Did you know that the phrase "If it bleeds, it leads" is an idiom used in the West regarding news coverage? In Japanese, "If it bleeds, it leads" means that negative events such as conflicts, disasters, terrorism, and incidents are more likely to be reported as news, while positive events such as development and peace processes are less likely to make the news.

Even if you are not familiar with this expression, you may have the same image of negative news in Japan when you look at international news reports. With so many people having such an image, can the idiom "If it bleeds, it leads" really be applied to Japan's international news coverage as it is? We therefore decided to analyze whether negative news is reported more in the international coverage of three Japanese newspapers (Asahi, Yomiuri, and Mainichi) in 2015. To begin our analysis, we categorized each news topic and each company's coverage of that news into three categories: "positive," "negative," and "neutral. The reason for the "neutral" category is that there are cases in which it is not clear whether the article is positive or negative, and it is also possible that the judgment may vary depending on one's position and values. (For more information on the detailed criteria for positive, negative, and neutral, please refer to the "Positive, Negative, and Neutral" section of this report.GNV Data Analysis Methods [PDF].Please refer to the "Japan News" section of this report for more information. Also, since this article focuses on news of negative topics in Japan's international reporting, it does not deal with the positives and negatives regarding the way newspapers cover these topics, which will be covered in another article in the future.)

Now, as a result of our analysis, we would like you to first look at this graph.

The above graph shows the percentage of articles covering positive, negative, and neutral topics in the three newspaper companies (Asahi, Yomiuri, and Mainichi), and the average is shown in the pie chart. 15.41 TP3T of positive articles and 37.71 TP3T of negative articles for the year of 2015 This is the result of the results of the study. This result shows that negative events were reported more than twice as often as positive events in Japan's international news coverage, although they did not reach the majority of all news coverage. This result is the very embodiment of the phrase "If it bleeds, it leads.

The map above is color-coded to show the percentage of negative articles in each country. The red color becomes darker as the percentage of negative articles increases, and countries with fewer than 5 articles in 2015 are grayed out.

The above graph then shows the percentages of articles covering positive, negative, and neutral topics in each of the three newspapers (Asahi, Yomiuri, and Mainichi) and the average of the percentages in each of the three regions. With regard to this graph and the above map, it is worth noting that many countries in the above map are gray, i.e., Africa and Latin America, two regions where the absolute number of articles was low. Africa had 14.9% of positive articles while 60.5% of negative articles. In contrast, in Latin America, 29.9% of the articles were positive, while 21.1% were negative, showing a significant difference in the proportion of positive and negative articles among the regions with a clearly smaller number of articles. This result may be attributed to the fact that while Africa had more negative events such as conflicts, famines, and incidents, Latin America had the majority of positive coverage, such as the normalization of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S.

This analysis confirmed that "If it bleeds, it leads," or negative events are often covered as news in Japan's international reporting, and that the proportion of positive and negative news stories differs greatly by region, as in Africa and Latin America. In addition, we found that the proportion of positive and negative news stories differed significantly by region, as in Africa and Latin America. We also found that when the absolute number of articles for the region as a whole is small, as in the case of Cuba in Latin America, the proportion of positive and negative news for the region as a whole is highly dependent on specific countries and events.

We cannot see the world in its entirety, and we view most of it through the international press. Therefore, if there is more negative news than positive news, we may have a negative impression of the world and the region. It is not an exaggeration to say that the ratio of positive and negative news will directly lead to the image and behavior of each individual. By comparing the results of this analysis with your own image, you may be able to view the world from a different perspective.

Writer (GNV): Reo Ishihama