GNV has been reporting on the current state of international news coverage in the Japanese media by analyzing trends from a variety of angles based on data collected independently from Japan's three major newspapers. However, newspapers are not the only media in Japan. Television, although it provides a smaller volume of information, is able to convey information more clearly and with more impact than newspapers through a combination of audio, video, and explanatory graphics. This is another medium that has a great influence on our understanding of world affairs. Therefore, we would like to focus on television this time.

As for international news reported by TV, this time it is a special program on NHK's BS1, "International Press 2016), to examine the types of international news topics and countries covered during the year 2016 (*1), as well as the relationship between these topics and countries.

The data for the 232 featured programs were collected and analyzed in terms of "regions covered," "main countries covered," and "topic categories. Below are the results of the analysis from three perspectives.

(1) Areas covered

Of the 232 total featured programs, 41.3% of the total were in Asia. This was followed by North America and Europe. These three regions accounted for 84% of the total. As for the Europe and North America regions, articles on the UK leaving the EU, which is still fresh in the memory as a news story of 2016, accounted for 33.7% of the total coverage in Europe, while articles on the US election accounted for 67.0% of the total coverage in North America. The U.S. election accounted for 15% of all features in International Reporting 2016, indicating a particularly high concentration of features. These included coverage of the candidates' attacks and defenses, as well as a focus on the situation during the election, its impact after it ended, and policy content, with features running for almost the entire year. On the other hand, the extreme paucity of coverage in Latin America is also noteworthy, with only one story each in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru throughout the year, or one-eighteenth of one U.S. country in total. This neatly illustrates the bias of the reporting regions. In addition, there is less attention given to the African region, although not to the same extent as in Latin America. South Sudan, where Japan deployed Self-Defense Forces troops in a peacekeeping operation, accounted for 32.8% of the features on Africa.

(2) Top 10 countries featured

Next, let's look at the coverage of individual countries, including some of those mentioned earlier. Of the 232 programs featured, the U.S. stands out from the other countries, accounting for 22.81 TP3T of the total. The difference with the following Asian and European countries is shown in the figure. China, the Korean Peninsula, and European powers that are closely related to Japan in terms of trade and security are also on the list. Syria and Iraq are also on the list, as well as the Philippines, which is attracting attention for its newly-appointed president, who is said to be radical in his words and actions. However, no African or Latin American countries make the top 10.

(3) Categories of featured content

Almost half (47.6%) of the special feature topics (*2) were related to "politics," followed by "war/conflict" (13.5%). In terms of "politics," the most popular topics were the U.K.'s withdrawal from the European Union, the U.S. election, President Obama's visit to Hiroshima, and the election of President Duterte of the Philippines. In "war/conflict," the main topics were the operation to retake Mosul in Iraq and the offensive and defense of Aleppo in Syria. These two and other special features on the Syrian conflict, Iraqi conflict, and IS accounted for 47.51 TP3T of the total "War/Conflicts" coverage. The United States of America, which received the most coverage, had 801 TP3T of those "Politics" features, followed by "Society/Life," "Terrorism," "Incidents," and "Economy. As for the African region, "War/Conflict" received the most coverage at 41.31 TP3T.

As shown above, there is a split between areas of concentrated coverage and areas with little or no coverage. However, this also requires consideration of NHK's longer-term priorities before examining the events that occurred in FY 2016 and their coverage. First,Arrangement of NHK's branch offices around the worldLet's take a look. There are 14 offices in Asia, 3 in North America only in the U.S., 6 in Europe, 3 in the Middle East, 2 in Africa including Cairo which is close to the Middle East, and 1 in Oceania. The decision is not whether or not to cover or report an event when it occurs somewhere in the world, but rather where NHK would like to be able to cover or report if it were to occur in the future. From the above arrangement, it is clear where in the world NHK considers important. This is not only reflected in the special features, but the same tendency can also be seen in the regular NHK news, with a focus on Africa and Central and South America.Lack of media coverageIn addition, the same NHK will provide BS1's "World BroadcastersThis priority can also be seen in "The World's Most Popular News. This program broadcasts news from 23 TV stations around the world, dubbed into Japanese. However, while four of these TV stations are from the U.S. alone and six from Europe, only one station from Brazil is used in Latin America, and there are no TV stations originating from Africa. In other words, the same priority is seen not only in NHK's coverage network but also in information obtained from outside sources.

NHK Broadcasting Center, Jinnan, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. Photo: Rs1421 ( CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Special programs, which can be expected to have a significant effect on viewers' understanding of the news, varied greatly in terms of the countries/regions and topic categories actually covered. Because special programs can provide more time and in-depth coverage than regular news programs, the volume of information and depth of commentary can be beneficial to viewers. However, there are still many blind spots due to the limited breadth of regions and topics covered, and there may be room for improvement. In today's globalized world, the entire world is connected in various dimensions, and there are many world events that transcend regional boundaries. If this continues, viewers' understanding of the world will remain biased.

Writer: Aki Horino

Graphic: Aki Horino

footnote

1 The period covered in this article is one year, from April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017, but the survey covers 232 days, excluding weekends, holidays, and 14 weekdays on which some features were not conducted. In addition, the data classification standards and methodology are not those described by NHK on its own website, but rather the classification standards and items set by GNV, "How to analyze GNV [PDF].This is done in the following manner.

2 GNV categories (16 items)

Politics, War/Conflict, Society/Life, Economy, Terrorism, Accidents, Military, Incidents, Science/Technology, Health/Medicine, Arts/Culture, Education, Environment/Pollution, Sports, Weather Disasters, Demonstrations/Riots