vanishing point

Vanishing Point consists of a map of the world connected to a database fed by news coming from several international newspapers. The visibility of each country on the map results from the quantity of media coverage the country receives, so those countries that do not make the news disappear progressively.

The newspapers selected are some of the most widely-read from countries that make up the Group of Seven (G7), the seven most industrialized nations in the world:

-CANADA:	-Globe and Mail
-FRANCE:	-Le Figrao -Le Monde
-GERMANY:	-Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
-ITALY:	-La Republica
-JAPAN:	-The Japan Times -Yomiuri
-UNITED KINGDOM:	-The Times -Guardian Unlimited
-UNITED STATES:	-Wall Street Journal -New York Times

The G7 countries represent the 'focus group' of this project since by great measure, their unilateral and collective influence affect fundamental aspects of most countries' social and economic fates.
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Observations:

All the G7 countries are in the northern hemisphere and therefore one would assume that the majority of the news coverage would be in relation to the northern hemisphere. This is reflcted in the map projected. All the seven particiating countries have the greatest visibility. It would be interesting to see a similar study with a southern hemisphere bias.

Australia, despite the best efforts of our current government, remains invisible.

Samples of recent australian news coverage included in the exercise can be viewed by clicking on the map. One can see that Australia's foriegn policy, culture and internal politics don't rate a mention.

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