THE WORLD THROUGH AMERICA’S EYES: INTERNATIONAL NEWS IN AMERICAN MEDIA 2007-2009

This study examines international and foreign news presence within american news media. in doing so, it looks into the amount of coverage of international and foreign news, and tries to determine which countries the coverage revolves around, the topics driving international and foreign news coverage and which media sectors give more space to international and foreign news within american media . the study re-examines pew research center’s project for excellence in journalism (pej) dataset for 2007-2009, which contains 209,396 content coded news stories from 5 media sectors. the study offers information on news about turkey within american news media as well. among many other things, the study finds that for the years 2007-2009 due to the preoccupation of the american media first with the war in iraq and then with the war in afghanistan, other foreign and international news have a hard time finding a place for themselves on the agenda. even when they do, if there is no american national focus inherent, then they are mostly covered with limited content and depth. sudden, dramatic and negative events are the main focus of such news. the study also finds that due to globalization and communication technology developments geographic distance as a selection criterion of foreign and international news is no longer as significant, whereas the existence of political ties as a selection criterion is of more importance.