Three factors—dramatic images, a high death toll and strong personal ties—make it more likely that news media in one country will report on a natural disaster in another, according to research from the University of Bonn, the University of Warwick and Imperial College London. Published in Nature Human Behaviour, the study also found that droughts and floods—two major consequences of climate change—receive surprisingly little international media attention.

The researchers analysed data from the Europe Media Monitor, a European Commission database that tracks stories published by 20,000 news sources across 190 countries. They examined more than 2,600 officially recorded natural disasters since 2016 to determine which events were most likely to attract news coverage beyond the countries directly affected.

Their analysis identified three factors that consistently influenced international coverage. Sudden disasters accompanied by dramatic images, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, avalanches and forest fires, were particularly likely to make international headlines. The number of deaths also mattered: disasters with higher death tolls generally received more coverage abroad.

A third major factor was the strength of personal connections between people in the reporting country and those in the country experiencing the disaster. “Surprisingly, this has nothing to do with geographical proximity or similarity of language,” said Professor Thiemo Fetzer of the University of Bonn and the University of Warwick. Instead, the researchers found that strong social ties were an important predictor of international media attention.

The researchers measured these connections partly through the Social Connectedness Index, which uses Facebook friendships to estimate social links between countries relative to their populations. They also found an association between genetic similarity and media coverage. However, the researchers emphasised that genetic similarity itself is unlikely to cause greater interest; rather, it can reflect historical migration and longstanding personal connections between populations.

Ireland and the United States provide one example. Around 1.5 million Irish people emigrated to America during the Great Famine in the 19th century, creating enduring connections between the two countries. Such historical relationships can help explain why disasters in some geographically distant countries attract more attention than disasters occurring closer to home.

These personal ties may also foster greater empathy. Based on relationships identified in the study, the researchers calculated that German media would respond similarly to a storm in Mexico killing 62 people and one in Bangladesh killing 100, despite Bangladesh being geographically closer to Germany. Fetzer argues that these patterns demonstrate how personal connections can shape perceptions of events happening far away.

The findings may have important implications for public understanding of climate change. Droughts tend to receive coverage mainly within the countries where they occur, while floods also attract less international attention than sudden disasters such as earthquakes or avalanches. Because these climate-related disasters often fail to reach international headlines, their wider consequences may be easier for people elsewhere to overlook. As Fetzer concluded, this lack of attention can make the effects of global heating easier to ignore—at least until they reach people’s own communities.

More information: Thiemo Fetzer et al, Uneven patterns of cross-border media coverage following natural disasters, Nature Human Behaviour. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02512-6

Journal information: Nature Human Behaviour Provided by University of Bonn