The world of U.S. network television news: Eighteen years of international and foreign news coverage

Abstract

This study updates the research on international and foreign news coverage of U.S. network news with a content analysis of almost 10,000 stories from 1972 to 1989. The results suggest that network news has presented a fairly consistent picture of foreign news over time and that there is little difference between the three networks. A minor increase in on-site correspondent reports has occurred over time, and the difference between in-studio and on-site reports is stronger when time, rather than frequency of stories, is the unit of analysis. Finally, foreign coverage is geographically unbalanced and emphasizes disruption more than domestic coverage does.

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