A Pew Research survey conducted earlier this spring found that 68% of Turks opposed Western countries sending weapons and other supplies to anti-government rebels in Syria — the second-highest level of opposition among the six predominantly Muslim countries surveyed in the region.

Similarly high majorities in Turkey opposed aid to the rebels by Arab nations (66%) and their own country (65%).

Erdogan has pressured the Obama administration to provide military aid to the rebels seeking to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad; hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have poured into Turkey, and Erdogan’s government has blamed Assad’s regime for car bombings that killed 46 people last week in a Turkish border town.

In the Pew Research survey, which was conducted before those blasts, 62% of Turks said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the violence in Syria spreading to their country.

The Turks’ opposition to outside intervention in the Syrian conflict doesn’t, however, mean they support Assad. Of Turks surveyed, 72% said they had an unfavorable opinion of the Syrian leader (including 48% with a “very unfavorable” view); only 8% viewed Assad favorably.

As Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with President Obama today, his calls for more Western aid to Syrian rebels put him at odds with Turkish public opinion.

A Pew Research survey conducted earlier this spring found that 68% of Turks opposed Western countries sending weapons and other supplies to anti-government rebels in Syria — the second-highest level of opposition among the six predominantly Muslim countries surveyed in the region.

Similarly high majorities in Turkey opposed aid to the rebels by Arab nations (66%) and their own country (65%).

Erdogan has pressured the Obama administration to provide military aid to the rebels seeking to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad; hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have poured into Turkey, and Erdogan’s government has blamed Assad’s regime for car bombings that killed 46 people last week in a Turkish border town.

In the Pew Research survey, which was conducted before those blasts, 62% of Turks said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the violence in Syria spreading to their country.

The Turks’ opposition to outside intervention in the Syrian conflict doesn’t, however, mean they support Assad. Of Turks surveyed, 72% said they had an unfavorable opinion of the Syrian leader (including 48% with a “very unfavorable” view); only 8% viewed Assad favorably.

Drew DeSilver is senior writer at the Pew Research Center.

Public interest in foreign news stories has been modest so far this year, in stark contrast to 2011 when several overseas news stories, from the Japanese tsunami and nuclear disaster to the “Arab spring,” attracted substantial attention.

The latest weekly News Interest Index, conducted May 31 to June 2 among 1,012 adults, is fairly typical in this regard. Just 17% tracked news about the ongoing economic problems in Europe very closely. And despite reports of a recent massacre of civilians in Syria, just 12% followed political violence in that country very closely.

Read the full report.

Read the full report.

Instead, the discussion across a broad range of mainstream media, on Facebook, Twitter and in the blogosphere, has centered on trying to sort out what happened and on people’s feelings about it — including significant debate in social media over whether the reports might be a hoax. But so far the coverage has defied the tendency seen in many major national news events to turn quickly partisan.

In the mainstream press, coverage has focused on trying to parse out the details leading up to and during the dramatic raid, and on sorting through the national and international reaction to it. Those two themes together accounted for half the bin Laden coverage since Sunday night, May 1, and through Wednesday, May 4.

On Facebook and Twitter, meanwhile, citizens have used these social media tools to express black humor about bin Laden’s death. The largest share of discussion there, 19%, has involved people sharing jokes. The second largest theme involved the question of whether bin Laden was really dead, and weighing the pros and cons of the proof offered. That discussion accounted for 17% of the conversation.

And in the blogosphere, which often takes a contrarian view to that offered in the mainstream media, the largest share of the discussion (14%) involved passing along news about the raid. Almost as much (13%) concerned fears about possible reprisals for bin Laden’s death. And a notable amount of the discussion, 10%, involved the hoax theme.

In the political discussion that did occur, bloggers were evenly divided over whether President Obama deserved more credit or whether the policies of President Bush did. On Facebook and Twitter, conversation crediting Obama is twice that praising Bush.

These are some of the findings of a special report on media attention to bin Laden’s death produced by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The report used computer technology by Crimson Hexagon that examined more than 120,000 news stories, 100,000 blog posts, and 6.9 million posts on Twitter or Facebook from May 1 through May 4.

There is no doubt the bin Laden story is huge. The early wall-to-wall coverage of the bin Laden story accounted for an extraordinary 89% of the mainstream media newshole on May 2 and May 3, as measured by PEJ’s ongoing News Coverage Index. At this pace, bin Laden’s death would easily be the biggest weekly story since the NCI began in January 2007.

In an age when the media dialogue is thought to move at lightning speed, however, what may be most striking is how little the coverage and discussion on this topic have shifted since the event occurred Sunday, May 1. Humor, which was a strong initial response, has dropped off some in social media, but it still remains one of the most prevalent themes on Facebook and Twitter. Otherwise, the discussion over the first few days has remained fundamentally unchanged, deepening rather than quickly moving on to new dimensions of story in the way that we typically see, sometimes before the facts are fully reported. The calculus over who will benefit politically, for instance, has not shifted substantially. Similarly, the suspicions that bin Laden’s death was a hoax have not changed appreciably.

Continue reading the full report at journalism.org.

On Jan. 18, President Hu Jintao of China arrived in the U.S. for a four-day visit — the highlight being a lavish black-tie dinner at the White House. It was Obama’s third state dinner, but because of China’s role as an economic power and critical role in foreign affairs, political analysts have called it the most important one of his presidency thus far.

When China has made news, what is it Americans are learning about?

A PEJ examination of news coverage of China since 1997 reveals two patterns. In general, larger economic issues involving trade and economic policy with China tend to be overshadowed by different issues — including tainted imports and disasters. And in any given week, ongoing economic issues are even less visible in the news.

Over the last four years, the biggest story subject involving China has focused on problems with imported products, including tainted pet food and lead paint in children’s toys. According to PEJ’s News Coverage Index, almost a quarter (21%) of the coverage has focused these issues. The second biggest subject (14%) was the May 2008 earthquake that rocked the Chinese province of Sichuan — killing as many as 70,000 and injuring nearly 400,000. Relations with Tibet (6%) are also prominent. The subject of trade and business ranks third (12%) among all the coverage involving China since January 1997, when PEJ began its content analysis.

In any given week, economic policy is even less prominent.

The biggest one week China story was the Sichuan earthquake, which accounted for 13% of the newshole the week of May 12-18, 2008. The following week (May 19-25), attention remained relatively high at 5%, making it the third-biggest China story in any week since January 2007.

Two of the other top five weekly stories focused on violence and political unrest in China.

In May 2008, Tibetans opposed to Chinese rule of their region staged demonstrations. But the rallies quickly turned hostile as the Chinese government violently cracked down on demonstrators. The incident accounted for 5% of the news coverage studied the week of March 17-23, 2008 making it the fourth-most covered China story.

The July 2009 ethnic clashes in western China, between the Han Chinese majority and the Muslim Uighur minority, is the No. 5 China story. Attention to the violence-which killed more than 180 people — accounted for at 4% of the newshole the week of July 6-12, 2009.

Only one story that involved relations between U.S. and China was among the top weekly stories of the last four years, and it wasn’t about diplomacy or public policy. It came as the 2008 Beijing Olympics neared. Protestors in Paris and San Francisco made their opposition to the rule of Tibet and human rights violations known as the Olympic torch traveled through those cities the week of April 7-13, 2008. That week, attention to the protests filled 7% of the media newshole, which made it the second-biggest story in any week.

Design your own China media coverage chart at journalism.org.

In late April, news of the rapidly spreading “swine flu” swept across the American media as few sudden stories do. As the outbreak jumped from a mysterious respiratory disease in Mexico to the threat of the first global flu pandemic in four decades, the press leapt in. During the week of April 27 – May 3, the flu story, the most covered news event of the week, accounted for almost a third of mainstream media coverage, according to the News Coverage Index of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. That marked only the second time that a health-related story had become the No. 1 story in the American media since the Project began its weekly News Index in January 2007. From tracking the spread of the virus, to analyzing government response, to asking if the story had become sensationalized by the media, the U.S. press examined seemingly every angle of the story.

How did coverage in the U.S. compare with media coverage in other countries, both in the level  and the way it was framed? How did the number of cases reported or the geographic proximity to the epicenter of the outbreak impact coverage? And, did the Spanish-language press in the U.S. treat the outbreak differently than its English-language counterparts?

Among the answers, according to a new study the Project conducted of media in different countries, is that the swine flu story got less coverage in U.S. newspapers than in some other nations’ press, at least in relation to the number of people ill in those countries. The newspaper coverage here also was broader in nature and somewhat less alarmist.

For this analysis, PEJ studied 12 days of front-page newspaper coverage in seven countries around the world (including the U.S.) and the top three Spanish-language papers in the U.S. PEJ examined the period from April 27 through May 10, when coverage in the United States was at its peak.

Overall, the project found news consumers around the world received varying portrayals of the outbreak, its severity, how it was affecting daily living and even the name of the flu itself. The coverage from these 12 papers revealed noticeable differences in attention, prominence and how the papers chose to frame stories.

The study found:

• The three major U.S. papers studied offered some of the broadest coverage of the outbreak of any country studied, and all stories were staff-generated, as opposed to wire copy. Despite complaints in some quarters of excessive media hype, the level of coverage was relatively moderate when matched up against the number of confirmed U.S. cases.
• The number of cases of swine flu in a given country had little to do with the volume of coverage around the world. China, for example, had the fewest confirmed cases of any of the countries studied (1), but the People’s Daily, a Chinese newspaper, offered about as much front-page coverage as the average paper in the U.S., which had more than 2000 cases.
• In Mexico, extensive coverage by El Universal (20 front-page stories over the 12 days) cut across a broad range of issues, from the impact on businesses to the history of the virus. But the Mexican paper largely skipped any close assessment of its own government’s response.
• The French paper Le Figaro was more restrained but also controversial in its coverage. The paper ran just two stories on the front pages, but sparked an outcry by terming the outbreak “the Mexican flu.”
• In the Spanish-language papers in the U.S., one of the most striking findings was a heavy reliance by two of the three — El Diario and El Nuevo Herald — on U.S. wire service copy to fill their pages.

Continue reading the full report at journalism.org.

Erica Feldherr and Danielle Kurtzleben coded the Spanish Language papers. Sovini Tan coded the papers from France, New Zealand and Canada. Hong Ji coded the Chinese Paper.

The celebratory tone that characterized international media coverage of Barack Obama’s historic election victory was again pervasive in many of the stories about his inauguration as the 44th American president. “History was being made up there on the hill,” raved Britain’s Daily Mail, “and the atmosphere was so electrifying that it took your breath away.” “The United States has got its groove back,” according to Germany’s Der Spiegel.

However, many newspapers noted the more somber tone of Obama’s speech, and were themselves relatively somber about the enormous challenges and inflated expectations facing the new president. “Like his new Administration,” wrote the Times of London, “his inaugural address faced soaring expectations. It did not quite soar to meet them.” The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called the speech “sober,” and suggested it was “certainly aimed at dampening the messianic hopes that have been raised by his inauguration.”¹

An editorial in El País, one of Spain’s largest newspapers, cautioned that Obama’s agenda is at the mercy of many “imponderables,” as well as the will of Congress; and it warned that Obama will have to devote the bulk of his energy to grappling with the crises facing the United States before dealing with “just causes” around the world.

Beyond warnings about tempering hope with realism, however, international newspapers were focused on regional concerns. As the Obama presidency becomes a reality, newspapers around the world are wondering how the new president will deal with the issues that their readers care about.

Gaza a Prism for Middle East Media

In the Middle East, hopes and fears about the new administration are shaped by the conflict in Gaza, where a tenuous cease fire remains in place. The Israeli daily Ha’aretz sees Obama’s emphasis on diplomacy as a model for an Israel “drunk on power” in the aftermath of the Gaza campaign, arguing that as they prepare for their own national elections in a few weeks, Israelis “should internalize Obama’s calls for restraint as an attribute of security, as well as his approach that favors dialogue and seeking paths toward understanding with yesterday’s enemies.”

Others in Israel, however, worry about the new president’s Middle East policy. The Jerusalem Post said that many “are apprehensive over whether he will be not just supportive, but emphatic toward Israel — like George W. Bush.” Still, the paper noted that “Israel had plenty of ups and downs with Bush, too,” and advises Israelis not to “panic at the first sign of turbulence in Jerusalem-Washington relations.” Obama, the editorial continued, “will support the Jewish state in its quest for defensible borders and genuine acceptance by its neighbors.”

The Gaza story has dominated Arab media for weeks, and some Arab commentators have suggested that Obama’s silence on the issue may indicate he plans few changes to American policy in the region. The Middle East Times complained “Obama may have seriously undermined the bold new initiatives he plans for the Middle East,” by entrusting his foreign policy “to an exceptionally old-fashioned national security team.”

Others are more hopeful that Obama will reverse what they perceive as longstanding American bias in the region. “What the new U.S. president has to do to correct past failures and bring about peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors,” wrote the Jordan Times, “is to signal, as early as possible, his determination to be even handed and bold in pursuing a policy of proactive engagement in the Palestinian problem.”

The English-language Arab News is relatively positive, arguing that Obama “starts his presidency with one towering advantage that no previous president who has involved himself with the Middle East ever enjoyed. He starts with a clean slate and has the good will of everyone involved.” Moreover, the paper noted the limits of Obama’s power and suggested that the rest of the world cannot expect “the Oval Office to come up with all the solutions.”

Europeans Still Hopeful

Since the early days of the presidential race, Obama has been very popular in Europe. A Pew Global Attitudes Project survey conducted last spring² found that Obama’s popularity was widespread, and his approval ratings were consistently higher than those of his Republican rival, John McCain. The European press has also mostly embraced Obama — “GOBAMA!” proclaimed Britain’s Daily Mail the day after the election.

This positive tone has also characterized more recent European coverage of the new president. In particular, the European press is hopeful that Obama will wield American power very differently from his predecessor. Last week, in France’ Le Figaro, Pierre Rousselin lauded Obama’s selection of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, highlighting her emphasis on “two simple and percussive words ‘smart power.” “In entrusting Clinton with the Department of State,” writes Rousselin, “Obama is marking a genuine break with the outgoing administration. Diplomacy will no longer be one tool among many. It will be, on the contrary, at the heart of action of the new presidency.”³

Le Monde also aimed a final shot at the outgoing president, suggesting that an Obama presidency will be “a thousand miles from the narrow patriotism and ignorance of the team before.” But Germany’s center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung said America’s problems ran deeper than just the Bush administration, arguing that “America’s weaknesses were not only George W. Bush’s and his clique, but rather the intellectual position that spread throughout the country: an imperialist megalomania, a power trip, that didn’t leave room for friends.” This “power trip” harmed America’s image, but Obama’s victory signaled a sea change, and “people across the world are looking benevolently at America, at this positive and dynamic society that allows so much freedom.”⁴

However, even the European press sees potential problems ahead. For instance, while Obama has called for more troops and more NATO burden sharing in Afghanistan, Der Spiegel noted that German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her country will “remain steadfast in its refusal to deploy its troops in Afghanistan in the more dangerous south.” And while Obama’s decision to suspend tribunals in Guantanamo will no doubt generate favorable reactions across Europe, he may not find widespread European cooperation on the sticky issue of resettling the prison’s detainees. “Germany’s hard-nosed interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has insisted that the prisoners are America’s problem,” according to Der Spiegel.

Bi-lateral Concerns

Much of the international coverage highlighted bi-lateral relations between the United States and other countries. In an opinion piece in the China Daily, Yuan Peng, a Chinese analyst, warned that the two countries “face an urgent challenge of finding out how to defuse the potential crises in bilateral relations and put them onto a track of normal and smooth development.” Peng wrote that Obama will expect China to play a constructive role in international crises — such as the war against terror and “how to handle the issues on the Korean peninsula and in Iran.” The piece called for greater joint efforts to prevent problems that could “hijack” bilateral ties, but still warned — referring to trouble spots such as Tibet and Taiwan — that the U.S. “should avoid intervention in China’s internal affairs.” International economic woes will require that leaders of both nations focus on domestic issues, a fact that the writer said “will unavoidably hinder elasticity and flexibility in their foreign policies.”

In The Moscow Times, Fyodor Lukyanov wrote of the importance of improving relations between the U.S. and Russia, noting that “bilateral relations could hardly get any worse.” He noted that “there is an extremely high level of mistrust between the two countries,” and warned that friction is likely to continue over the status of the former Soviet republics. Still, Lukyanov said Obama will likely need Russia’s help in dealing with Iran and Pakistan.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper in Japan wrote after the inauguration about the difficulties that Prime Minister Taro Aso will face in forging close ties with the new president. “Hammered by the economic downturn and plummeting support rates at home, Aso’s hands appear tied on the diplomatic front.” The newspaper said Japan is not in an economic position to provide much help for the global economic crisis, adding that the prime minister also has little leeway to boost spending to help stabilize Afghanistan, an Obama priority in the fight against terror. Japanese officials, the newspaper said, are eager for the leaders to meet this spring.

In Korea, the Joong Ang Daily congratulated Obama but noted the great problems — both domestic and foreign — that his administration will confront. And it highlighted the top priorities for South Korea. “For Koreans, the North Korea nuclear issue and the pending Korea-U.S. free trade agreement are of the utmost interest,” the article said. “The U.S. should try to balance resolving the North’s nuclear issue through close cooperation with South Korea while at the same time adopting a tough diplomatic stance.”

The newspaper acknowledged Obama faces tough choices on Korea policy, including whether to push forward with a pending trade deal that faced some strong opposition in Congress even before the economic crisis worsened. “The Obama administration needs to decide whether delaying approval of the bilateral trade deal with Korea and pursuing protectionism will serve U.S. national interests and the spirit of the Korea-U.S. alliance,” the editorial said.

U.S. neighbors also see the start of the new administration through the prism of long-standing concerns. In The Toronto Star, James Travers wrote in his column about the common economic concerns of both countries and the need for Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, to make the case to Obama that North America is most competitive “when it is most cohesive.”

“Obama’s decision to make Ottawa his first foreign destination is the opening Harper needs to present this country as an essential business partner as well as a trusted friend,” Travers wrote. “[E]xpect the prime minister to make the case that the two countries have evolved beyond trading with each other to manufacturing together.”

An editorial in El Universal, the Mexico City newspaper, also spoke optimistically about the change in administrations in Washington, but warned that Mexico and the U.S. still face difficult issues in dealing with immigration, free trade and security. Obama’s speech offered reason to celebrate, the newspaper said, but only time will tell whether the changes are as big as promised.

Meanwhile, Kenya’s the Daily Nation newspaper highlighted Obama’s paternal roots in that country and called for a change in tone in U.S foreign policy. “President Obama must move decisively to restore faith, trust and respect as a cornerstone of U.S foreign policy,’’ the paper wrote. “If the U.S. treats the rest of the world as friends and partners, it might find that the hate it attracts will dissipate, and so will some of the attitudes that make the country a prime target for international terrorism.”

In the End, it’s the Economy

Despite much upbeat coverage of inauguration day and the start of Obama’s presidency, many writers highlighted the great obstacles Obama will face. For example, Les Carlyon, an Australian journalist and historian, wrote in the Daily Telegraph in Sydney, that though Obama is seen as the beacon of hope and healing, he has inherited the worst financial mess in generations.

“Is he capable of cleaning it up? We really have no idea. If he isn’t, the poise and fine words won’t matter too much,” Carlyon wrote. “[F]rom today — and for the next four years — deeds will matter more than words.”

1. Translation from the original German by SpiegelOnline.
2. “Obamamania Abroad: The Candidate Can Expect a Warm Welcome in Europe, Not So in the Middle East,” Pew Global Attitudes Project, July 16, 2008.
3. Translation from the original French by WorldMeets.US.
4. Translation from the original German by SpiegelOnline.

The morning after George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election, Britain’s Daily Mirror famously asked: “How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?” The morning after Barack Obama’s election, a far more upbeat Daily Mirror gushed “GOBAMA!” on its front page.

Other British papers from across the political spectrum shared the triumphant mood after Barack Obama’s decisive win. “Today is for celebration, for happiness and for reflected human glory,” proclaimed the left-of-center Guardian. Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun echoed the moon landing with a “One Giant Leap For Mankind” headline beneath a photo of a determined Barack Obama jogging toward the camera.

The enthusiasm was hardly limited to Britain — across much of the world, newspapers welcomed Obama’s victory. To many, the election showcased what they like about the United States — the vitality of its democracy and the notion of America as a land of opportunity. And just as importantly, President-elect Obama represents a significant change from an administration widely disliked around the globe.

Still, buried in the positive international press coverage of the election were some caveats, concerns, and notes of discord. “He’s Just A President. Not the Messiah,” read an opinion piece headline in Italy’s Il Giornale¹. While Obama now enjoys considerable goodwill in many nations, journalists, policymakers, and others are starting to focus on pressing concerns — the world economic crisis, the Middle East conflict, ongoing and unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to name just a few — and their nations will look to President Obama with high expectations.

Two Americas Abroad

Surely, some of the international excitement surrounding Obama’s victory reflects a sense of relief that the Bush era is ending. Surveys have consistently found that President Bush receives negative ratings in most countries. In a 24-nation Spring 2008 poll by the Pew Research Center’s Pew Global Attitude Project, majorities in only three nations — Tanzania, India, and Nigeria — said they had confidence in Bush to do the right thing in world affairs. More than eight in ten in Britain, France, Germany, and Spain said they lacked confidence in the U.S. president.

And just as in the United States, John McCain’s Republican label and association with Bush hurt his image abroad. Noting his “track record of legislative and military service,” the Arab News nonetheless dismissed McCain as someone who “still belonged to a party that gave birth to someone like Bush.”

In the Pew Global Attitudes Project poll, Obama consistently received more positive reviews than either Bush or McCain. In nearly all of the countries surveyed, there was more confidence in Obama than in McCain, and in many countries the gap between the Democratic and Republican nominees was striking. While 84% of the French who were following the race voiced confidence in Obama, only one-in-three said the same about McCain. Similar gaps were found throughout Europe and in a diverse group of countries.

To some international commentators, Obama and Bush represented two very different ideas of America. “There are two contrasting images of America abroad,” wrote The Times of India. “One is that of a bullying superpower that undertakes bellicose military adventures abroad, epitomized by Iraq. The other is that of a land of hope and opportunity, an open society that welcomes migrants and where merit and talent matter for much more than ethnic background or kinship ties.”

“The Bush Administration,” the editorial continues, “seemed to stand for the former America,” while Obama represented the “more benign image” of the “classic melting-pot story.”

France’s Le Monde characterized Obama as a new type of American leader well-suited to a shifting geopolitical environment. “Through his personality, Barack Hussein Obama will be in harmony with a world where the economic and political center is no longer the West.”² Under the headline “Messiah Obama,” the German tabloid Bild wrote: “Everyone has now fallen freshly in love with the new America, the other America, the good America, Obamerica, even.”³

Our surveys have found publics across the globe simultaneously expressing fears about the way the U.S. acts on the world stage and admiration for the achievements of American society. Internationally, there is a widespread perception that the U.S. acts unilaterally in world affairs, and many key features of the Bush Administration’s foreign policies are unpopular, including the U.S.-led war on terrorism and the military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, around the world, many admire American scientific and technological achievements, embrace American popular culture, and respect American ways of doing business. And the U.S. receives relatively high marks in our 2008 poll for the way it treats its own people.

Much of the foreign press coverage suggests that journalists believe their countries could learn important lessons from the American election. Many writers questioned whether a minority candidate could have similar success in their countries. For instance, The Australian asked: “Which other big, rich, predominantly white society has elected a member of a racial minority to be its head of government? Not Australia.”

“We also need to change our preconceptions about American prejudice,” wrote France’s Liberation. “For the first time, an African-American and a woman were candidates for the highest office in the land. It seems like America could teach us a thing or two about democracy.”⁴

Other observers point not only to Obama’s win, but to McCain’s gracious concession speech and the peaceful transfer of power. South Africa’s Business Day sees “lessons for SA (South Africa) in Obama’s victory, not least in the grace with which Republican candidate John McCain conceded defeat and wished Obama well. Would SA’s ruling party hand over power with as little fuss with only a few percentage points separating the contenders after such a grueling campaign?”

Notes of Caution

While people in many lands celebrated the results of the election and the media provided much laudatory coverage, some also offered words of caution.

In a piece entitled “He’s Just a President. Not the Messiah,” Michele Brambilla wrote in the Italian newspaper, Il Giornale, that people should be careful not to expect too much from politicians, even ones who have broken through great barriers and show great promise.

Brambilla too was caught up in the emotion of Obama’s historic victory, but the realities of governing require decisions that will anger many — at home and abroad. “What will the enthusiasts say after Obama pragmatically makes his first prosaic decision?” Brambilla asks in a translated version of the article. “Let us remember, politics means first of all, pragmatism.”⁵

In Germany, Der Spiegel writes on its English-language website that Germans and their elected leaders were rooting for Obama. “Now Germany has the U.S. president it wanted,” the writers say. “Germany will soon notice, however, that Obama has his own agenda. As the President of the United States of America, he primarily represents the interests of his country, which will not always match Germany’s priorities.”

One example could be Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan. The left-leaning German daily, Die Tageszeitung says, “For months, it’s been publicly debated how we would react, if a President Obama, God protect him, should request a stronger German troop commitment in Afghanistan. The result: no one knows, and we hope he doesn’t ask.”

Indeed, our 2008 survey highlighted the extent to which the German public is out of step with Obama’s call for more troops on the ground in Afghanistan — 54% of Germans said they wanted to remove U.S. and NATO forces as soon as possible, while 43% said troops should stay until the situation stabilized.

The worldwide economic crisis could prove another source of tension as Obama attempts to address the problems at home. The 2008 global survey found that across the world’s regions, most people see a connection between the American economy and their country’s economic situation. And in many cases — including in Britain, Germany, France, Japan and Australia — the impact is seen as negative.

In an editorial, the Japan Times praises Obama and his campaign — the newspaper called Obama’s win a reminder that all things are possible in the U.S. — but then it offers words of caution. “[T]he greatest challenge Mr. Obama now faces is reconciling the expectations of his supporters with the constraints he will inherit.”

Der Spiegel also argues that more forceful leadership will be needed from European governments to complement Obama’s approach to foreign affairs. With Bush “there were eight years of stubborn gridlock and nasty surprises. He did what he thought was right, often without consideration for the Germans or the French. It is said that Obama is a man who knows how to listen. But that is only an advantage when the others have something to say.”

Obama Seen Through Local Prism

Across the globe, the media also examined the impact of Obama’s victory on regional concerns, such as the long-standing conflicts in the Middle East. Not surprisingly, the various sides bring different perspectives and suggest conflicting strategies to the president-elect.

In an editorial entitled “Obama’s Agenda”, the Jerusalem Post says the key to any peace initiative involving Israel and its neighbors will be steps to contain Iran. The newspaper says that the inclination could be to fast-track Israel-Syria peace negotiations. “But we think Obama can be smarter than his predecessors by homing in on this harsh Middle East peacemaking reality. As long as the Islamic Republica of Iran remains on the ascendant, there will be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians, no way to bolster Palestinian moderates by chipping away at rejectionists, no treaty with Syria and no prospect of saving Lebanon,” the paper’s editorial page says.

But the Khaleej Times in Dubai says Obama must tackle the Palestinian issue if he hopes to make progress in the Middle East. In an editorial entitled, “Things to do for President Obama,” the newspaper says that during the campaign “Obama went to great lengths to express his support for Israel, often angering Palestinians and Arabs. We believe those were the electoral compulsions of candidate Obama. Now that he has received a resounding mandate, we should hope he would be more reasonable and just in his dealings with the Palestinians and Israelis.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, quotes a Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, saying he expects no quick changes in U.S. policy. Citing “what he believes to be undue Israeli influence on U.S. policy, he said he doesn’t expect Obama to talk to Hamas, at least at the start of his presidency.”

Meanwhile, economic and political powers also are taking the measure of the incoming president. On its website, the China Daily asks whether Obama’s election would bring major change in the relationship between the two superpowers. The article cites Obama’s criticism of China’s currency practices and his pledge to step up the fight against unfair trade practices.

But analysts — both Chinese and American — tell the paper that the new administration will need to work with China to help get the economy on a better track:.”Analysts say Obama owes a large part of his victory to the perception that he has a better grip on the economic crisis, but he has yet to prove this in reality. And how the U.S. cooperates with other nations, especially less-affected economies such as China, will prove important to him to turn these perceptions into reality.”

Notes

¹ Translated from the original Italian. Translation by WatchingAmerica.com.

² Translated from the original French. Translation by Deutsche Welle.

³ Translated from the original German. Translation by SpeigelOnline.

⁴ Translated from the original French. Translation by Deutsche Welle.

⁵ Translated from the original Italian. Translation by WatchingAmerica.com.

Sunday morning August 10, the Washington Post offered readers a front page story about U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps’ gold medal victory in the 400-meter individual medley, the first of eight he would earn at the Beijing Summer Olympics.

“There might have been a more spectacular and thoroughly dominant manner in which Michael Phelps could have begun his Olympics on Sunday morning,” the piece began, “but that seems unlikely.”

The following morning, on NBC’s Today show from Beijing, Ann Curry reported on Phelps’ second medal victory with a fixation on numerology. “In a country where eight is a lucky number, Michael Phelps’ improbable quest for a record eight gold medals hinged on teammate Jason Lezak’s anchor leg swim…By eight lucky and dramatic hundredths of a second, Lezak out-touched the trash-talking French, shattering the world record, and delivering Phelps his second gold of the games.”

The mania only grew from there. And by the time the week was out, Michael Phelps would dwarf all other American athletes multiple times in media attention.

How has the U.S. press covered the Olympics Games? To what extent did the news media take the opportunity to cover the country of China while they were there? And how has U.S. coverage differed from that in other countries?

To get answers, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism conducted a special analysis of coverage of the Olympics and China generally in the week leading up to the games and during the first week of competition.

The study finds that the coverage has been heavily tilted toward just three areas of competition –swimming, gymnastics and track and field. No other sport has attracted much news coverage at all. The games were also dominated by a single athlete, Michael Phelps, with virtually no one else really emerging as a major figure, including the star female gymnasts.

In general, in the final days leading up to the Olympics and the first week of the competition, the press focused primarily on the games rather than life in China or its political matters there.

And NBC News, which is in somewhat of a more complicated situation journalistically because of the financial stake its corporate parent has in Olympic ratings, has devoted three times as much of its newshole to the games as has its journalistic competitors.

These are some of the findings of the study, which is based on an analysis of more than 390 news stories about China or the Olympic Games that appeared from August 3 through August 17, 2008 — the week leading up to the games and the first week of the games themselves. The majority of data is drawn from 48 different news outlets that make up PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index, including outlets from newspapers, online, network TV, cable TV, and radio. The study also looked at the Web sites of popular papers in three foreign countries: Russia, China, and Great Britain (Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Komsomolskaya Pravda from Russia, The People’s Daily and Yangtse Evening Post from China and The Sun and Daily Telegraph, from England).

The study examined news coverage of the games, not the live coverage of the Olympic events themselves carried on NBC and its various TV channels.

Among the findings:

• Overall, the Olympic Games in Beijing as a news story ranked No. 2 during the two weeks studied, well behind the race for president but roughly equal to the military conflict between Russia and Georgia. In all, 14% of the newshole studied by PEJ was about China and the games, compared with 13% for the war in Georgia, and 23% for the election. But that did represent a drop of more than 20% from the amount of election coverage seen in the six weeks prior to the games.
• NBC, the network that has the exclusive rights to air the games, devoted roughly triple the amount of coverage to the Olympics as did other news outlets in the United States PEJ examined. Its two main news programs on NBC, the Today Show in the morning and the NBC Nightly News together have devoted nearly half their newshole (48%) to the games or to stories about China. The news talk shows on the network’s cable channel, MSNBC, in contrast, stuck to their usual diet — politics.
• News coverage of the games at the halfway point was heavily tilted toward just three types of competition. Swimming and diving filled 38% of the news coverage — and that was four times the next nearest sport. And other than gymnastics and track and field, (which were tied but far behind), no other sport received even 1%.
• During the first week of the games, only one athlete emerged as a major news figure, and he has thoroughly dominated the coverage. Michael Phelps was the focus of more than one out of every four stories studied. That, in turn, was nearly seven times the coverage of the next nearest athlete, all-around gymnastic star Nastia Liukin. All of Phelps’ fellow male swimmers combined made up just 3%.
• The week leading up to the games created an opportunity for the U.S. media to focus on China as a country. During that time, the media used that opportunity largely to talk about preparations and Olympics security. Stories about the opening ceremonies and Chinese preparations for the games both made up 18%. China’s political system made up just 2%. The one political issue that did get sizable attention the week prior was human rights (13%), though there was no coverage of the issue once the games began (for a total of 7% of Olympic coverage). This does not include whatever coverage of China American media did in the months preceding.
• Some past Olympic storylines have been largely absent. Only 1% of the coverage, as an example, focused on steroids or doping.