BILATERAL RELATIONS BETWEEN COUNTRIES AND THE COMPLEXITY OF NEWSPAPER EDITORIALS

This study investigated how positive and negative relations between pairs of countries affected the integrative complexity of editorials in major newspapers of each country. Integrative complexity is characterized by rigid, unidimensional, black-or-while thinking at the low end of the scale and a flexible, responsive, interactive approach at the high. Bilateral relations among Canada, the U.S.A., the U.S.S.R. and the People's Republic of China were tracked from 1947 to 1982. In each year, events affecting the relations between each pair positively or negatively were rated by independent judges. Editorials about the other nation in the Toronto Globe and Mail, the New York Times, and Pravda were more complex when relations were good. Overall, Canadian and American editorials were higher in complexity than Soviet ones. Bilateral relations were most consistently positive for Canada and least so for the U. S. S. R. Although only Pravda is an official government publication, all three newspapers showed similar patterns of association between editorial complexity and positive or negative events in international relations.