Loading essay content

This chart shows whether certain geopolitical regions are referenced more often by either Zeit Online (55%) or The New York Times (45%). Interact Hover or click on visualization for details with the visualization or keep scrolling Hover or click on visualization for details for details.

Are there geographical spheres of interest?

Let us consider all geographical entities used as meta-keywords. For both outlets, between 40 to 50% of news content tagged with geo-related keywords refer to the newspaper's own country. The rest of this coverage is split across other countries, as shown on the left. The frequency at which certain geo-political entities are referred to translates into relevance for the reader. This relevance is constructed by following certain patterns. For example, these keywords are set at different granularities. At a low level we have names of cities, like Berlin or New York, sometimes even names of neighborhoods, like Manhattan (NY). At a higher level, we have names of states (Baden-Wuttemberg, Ohio), countries (Bolivia, Italien, Greenland), and supra-national geo-political or geographical entities (Red Sea, Atlantic Ocean). If we reduce the granularity by aggregating all localities with their country and assign each region and country to macro-regions, we can observe how newspapers have different areas of interest. Diagram of the process of keywords abstraction, from top to down: localities, provinces and states, countries, and regions. The top layers are shown to flow into the bottom ones with arrows pointing down.

The resulting abstraction is shown in the visualization on the right, with the world “split” into areas of interest based on how much either Die Zeit or The New York Times cover a specific country.

Grassland (2023) has already observed how Western European newspapers tend to cover macro-regions of interests: areas that have geographical and political significance for the host country of the newspaper. Looking at the visualization on the right, this observation seems to be confirmed: for Zeit, Central and Western Europe are the main regions of interest. Even in relation to conflict and against the cultural background that ties Germany and Israel, the use of Russia-Ukraine keywords is much higher than Israel–Palestine ones.
For the New York Times, half of the coverage is tagged with geo-political keywords about the two regions of Asia and Middle East. At first, this delineates a largely conflict-first approach, with the Israel-Palestine conflict as central. However, it also brings forward a much broader concern of the newspaper for foreign affairs, especially if compared with Zeit.
The NYT also provides tags about geographical entities that are not directly associated with countries, like natural landmarks or geographically distinct areas encompassing several countries (seas, deserts, etc.). This shows a different, possibly more granular, strategy in producing and tagging content.
However, whereas for Zeit the coverage of European countries is more nuanced and based on individual countries – a good portion of the NYT coverage refers generally to “Europe”. In this sense, one of the most important aspects that emerge is the lack of reciprocal attention. Content tagged with keywords related to the United States takes up almost 20% of Zeit news, whereas for the NYT the direct reference to Germany is much less central.
How to read the chart:
Notes:
  • 1. The count of keywords related to the newspapers’ respective countries is excluded.
  • 2. Keywords grouped in the “Other” category refer to geographical landmarks or historical geopolitical entities

The chart compares the use of geo-related keywords in Zeit Online with The New York Times.

Countries are sorted based on top 20 keywords.
100020001. United States100020002. Russia100020003. France100020004. Ukraine100020005. Israel100020006. United Kingdom100020007. China100020008. Austria100020009. Iran1000200010. Greece1000200011. Switzerland1000200012. Spain1000200013. Italy1000200014. Syria1000200015. Turkey1000200016. Lebanon1000200017. Netherlands1000200018. Poland1000200019. Hungary1000200020. Denmark

What countries and geographic entities are mentioned the most?

For instance, global conflicts receive the lion share of mentions, in both newspapers. The meta-keywords for Israel, Palestine (Gaza), Russia, China, Ukraine, United Kingdom, France, Iran, Lebanon and Europe are in the top 10 of the New York Times.

For Zeit, the outlook is similar, with important differences. First, the US is the most referenced country. Then, Palestine is seldom referenced – outside of the top 20. China is also less referenced than in NYT coverage.
For both outlets, the remaining 10 countries express more closely the interest in countries that are either geographically or economically close. For the NYT these are Canada, Georgia, Germany, Mexico, Japan, Syria, India, Italy, South Korea, and Brazil.
From the Zeit perspective, relevant keywords relate to countries mostly part of the EU or with a direct shared border with Germany. Exceptions are Turkey (close to Germany for political and social reasons) and Middle Eastern countries close to the Israel-Palestine or Russia-Ukraine conflicts.
How to read the chart:

This is one keyword related to a country or geolocation

Number of articles tagged with the keyword

The groups are in descending order depending on the selected outlet

Notes:

  • 1. The count of keywords related to the newspapers’ respective countries is excluded.
  • 2. The maximum point on the scale is calculated across the two news outlet to allows easier comparison.
Loading essay content
What other countries share coverage with
?

The two networks visualizations show the coverage directly shared between United Kingdom and other countries. Interact with the nodes to see how coutries are connected with each other in relation to United Kingdom. Use the dropdown menu above to switch primary country.

Zeit Online

United Kingdom shares coverage with 73 other countries.

The New York Times

United Kingdom shares coverage with 94 other countries.
Loading essay content