On February 24, 2022, Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, drawing the attention of media around the world. Japan was no exception, with all kinds of media reporting on this armed conflict. From the latest battlefield developments and the damage suffered by people on the ground to the responses of governments, there have been few other examples in recent years where international coverage has so saturated Japanese news. However, Ukraine is not the only place where armed conflicts are occurring worldwide. There are several countries where armed conflicts as tragic as, or even more tragic than, the Russia–Ukraine conflict are taking place, but are not widely known.

In this article, we examine how the intense focus on the Russia–Ukraine conflict affected Japanese media, based on coverage in the morning editions of the Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri newspapers from January to June 2022. We first analyze how concentrated reporting on the Russia–Ukraine conflict changed overall international coverage and the amount of coverage by country. We then focus on conflict-related reporting and consider how the Russia–Ukraine conflict influenced Japan’s coverage of conflicts.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky surrounded by many members of the press (President Of Ukraine / Flickr [CC0 1.0])

Overall trends in international coverage 

First, let’s see whether this conflict affected overall international coverage. For the period from January 1, 2022 to June 30, 2022, we look at the proportion of international news within total coverage (※1). The results are shown in the graph below. The Asahi Shimbun’s international coverage accounted for 11.9%, the Mainichi Shimbun 10.1%, and the Yomiuri Shimbun 13.6%. GNV has previously compiled similar statistics for newspaper coverage, television news coverage, and online media coverage, and in all cases international news made up around 10%. Although the share for the Yomiuri Shimbun rose slightly to 13.6%, the Asahi and Mainichi were in line with previous years.

Looking at data from 5 years ago (data), the annual amount of coverage by each newspaper was 2,681 articles for the Asahi, 3,102 articles for the Mainichi, and 3,696 characters for the Yomiuri. The absolute amount of coverage has not increased; in fact, the Mainichi decreased slightly. Therefore, even though the Russia–Ukraine conflict received a great deal of attention, this did not increase either the absolute amount or the share of overall international coverage in the first half of 2022.

In the short term, there were cases where the volume of coverage changed. For example, looking at the Asahi’s monthly international coverage, March was 13.3%, slightly higher than the other months, which were all in the 10% range. Since the Russia–Ukraine conflict began on February 24, 2022, it can be said that the conflict temporarily increased the amount of international coverage. In the Asahi, Ukraine-related news appeared on the front page on 25 days of the morning edition in March, underscoring the high level of attention. However, from a medium- to long-term perspective of six months, it cannot be said that this led to an overall increase in international news.

Top 10 countries in international coverage (first half of 2022)

Next, we look at the ranking of countries covered in international news in the morning editions of the Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri. Measured by character count, Ukraine accounted for 14.8%, Russia 13.6%, the United States 12.8%, and China 9.8%, making these among the top 5 countries. Since 2015, GNV has conducted various studies on Japan’s international news, and in every year and medium studied, the United States was the most covered, with China second. This time, however, Ukraine ranked first and Russia second, and together these two countries alone accounted for 30% of six months of international coverage—an unprecedented result in GNV’s statistics. This shows how strongly the Russia–Ukraine conflict affected coverage in the Japanese media.

Breaking international coverage down by region, Europe accounted for 42.2%, Asia 30.0%, North America 14.9%, Oceania 1.6%, Latin America and the Caribbean 0.9%, and Africa 0.7%. In data from previous years, Asia accounted for about half of the total, followed by North America and Europe. However, in 2022, coverage related to Europe made up more than half of all international news—something not seen in previous GNV analyses. As the top 10 countries show, concentrated reporting on Ukraine and Russia likely pushed up Europe’s share. There was also change in coverage of Africa and Latin America, which are underreported even in normal times. In newspaper international coverage from 5 years ago, Africa accounted for 3.4% and Latin America 2.1% of all international news. In contrast, in the first half of 2022, Africa was 0.7% and Latin America 0.9%, a further decline. As coverage of the Russia–Ukraine conflict increased, coverage of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and other regions decreased further.

Conflict reporting (first half of 2022)

So far we have looked at changes in international news by region and country. How, then, did conflict coverage change due to the Russia–Ukraine conflict? In the first half of 2022, reports related to conflict/war accounted for 18.1% of overall international news. Considering that in newspaper-wide data from 2017 it was about 5%, and in NHK international news in 2021 it was 2.4%, this represents a significant increase over typical years.

Next, we examine which specific conflicts were covered. The most reported was the Russia–Ukraine conflict, with 1,331 articles totaling 1,114,992 characters—about 95% of all conflict-related coverage. The Israel–Palestine conflict, the Colombian conflict, the conflict in Afghanistan, and the conflict in Myanmar were also covered. However, each of these appeared in around 10 articles and about 3,000 characters, accounting for only 0.2–0.5% of all conflict coverage—minuscule compared with Ukraine-related reporting. Meanwhile, mainly in the Asahi, articles revisiting the history of World War II, which ended 77 years ago, totaled 6,341 characters—exceeding the volume devoted to other ongoing conflicts.

Here we should look at the reality of conflicts around the world. The figure below summarizes, based on data from ACLED, an organization that collects data on armed conflict, those conflicts worldwide with the highest number of deaths from January to June 2022. As you can see, the conflict with the most casualties during this period was in Myanmar, not the Russia–Ukraine conflict. In countries such as Yemen and Nigeria, the number of victims is comparable to that in the Russia–Ukraine conflict. Furthermore, these figures are only direct deaths caused by violence in armed conflicts. If deaths from disease and hunger accompanying conflict are included, the death tolls in other armed conflicts—beginning with the Yemen conflict—would increase substantially. Of course, the number of deaths alone is not necessarily the criterion for the scale or severity of a conflict, but the overheated, unbalanced coverage obscures the grim realities of other conflicts.

Conflicts that go unreported

Here, for the period from January to June 2022, we consider Myanmar—which saw more deaths than the Russia–Ukraine conflict—and the conflicts in Yemen and Nigeria, which followed. While Japanese media focused almost exclusively on the Russia–Ukraine conflict, what conflicts remained in the shadows?

Myanmar

After gaining independence from Britain in 1948, Myanmar’s political system remained unstable, with long periods of military rule, and armed conflicts persisted in various states beyond the military’s control. Democratization and liberalization occurred in 2011, but the 2021 coup returned the country to military rule. Clashes between protesting citizens and the military have been frequent, and people formed the People‘s Defense Force to resist the military. Since 2021, armed conflicts across the country have intensified; according to ACLED, at least 11,004 people were killed in the first half of 2022 due to armed clashes with the military. The conflict is still ongoing.

How much was Myanmar’s conflict reported in the first half of 2022? Over six months, the three national papers ran a combined 83.7 articles and 60,261 characters on Myanmar, but only 3 articles totaling 2,838 characters covered the conflict itself. Despite the 11,004 deaths in six months—more than in the Russia–Ukraine conflict—the volume of coverage was only one four-hundredth of that devoted to the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

Myanmar police protesting against the military (Prachatai / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

Yemen

The Yemen conflict began in 2014 with fighting between Yemen’s government forces and Houthi forces. Subsequently, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, supported by the United States, intervened on the government side with significant military force. The Houthi forces are believed to receive support from Iran, making this a conflict involving various actors domestically and internationally. It has continued for more than 8 years, resulting in 377,000 deaths and 4.2 million displaced people—a large-scale armed conflict. Recently, a ceasefire agreement was reached in April 2022, with extensions decided in June and August. However, an extension was not reached in October, and observers warn that fierce clashes could resume.

Let’s look at coverage of the Yemen conflict, which resulted in 5,031 deaths in the first half of 2022. In that period, the three national papers ran just 6 articles totaling 2,223 characters on the conflict—only 0.1% of all conflict-related coverage.  

Nigeria

In Nigeria, armed clashes are continuing in the north and south. In the northern region, intense fighting between extremist groups and government forces has caused many casualties, with the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP), which is affiliated with ISIS, being a main anti-government force. In the south, demonstrations and riots by the independence-seeking Biafra movement have created a chaotic situation. According to ACLED data, casualties from these conflicts have been increasing since 2021, with 5,909 deaths in the first half of 2022.

Despite the grave toll of Nigeria’s conflicts, in the first half of 2022 they were mentioned only once—in a 370-character article in the Asahi in January. In fact, total coverage of Nigeria—the most populous country in Africa and a regional power—amounted to just 588 characters across the Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri combined, underscoring the paucity of reporting on Africa.

Nigerian Army soldiers during training (USAFRICOM / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 2.0])

Why does the Russia–Ukraine war draw so much attention?

As we have seen, the Russia–Ukraine conflict was heavily covered by Japanese media and drew intense attention. At the same time, coverage of other countries and regions decreased compared with typical years, making Japan’s international news even more skewed. In conflict reporting in particular, roughly 95% was related to the Russia–Ukraine war, as if other armed conflicts did not exist. Why did this armed conflict alone receive so much attention?

A common explanation is simply that the Russia–Ukraine conflict has a major impact on Japan. Russia, a party to the conflict, is a nuclear-armed country and has a territorial dispute with Japan. Some argue that the fact that such a country launched a military invasion of a neighbor is important to Japan’s national security debate. But that does not fully explain it. Although Russia is a neighbor, the armed conflict is on its far western border, and it is a stretch to link it directly to a threat to Japan. Discussion of the nuclear threat is certainly noteworthy. However, even in 2014 when conflict first broke out in Ukraine without the spotlight on nuclear use, developments in Ukraine alone were highlighted by Japanese media, suggesting this is not the only point of focus. Moreover, despite being geographically closer to Japan and having stronger economic ties than Ukraine, Myanmar’s conflict is scarcely reported. In the Yemen conflict, Saudi Arabia has intervened and the country’s oil facilities have been directly attacked, potentially affecting the oil resources on which Japan depends, yet this conflict receives little attention in Japanese media. Thus, the impact or relevance of a conflict to Japan alone cannot explain why Japanese media focus so heavily on the Russia–Ukraine conflict.  

Some also argue that the Russia–Ukraine conflict draws attention because it is a war between states rather than a domestic conflict. However, the Yemen conflict discussed here is also a cross-border conflict, with multiple countries forming a coalition to invade Yemen, yet it receives little attention in Japanese media. Others cite the scale of the humanitarian impact of the Russia–Ukraine conflict as a reason, but that is inconsistent with the minimal coverage of conflicts in Myanmar and Yemen, which have produced casualties on par with or greater than Ukraine.

A protest against Russia held in Stockholm, Sweden on February 27, 2022 (Frankie Fouganthin / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0])

What other reasons might explain Japan’s heavy coverage of the Russia–Ukraine war? In past GNV research, we have pointed out that across international news, high-income countries are highlighted while low-income countries tend to receive less attention. As in this case, when a conflict occurs in Europe—which has a concentration of high-income countries—and in a relatively higher-income country like Ukraine, it receives extensive coverage, while coverage of lower-income countries such as Myanmar, Yemen, and Nigeria is minimal even amid severe humanitarian crises. This suggests that a country’s wealth is strongly related to the level of coverage it receives in Japanese media. It is also hard to deny that the ethnicity or skin color of victims is a factor.  

We should also note the bias in Japanese coverage toward Western countries. As previous GNV articles have pointed out, Japan’s conflict reporting has been influenced by humanitarian angles, perceived connections to Japan, and the positions of Western countries led by the United States. In reporting on the Russia–Ukraine conflict, aside from the parties to the conflict—Ukraine and Russia—the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) were the most frequently associated actors. Past GNV research has also noted that Japanese international news is influenced by topics highlighted by the U.S. government and media. Such ties to high-income Western countries are one factor that likely amplified Japanese media coverage of the Russia–Ukraine conflict.  

Summary

We have examined the reality of Japanese coverage of the Russia–Ukraine conflict and its background. There are many countries and regions, and large-scale armed conflicts, that have been pushed into the shadows by overheated reporting on Russia and Ukraine. This kind of sensationalized coverage by Japanese media narrows our view of the world even further. Can we truly understand what is happening globally with Japanese coverage as it currently stands?

※1 　From January 1, 2022 to June 30, 2022, the Tokyo morning editions of the Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri newspapers were surveyed. For GNV’s definition of international news, see here.

Writer: Takumi Kuriyama

Graphics: Takumi Kuriyama

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