Covering COVID-19 in the United States: Factors Influencing the News Coverage of the Global Health Crisis During Different Pandemic Situations

By analyzing 123,386 international COVID-19 news stories from nine news outlets, this study explores factors influencing U.S. news coverage of global COVID-19 issues in 2020. Various determinants of pandemic conditions, political, socioeconomic, cultural characteristics, and transnational relationships between foreign countries and the United States were considered. The research also examines how the impact of these factors differ depending on the U.S.’s COVID-19 conditions. Overall findings indicate that U.S. global COVID-19 coverage was affected by foreign country’s COVID-19 caseloads, as well as trade and diplomatic relationships. When looking at different U.S. pandemic conditions, however, different patterns were detected.