Even though the DNS management task is a global one and the electoral regions spanned whole continents, the media coverage had noticeably varying focuses in the different countries. There were however no nationalist tones in the articles reviewed.

(Only medium and long articles mentioning an issue as part, main or exclusive topic; multiple mentions possible)

a. Presentation of national candidates
In the member-nomination phase with its 78 mostly unknown candidates in Europe alone, several newspapers chose to present candidates from their own country: The Swiss SonntagsZeitung listed three of the Swiss candidates (27 August), La Repubblica's web site contained links to all the Italian candidates, the Frankfurter Allgemeine ran portraits of the three German candidates Müller-Maguhn, Hofmann and Zerdick. The portrait's author explained: "Ein deutscher Direktor ist also allein schon deshalb denkbar, weil die Kandidaten so namenlos sind, dass die Wähler im Zweifelsfall ihrem Landsmann die Stimme geben." ("A German director is thus already conceivable merely because the candidates are so nameless that, if in doubt, the voters will cast their vote for a fellow countryman."; 26 August).

b. United Kingdom: ICANN's role in dispute resolution
ICANN's domain name dispute resolution policy for trademark owners features prominently in the British media. 49% of the 51 articles covered this aspect at least marginally, in 16% of the cases it was even the main topic. The question of trademarks and domain names was exemplified by the case of the well-known writer Jeanette Winterson. She used ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) against a student who had registered the domain jeanettewinterson.com. The case, which was decided in favour of the author, was reported in the UK media, and Jeanette Winterson herself wrote two articles about "cybersquatting".

The At Large elections were discovered late by the British media. The Daily Telegraph regretted that "British web surfers appear apathetic about the future of the internet" (17 August) and pointed to the small number of At Large registrations from the UK. When this admonishment was printed, the deadline had already passed.

c. France: Focus on the election
The French media coverage was remarkably different from the British: Trademark domain name disputes hardly played a role (they remained unmentioned in 13 of 15 reviewed articles), but the elections were covered intensely, and the organisation was portrayed in several articles. Le Monde made the start before the registration deadline by calling the "cybercitoyens" to the ballot boxes to vote for "une instance de régulation qui, pour la première fois, pourrait casser le monopole américain" ("a regulatory authority which could break the American monopoly for the first time"; 28 June). Both Libération and Le Monde ran specials, covering different aspects of ICANN in several articles.

d. Germany: Extensive coverage
The number of in-depth articles about ICANN in Germany was considerably higher than in the rest of Europe. In mid-2000, all nationwide newspapers wrote at least once about ICANN; in July, the coverage reached its climax when five articles appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeine within seven days. The beginning and the end of the final voting phase was even reported in the widely viewed evening news programme Tagesschau. Nevertheless, most articles also contained a short description of ICANN's responsibilities. For details on the Spiegel Online registration drive see below.

e. Italy: The own role within ICANN
The Italian media also managed to find national starting points for reporting about ICANN. Shortly before the deadline, L'Espresso called "Italiani, votate il governo della Rete" ("Italians, vote for the government of the Net"; 19 July). This call for participation contained a statement by a representative of an Italian Internet Service Provider (ISP) that Italy should show its presence. La Repubblica also reported about the elections before the registration was closed. It can be reasonably assumed that the activities of the Italian media -- partly initiated by an Italian member of ICANN's volunteer Membership Implementation Task Force (MITF) -- contributed to the large number of last minute registrations from Italy (from 160 on the 13th to 1670 on the 31st of July).

f. Scandinavia: Little media interest
Only a day before the registration deadline, the Scandinavia Online magazine of the Norwegian Aftenposten pointed to the fact that "verdens Internettregjering" ("the Internet government of the world"; 30 July) would close its registration on the following day. In the small number of other articles about ICANN, mainly short reports about new Top Level Domains, the elections remained unmentioned.

In Sweden, the high circulation dailies Aftonbladet and Expressen reported in November about ICANN, again because of the introduction of new Top Level Domains. In Denmark, it was curiously the Berlin correspondent of the newspaper Politiken who reported about the ICANN elections, mainly quoting the German candidate Jeanette Hofmann. For the Danish Jyllands-Posten it was again the foreign correspondent in Germany reporting about Andy Müller-Maguhn's victory. Despite the high number of Internet users in the Scandinavian countries and the fact that a Norwegian candidate, Alf Hansen, was on the ballot, the amount of media coverage was remarkably low.