FOR RELEASE OCTOBER 31, 1995

A Content Analysis: International News Coverage Fits Public’s Ameri-Centric Mood

Report Summary A new study suggests that the way the media covers international news may be doing little to change the American public’s indifference to concerns about world events and foreign policy. A four-month analysis of over 7,000 international news stories now finds that newspapers and network television focus most often on world news that […]

FOR MEDIA OR OTHER INQUIRIES:

Communications Department
202.419.4372
www.pewresearch.org

RECOMMENDED CITATION

Pew Research Center, October 1995, "A Content Analysis: International News Coverage Fits Public’s Ameri-Centric Mood"

About Pew Research Center

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, computational social science research and other data-driven research. It studies politics and policy; news habits and media; the internet and technology; religion; race and ethnicity; international affairs; social, demographic and economic trends; science; research methodology and data science; and immigration and migration. Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder.

© Pew Research Center 2026

Table of contents

A Content Analysis: International News Coverage Fits Public’s Ameri-Centric Mood

Report Summary A new study suggests that the way the media covers international news may be doing little to change the American public’s indifference to concerns about world events and foreign policy. A four-month analysis of over 7,000 international news stories now finds that newspapers and network television focus most often on world news that […]

Report Summary

A new study suggests that the way the media covers international news may be doing little to change the American public’s indifference to concerns about world events and foreign policy. A four-month analysis of over 7,000 international news stories now finds that newspapers and network television focus most often on world news that have a distinct American orientation, while local television (from which one-fourth of Americans get most of their news) may be all but ignoring the world. The study also concluded that the U.S. media carry few international articles that would broaden and educate Americans about the world beyond those hot spots where “breaking” news, usually about conflict, is occurring.