If the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 fails to result in much tougher sanctions against Russia, there's a potentially unpleasant explanation: The most powerful Western countries didn't have enough of their own citizens on board.
Time and again, research has shown that people are more interested in the travails of those they consider to be their own kind. Back in 1986, William Adams of George Washington University showed that on U.S. television networks, an earthquake in Italy received 7.6 minutes of airtime per 1,000 deaths, while an earthquake in Indonesia got only 0.04 minutes. In the Ukrainian conflict, Western media have paid much more attention to the victims of the plane crash than to the combatants and civilians who die every day on the ground.
The passenger manifest lists 193 nationals of the Netherlands, 28 Malaysians (not counting the 15 crew, who all came from Malaysia), 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, 10 U.K. nationals, four Belgians, four Germans, three Filipinos, and one person each from Canada and New Zealand.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.