Systemic Determinants of International News Coverage: A Comparison of 38 Countries

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of systemic determinants on international news coverage in 38 countries. Systemic factors include traits of nations, magnitude of interaction and relatedness between nations, and logistics of news gathering.Multiple regression is implemented to assess 9 systemic determinants in each individual country. Findings indicate that the U.S. was the most covered country in the world. In spite of some variation, trade volume and presence of international news agencies were found to be the 2 primary predictors of the amount of news coverage. The study concludes that the prediction framework of international news coverage has probably altered in the post-Cold War epoch and, therefore, that the relevant problems need to be revisited.

Increasing circulation? a comparative news‐flow study of the MontrealGazette's hard‐copy and on‐line editions

“…This imbalance in the global exchange of news means, in the words of Jaap van Ginneken (1998), "the perspectives of the great mass of the world population are under-represented in global news, while those of relatively small élites are overrepresented" (p. 143). This tendency creates what H. Denis Wu (2000) calls a "discrepancy between the 'real world' and the 'news world' " (pp. 23-4).…”

If It Leads, It Bleeds (and If It Bleeds, It Leads): Media Coverage and Fatalities in Militarized Interstate Disputes

“…Our study opens up two avenues to pursue in future studies. First, it may be worthwhile to apply controls for endogeneity to existing empirical analyses (e.g., Gaddy & Tanjong, 1986;Van Belle, 2000;Wu, 2000;Wu et al, 2002) that employ other units of analysis and different dependent variables. Second, over the years media coverage has evolved; what once was only covered in printed newspapers can now be transmitted almost instantaneously through the Internet.…”

“…Although agencies like the Associated Press make news available that other reporting agencies can pick up, this does not allow for the substantive reporting that a news bureau in-country can provide. Wu's (2000) wide-ranging study of news reporting in 38 countries found that the presence of an international news bureau significantly increased the likelihood of coverage (see also Larson, 1979;Wu et al, 2002). This should not be surprising; a news agency must maintain a reputation of reporting accurate events, and in-country news bureaus provide an additional measure of validation regarding an event.…”

“…Multiple scholars have concluded that the farther from home a conflict is, the less likely it will be covered (Rosengren, 1977;Van Belle, 2000;Wu, 2000), although these effects are not consistent across all forms of media and all countries (Chang, Shoemaker, & Brendlinger, 1987, p. 410;Wu, 2000). Distance is measured using the procedure described by Gleditsch and Ward (2001).…”

“…This should not be surprising; a news agency must maintain a reputation of reporting accurate events, and in-country news bureaus provide an additional measure of validation regarding an event. News bureaus is a binary measure of whether or not the New York Times (or the International Herald Tribune) has a bureau in at least one of the original dispute participants at the time of the dispute (Pompeo, 2011;Wu, 2000;Wu et al, 2002). We follow Pompeo's (2011) list of news bureaus, with the exception that the bureaus in Afghanistan and Iraq are not included, since they would not be established until after 2001 and 2003, respectively, and this is outside of the temporal domain of our data set.…”