European continent, which had been the central hub of the global news network became increasingly isolated from the rest of the world more generally.