Content Coverage of Wars in Media

 In 2024 most people you ask really only know that there is a war going on between Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Palestine. This is due to the dominance of media coverage going towards these two conflicts. According to the Geneva academy there are over 110 armed conflicts taking place in the world right now, so why is it that there is essentially no national/global media coverage of most these conflicts?

The first reason why there is not much media coverage with these conflicts is that a majority of them are non international. Local armed conflicts between non-state actors do not really come up on the medias radar especially in the United States, unless something absolutely appalling is taking place like the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. An initial thought when examining this is that if the United States and other global powers are not involved in these conflicts then it would make sense that there is no media coverage of the wars. This is not true however because Western powers are intervening in countries like Burkina Faso, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Somalia.

The biggest driver of media coverage is the attention and views that a topic can get. When it comes to the war in Ukraine (a Western country) this is a war gets more coverage because it is geographically closer, the people share social identity's like language and religion, and have some common history. It also involves Russia who at the time of the invasion was considered to be in contention to be a global supper power. Israel being a close ally of the United States well as sharing those same values and similarity makes this an easy topic to get attention, on top of the amount of destruction and loss of life that is taking place in Gaza. 

As the election season is upon us we have both parties in the US arguing and divided about what needs to be done with Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Palestine which is why the media is so focused on these two conflicts while there other 108 armed conflicts in the world seem to go unnoticed by most. Politics dominates the media and what is covered. If something like a civil war in Burkina Faso is not on the radar of the Republican or Democratic agendas then it is highly unlikely for it to get any attention in the media. 

https://geneva-academy.ch/galleries/today-s-armed-conflicts

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/03/04/1084230259/not-every-war-gets-the-same-coverage-as-russias-invasion-and-that-has-consequenc