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Weekly Newspapers

Map No. 342

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This map shows the distribution of copies of non-daily newspapers that are sold directly, sold by subscription, and given away for free. Newspapers are regular publications about current affairs, which are intended to be read by the general public.

The regions with the most copies of weekly newspapers in circulation are those with average levels of wealth, education and health: Eastern Europe, Eastern Asia and Southern Asia, Northern Africa and South America. In richer areas the television is more widespread.

Togo and Belarus have more weekly newspapers being printed per person than there are people there to read them. Meaning that a lot of people read more than one weekly paper there, each week.

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum ... That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking ..." Noam Chomsky, undated

Territory size shows the proportion of all copies of weekly (or non-daily) newspapers distributed there.

• Open PDF poster, designed for printing. You need Acrobat Reader.
• View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page