Social innovation
World news, World politics

Determinants of world news coverage
Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP)
Professor Hawkins, Virgil
https://researchmap.jp/virgilhawkins

Abstract
What are the factors that decide whether or not a place or issue
is covered by the news media? In spite of accelerating globalization, levels of world news in Japan remain low, and large imbalances exist in terms of the regions, countries, and issues covered.
This researcher seeks to understand the factors and mechanisms
behind the imbalances in international news coverage, throughquantitative and qualitative methods, including measurement ofcoverage levels, content analysis and case study process tracing.

Social innovation▍ Background & Results
In recent years, the government, along with universities, corporations and NGOs in Japan, have begun to focus on the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), and are increasingly emphasizing
their efforts and contributions towards their realization. But behind
this positive messaging, there is little hope that the SDGs will beachieved, and in fact, it is difficult to say that the world is even progressing in that direction.
What is behind this gap between the image and the reality? Ascontained in the ‘leave no one behind’ slogan the SDGs project
expouses, the realization of these goals depends on efforts aimed
at low-income countries, yet attention on the SDGs in Japan is focused primarily on Japan.
Changing this situtation requires the building of an information
environment that furthers awareness and understanding of theworld. The news media plays a key role in this environment. Yet thenews media in Japan devote just 10% of their coverage to world
news. This 10% is dominated largely by East Asia and Westerncountries, with coverage of Africa and Latin America combined
making up only 5% of this. Furthermore, rather than independently
raising awareness of issues, the media tends to follow the lead ofpolitical and economic elites.
This research led to the creation of Global News View (GNV),a media research organization. It produces and publishes online
weekly analysis of uncovered issues (Global View) and world news
trends (New View), and broadcasts a biweekly podcast. It also
publishes a monthly report of data from major Japanese newspapers. As of November 2022, it has more than 3,000 daily pageviews.

▍ Significance of the research and Future perspective
Imbalances in world news serve neither the world nor Japan.
Without a comprehensive and objective understanding of theworld, we cannot understand the problems the world is facing or
mobilize the resources needed to solve them. And without thisunderstanding, Japan’s government and corporations cannot adequately assess their interests or risks faced. Bringing to light theimbalances in world news and their causal factors is required tochange this situation. The work produced by the GNV project isintended to be a step in this direction.

P a t e n t
T r e a t i s e Hawkins, Virgil. Stealth Conflicts: How the World’s Worst Violence Is Ignored, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008
UR
L https://globalnewsview.org/archives/category/4eng
K e y w o r d world news, news media, communication, international politics