[Paper Review] What We Read, What We Search: Media Attention and Public Attention Among 193 Countries

Haewoon Kwak, Jisun An+3 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Feb 18, 2018

Social Media and Politics33 references3 citations

TL;DR

This study analyzes media and public attention across 193 countries using longitudinal data from Unfiltered News (media attention) and Google Trends (public attention) from March 2016 to April 2017. It reveals that while structural patterns like network motifs and regional clustering align between media and public attention, 63.2% of countries direct attention to different countries in media versus public search, indicating a significant misalignment where public interest often diverges from domestic media coverage.

ABSTRACT

We investigate the alignment of international attention of news media organizations within 193 countries with the expressed international interests of the public within those same countries from March 7, 2016 to April 14, 2017. We collect fourteen months of longitudinal data of online news from Unfiltered News and web search volume data from Google Trends and build a multiplex network of media attention and public attention in order to study its structural and dynamic properties. Structurally, the media attention and the public attention are both similar and different depending on the resolution of the analysis. For example, we find that 63.2% of the country-specific media and the public pay attention to different countries, but local attention flow patterns, which are measured by network motifs, are very similar. We also show that there are strong regional similarities with both media and public attention that is only disrupted by significantly major worldwide incidents (e.g., Brexit). Using Granger causality, we show that there are a substantial number of countries where media attention and public attention are dissimilar by topical interest. Our findings show that the media and public attention toward specific countries are often at odds, indicating that the public within these countries may be ignoring their country-specific news outlets and seeking other online sources to address their media needs and desires.

Motivation & Objective

• To investigate the structural and dynamic alignment between international media attention and public attention across 193 countries.
• To examine how media coverage and public search behavior correlate and diverge over time.
• To identify causal relationships and topical influences on the interplay between media and public attention.
• To explore the role of geography, regionalism, and major global events in shaping attention patterns.

Proposed method

• Constructs a multiplex network with two layers: one for media attention (from Unfiltered News) and one for public attention (from Google Trends).
• Uses daily top 100 news topics and country-level web search volumes to model attention flows between countries.
• Applies network motif analysis to compare structural patterns in attention flows across three-country subgraphs.
• Employs Granger causality to test directional influence between media attention and public attention over time.
• Performs community detection to identify regional clusters in both media and public attention networks.
• Uses topic modeling and regression to assess how topical content affects the media-public attention relationship.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 RQ1: How are media attention and public attention structurally aligned across 193 countries?
• RQ2 RQ2: What is the causal relationship between media attention and public attention?
• RQ3 RQ3: Are there topical aspects that affect the interaction between media attention and public attention?

Key findings

• 63.2% of country-specific media and public attention are directed toward different countries, indicating a substantial structural misalignment.
• Despite differences in attention targets, network motifs such as feed-forward loops and fully connected triads show strong similarity, suggesting shared attention dynamics.
• Public attention is more evenly distributed across neighbors than media attention, which exhibits a more skewed, hub-like distribution.
• Community structures in media attention reflect a 'global village' with transnational flows, while public attention shows clearer geographical splits, indicating cultural and regional affinity.
• Granger causality reveals strong bidirectional influence between media and public attention within regions, but causal links are weaker across regions and disrupted by major global events like Brexit.
• Topic modeling shows that media attention and public attention diverge significantly in topical focus, with public interest often driven by non-domestic or non-media-salient topics.