Abstract

This paper presents the results of an empirical research involving three radio stations: Réseau France Outre-Mer (RFO) Guyane, from Cayenne, French Guyana; Radio France Musiques, from Paris; and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service, from London – more precisely its Brazilian Service, that is also called “BBC Brasil”. These radio stations were selected from a previous research, designed to observe international flows of content in the programming streamed on the Internet by terrestrial radio stations. Due to the characteristics verified in their websites, measured and quantified through an observation protocol regarding to the inclinations of their programmings, RFO Guyane, BBC World Service and France Musiques were chosen among 378 radio stations from 145 countries for comparative content analyses and parallel case studies, in order to confirm or not the three dimensions (the spheres of interest) revealed by their protocols – if local, or global, or local and global at the same time (respectively). Representing BBC World Service, that was explored as a whole during the case studies, BBC Brasil was included for allowing a comparison with earlier studies carried out by the author. In order to achieve a better perception about the similarities and differences concerning to the themes that were valorised by RFO Guyane, France Musiques and BBC Brasil, news programmes of the three stations were heard on the Internet directly from their websites and recorded in the same days during a week. After describing the context of the study, the criteria and procedures employed for the definition of programmes to be recorded, listened to and analysed, as also the formulation of concepts, content categories and codification rules, the paper exposes the results found for each radio station according to three conditions: individual programmes, dates and contents. Finally, it discusses these particular results and gathers them for a comparative view.