Number of News Articles on Various Transportation Issues

Abstract

Even in today's internet era, newspapers are still thought of as indispensable information sources and to strongly influence citizens' awareness and understanding of transportation infrastructure. Accordingly, it would be beneficial for citizens to obtain information on various transportation issues easily through newspapers. However, the issue has been little investigated in Japan. Therefore, this study sought to ascertain the current state of trend news reported, to create a suggested format for newspaper companies to report transportation issues, and to develop recommendations regarding how the government uses the medium of newspapers to disseminate transportation news. News articles related to transportation in a national newspaper, a regional newspaper, and an American newspaper were extracted and compared with regard to the number of articles published on transportation issues. As a result, few such articles were found. Thus, potential measures for newspaper companies and the government to increase dissemination through newspaper articles are discussed.