Abstract
The article deals with features of functioning of news agencies in terms of postmodern situation. There is a comparison of traditional and new principles of work, identification of new trends and issues (information pollution, “digital division”, framing of news, shadow fusion with PR and advertising) in development of news agencies in the context of challenges of global media. The system of modern media news agencies initially occupy a special place as the main suppliers of information to the media, but with the advent of the Internet they have an opportunity of direct contact with the audience, and many other new features that have significantly changed their qualitative characteristics. News agencies of Kazakhstan and Russia today differ by a number of new features of functioning: multimediality, online news, multi-channel availability, multilingual texts, and a growing number of subscribers. Functioning of modern news agencies is considered from the standpoint of ethical, technological and social transformations, among which a particular role is given to the problem glocalization, perception of information, press realization of media, the growth of new information intermediaries, universal gadgetization, cross -, trans- and multimediality, virtualization of global brands, inclination for news flashes. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n19p48