Harvard researcher Ethan Zuckerman is working on a content analysis of several internet (but not internet-based) news sources to quantify the media attention paid to countries around the world. If you go to the main study page you will see the map for a particular source for that day. Reload and see another map based on another news source.
All of which is totally cool, but that’s just a representation of data. Zuckerman goes further and does statistical analyses to try and assess what the predictors of media attention might be. To quote his summary:
GAP research demonstrates that the most accurate predictor of a media outletfs attention is the size of a nationfs gross domestic product. This correlation is significantly greater than the correlation between media attention and the size of a nationfs population, and appears to be the strongest correlation between media attention and 21 factors examined. Generally speaking, violent conflict seems to have less effect on media attention than the size of a nationfs economy does.
