A large-scale quantitative analysis of geographic news coverage of Yahoo! News and Google News was conducted in the US and India using a content-analysis program to examine overrepresentation of developed countries in the US-based news portal sites. The results of the analysis show an absence of difference in the news coverage patterns of Yahoo! News and Google News between the US and India, which was predicted by the cultural imperialism thesis. However, it was found that Yahoo! News relies on western news agencies for news feeds, so it represents more developed countries; Google News has hundreds of news sources across the world, but its news coverage is highly concentrated and volatile. These findings can be explained by two ways by which western news agencies exercise their global influence on online news: news provision and agenda-setting.
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