Looking back on the New World Information and Communication Order debate of the 1970s when the global domination of four western news agencies was seen as a form of information imperialism, this essay points out that in some ways it looks like there has been a further deterioration in the relations of power. But there has been both the significant growth of regional players since the 1970s and the internet since the 1990s. Against the background of the current paradigmatic shift of development communication from state-led to market-led development, and a comparative study of news agencies in China, India and Russia, it argues that there is scope for rearticulating the role and significance of news agencies, even within a flawed, hierarchical system, that is more positive than what the old discourse might have indicated.
