GDELT global news attention & tone (weekly)
Weekly country-level intelligence from the GDELT 2.1 global event database: every country generating >= 5 root events over the trailing 7 complete days, scored for news attention and instability. Deterministic pipeline: keyless GDELT 2.1 fifteen-minute update files (https://data.gdeltproject.org/gdeltv2/, terms allow unlimited academic/commercial/governmental use with citation + link); root-event dedupe (IsRootEvent=1 + GLOBALEVENTID dedupe); FIPS 10-4 country codes resolved to ISO alpha-3 via an embedded crosswalk (unknown codes dropped loudly) with canonical names from hub.normalize; per-country aggregation of event volume, article coverage, mean tone (AvgTone -100..100), Goldstein scale (-10..+10), conflict/cooperation shares from QuadClass, and the dominant CAMEO root event category. attention_score = 100 * min-max(log1p(event_count)) ranked as attention_rank (score desc, event_count desc, country_code asc). instability_score = 100 * (0.50 * conflict_share + 0.30 * negative_tone_share + 0.20 * clip(-mean_goldstein/10, 0, 1)). Week-granular as-of stamping (fetched_at = window-end midnight UTC): a second ingest of the same window is a true no-op. Primary key: (week, country_code). Nullability: no nulls are emitted. Caveats: GDELT coverage expands over time and varies by language, so absolute volume is media attention as much as event count; tone is a dictionary measure of sentiment, not sentiment itself; the >= 5 event gate drops quiet countries. Only event metadata and aggregates are stored — no article bodies, no per-row source URLs. GDELT terms require citation of the GDELT Project and a link to https://www.gdeltproject.org/. Sample use: order by attention_rank for the week's most-covered countries, or filter instability_score >= 50 for elevated-conflict coverage.
- Rows
- 220
- Columns
- 20
- Source cadence
- Weekly
- Last refreshed
- Sep 25, 2026
- Theme
- news
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| week | string | ISO week of the window end, YYYY-Www; primary key together with country_code. (unit: week) |
| as_of | string | Window-end date (last complete UTC day), YYYY-MM-DD. (unit: date) |
| fetched_at | string | Day-granular fetch stamp: window-end midnight UTC. Any run rebuilding the same window produces the identical stamp, so re-ingests are true no-ops. (unit: timestamp) |
| country_code | string | ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code; primary key together with week. Resolved from GDELT FIPS 10-4 codes with documented divergences (UK->GBR, GM->DEU) and Kosovo as XKS. (unit: iso-alpha-3) |
| country_name | string | Canonical English country name from the hub.normalize country table. (unit: name) |
| event_count | integer | Number of GDELT root events (IsRootEvent=1, GLOBALEVENTID-deduped) attributed to the country over the 7-day window. (unit: events) |
| event_share_pct | float | Share of all window root events attributed to the country, 0-100. (unit: percent) |
| total_articles | integer | Sum of GDELT NumArticles across the country's events — a coverage-breadth amplifier: high values mean many outlets carried the events. (unit: articles) |
| mean_articles_per_event | float | Mean NumArticles per root event. (unit: articles/event) |
| mean_tone | float | Mean GDELT AvgTone (-100 very negative to +100 very positive) across the country's events. AvgTone is a dictionary measure of sentiment, not sentiment itself. (unit: -100..100) |
| pct_negative_tone | float | Share of the country's events with AvgTone < 0, 0-100. (unit: percent) |
| mean_goldstein | float | Mean GDELT GoldsteinScale (-10 conflict to +10 cooperation) across the country's events. (unit: -10..10) |
| pct_conflict_events | float | Share of the country's events with QuadClass 3 (verbal conflict) or 4 (material conflict), 0-100. Events with an invalid QuadClass are excluded from numerator and denominator. (unit: percent) |
| pct_cooperation_events | float | Share of the country's events with QuadClass 1 (verbal cooperation) or 2 (material cooperation), 0-100. Invalid QuadClass rows are excluded from numerator and denominator. (unit: percent) |
| top_event_root | string | Most frequent CAMEO root event code for the country (mode; ties broken by first occurrence), e.g. '05'. (unit: CAMEO root code) |
| top_event_root_label | string | Human label for top_event_root from the GDELT 2.1 codebook. (unit: label) |
| top_event_root_share_pct | float | Share of the country's events carrying the top root code, 0-100. (unit: percent) |
| attention_score | float | 0-100 news-attention composite: min-max normalization of log1p(event_count) across the week's countries. Higher = more covered. (unit: score 0-100) |
| instability_score | float | 0-100 instability composite: 100 * (0.50 * conflict share + 0.30 * negative-tone share + 0.20 * clip(-mean_goldstein/10, 0, 1)). Higher = more conflictual coverage. (unit: score 0-100) |
| attention_rank | integer | Rank by attention_score descending (1 = most news attention); ties broken by event_count desc, then country_code asc. (unit: rank) |
First 10 sample rows — a preview, not the complete dataset.
| week | as_of | fetched_at | country_code | country_name | event_count | event_share_pct | total_articles | mean_articles_per_event | mean_tone | pct_negative_tone | mean_goldstein | pct_conflict_events | pct_cooperation_events | top_event_root | top_event_root_label | top_event_root_share_pct | attention_score | instability_score | attention_rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-W39 | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24T00:00:00+0000 | USA | United States | 123,710 | 32.97 | 561,892 | 4.5 | -1.85 | 62.86 | 0.55 | 26.45 | 73.55 | 04 | Consult | 26.3 | 100 | 32.08 | 1 |
| 2026-W39 | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24T00:00:00+0000 | IND | India | 23,970 | 6.39 | 122,986 | 5.1 | -1.43 | 58.95 | 0.55 | 27.72 | 72.28 | 04 | Consult | 27.06 | 83.48 | 31.54 | 2 |
| 2026-W39 | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24T00:00:00+0000 | GBR | United Kingdom | 21,425 | 5.71 | 114,431 | 5.3 | -0.76 | 53.68 | 0.82 | 23.8 | 76.2 | 04 | Consult | 29.4 | 82.35 | 28 | 3 |
| 2026-W39 | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24T00:00:00+0000 | NGA | Nigeria | 14,315 | 3.82 | 60,672 | 4.2 | -1.06 | 55.52 | 0.51 | 25.07 | 74.93 | 04 | Consult | 22.39 | 78.29 | 29.19 | 4 |
| 2026-W39 | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24T00:00:00+0000 | CHN | China | 12,329 | 3.29 | 56,707 | 4.6 | 0.04 | 49.4 | 1.58 | 16.98 | 83.02 | 04 | Consult | 37.08 | 76.79 | 23.31 | 5 |
| 2026-W39 | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24T00:00:00+0000 | CAN | Canada | 11,157 | 2.97 | 58,771 | 5.3 | -0.44 | 51.86 | 1.19 | 19.4 | 80.6 | 04 | Consult | 30.4 | 75.78 | 25.26 | 6 |
| 2026-W39 | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24T00:00:00+0000 | ISR | Israel | 10,382 | 2.77 | 41,665 | 4 | -3.93 | 84.98 | -1.1 | 41.28 | 58.72 | 04 | Consult | 20.7 | 75.06 | 48.33 | 7 |
| 2026-W39 | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24T00:00:00+0000 | IRN | Iran | 9,299 | 2.48 | 38,111 | 4.1 | -3.24 | 85.71 | 0.38 | 28.84 | 71.16 | 04 | Consult | 31.43 | 73.95 | 40.13 | 8 |
| 2026-W39 | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24T00:00:00+0000 | AUS | Australia | 8,445 | 2.25 | 50,882 | 6 | -1.4 | 60.38 | 0.76 | 23.53 | 76.47 | 04 | Consult | 25.49 | 72.98 | 29.88 | 9 |
| 2026-W39 | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24T00:00:00+0000 | RUS | Russia | 7,657 | 2.04 | 32,478 | 4.2 | -3.16 | 81.45 | -0.29 | 35.03 | 64.97 | 04 | Consult | 23.52 | 71.99 | 42.53 | 10 |
- Current
20260925T134401Z-8fedd8ddac39 · sha256 8fedd8ddac39…
220 rows · +3 rows vs previous
20260925T130117Z-bef61f76d4b6 · sha256 bef61f76d4b6…
217 rows · first snapshot
Point any LLM at the metadata endpoint — the documentation above is machine-readable too (JSON-LD + Croissant).
curl "https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/gdelt_news_signals/gdelt_country_attention_weekly" | jq '{title, rows, columns_count, license}'import requests
ds = requests.get("https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/gdelt_news_signals/gdelt_country_attention_weekly").json()
print(ds["title"], ds["rows"], "rows")
# Sample rows for an LLM context window
for row in ds.get("sample_rows", [])[:5]:
print(row)API endpoint: https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/gdelt_news_signals/gdelt_country_attention_weekly
Tip: fetch /llms.txt for the full machine-readable catalog.
Where this data comes from and what was made from it. Other people's work shows as counts; only shared projects are named.
Cite this snapshot
Pinned to snapshot 20260925T134401Z-8fedd8ddac39 and its content hash, so readers get exactly the data you used.
GDELT global news attention & tone intelligence. (2026). GDELT global news attention & tone (weekly) [Data set, snapshot 20260925T134401Z-8fedd8ddac39, sha256 8fedd8ddac39]. Datazimuts. Retrieved 2026-09-25, from https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/gdelt_news_signals/gdelt_country_attention_weekly?snapshot=20260925T134401Z-8fedd8ddac39
@misc{dz_gdelt_news_signals_gdelt_country_attenti_8fedd8dd,
title = {{GDELT global news attention \& tone (weekly)}},
author = {{GDELT global news attention \& tone intelligence}},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Datazimuts},
howpublished = {\url{https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/gdelt_news_signals/gdelt_country_attention_weekly?snapshot=20260925T134401Z-8fedd8ddac39}},
note = {Snapshot 20260925T134401Z-8fedd8ddac39, sha256 8fedd8ddac3905d9b84f6c768826abaf078eda98d44051218f50b3dbbe0dd541; accessed 2026-09-25}
}Embed a table or a chart
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<iframe src="https://datazimuts.com/embed/chart?dataset=gdelt_news_signals%2Fgdelt_country_attention_weekly&lang=en&theme=auto&snapshot=20260925T134401Z-8fedd8ddac39&x=week&y=event_count&agg=avg" title="GDELT global news attention & tone (weekly)" width="100%" height="380" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>
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