Risk Perception and News Coverage Across Nations

The New York Times and other U.S. mass media are influential but not all powerful in setting the world’s environmental risk agenda, having most impact on journalists of other English-speaking nations. Attitude data from 16 nations around the world, combined with media data from Lexis-Nexis, show that as news coverage of the environment increases (or decreases), the public becomes more (or less) alarmed about environmental hazards.