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First, let’s look at the overall volume of coverage. In 2016, the number of international news articles on Yahoo! News was,
2,111 in the “International” section out of 17,527 articles in the “Top” category, accounting for about 12% of the total. (This includes international news related to Japan, such as Japan–China relations.) (※3) Is this higher than newspapers? According to GNV data from 2015, Asahi Shimbun: 10%, Mainichi Shimbun: 9.3%, and Yomiuri Shimbun: 8.9%, which is somewhat lower. However, the newspaper survey did not include international news related to Japan, and the target years differ, so a precise comparison is not possible. In any case, we cannot say there is a large difference.

Next, let’s look at the volume of coverage by region (※2). The figure below shows the share of coverage by region. As with newspapers, we found that in online news there is a large gap between regions that are covered and those that are not. Asia has the most coverage, followed by North America and Europe. In each of these regions, Asia is dominated by news related to North Korea’s nuclear tests and repeated missile launch tests, with the Syrian conflict also accounting for many articles. North America centers on the U.S. presidential election, and Europe has many stories about the Nice (France) terror attack and refugee-related news. So what kinds of stories and which countries are covered in the regions with less coverage? In Latin America and the Caribbean, most items are related to the Rio (Brazil) Olympics, with other stories such as the earthquake in Ecuador. In Africa, the most common were reports about the hijacking that occurred on an EgyptAir plane, and there were also stories about the sinking of refugee boats off Libya.

Finally, let’s look at the countries with the most coverage. The figure below charts the top 10 countries with the most coverage on Yahoo! News in 2016. As a point of comparison, the number of international news articles related to Japan is shown on the right. Dividing these 10 countries by region gives five in Asia, three in Europe, one in North America, and one in Latin America and the Caribbean, and articles about these top 10 countries alone account for 58.9%—more than half of the total. So what kinds of stories are common in each of these top 10 countries? First, the United States stands out far ahead of the rest, accounting by itself for a quarter of all coverage; the bulk of those stories concern the presidential election. In addition, reporting on North Korea’s nuclear tests and missile issues appeared not only under North Korea but also in some articles counted for the United States and China. In other words, in terms of content, the U.S. presidential election and North Korea’s nuclear and missile issues make up a relatively large portion of international news, a trend similar to that of traditional media.

※1 The data use archived articles from Yahoo! News in 2016, and the volume of coverage is measured by the number of articles.
※2 Regions are divided into six—Asia, Africa, Oceania, Europe, North America, and Latin America and the Caribbean—according to the standards of the UNSD (United Nations Statistics Division). For GNV’s definition of international news coverage, see “GNV Data Analysis Methods [PDF]”.
※3 The content is categorized into nine sections: “Top, Domestic, International, Economy, Entertainment, Sports, IT/Science, Life, and Local,” and the volume of international news in this analysis refers to articles included in the “International” category.