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Frontiers of Information Technology & Electronic Engineering
ISSN 2095-9184 (print), ISSN 2095-9230 (online)
2021 Vol.22 No.11 P.1443-1457
China in the eyes of news media: a case study under COVID-19 epidemic
Abstract: As one of the early COVID-19 epidemic outbreak areas, China attracted the global news media’s attention at the beginning of 2020. During the epidemic period, Chinese people united and actively fought against the epidemic. However, in the eyes of the international public, the situation reported about China is not optimistic. To better understand how the international public portrays China, especially during the epidemic, we present a case study with big data technology. We aim to answer three questions: (1) What has the international media focused on during the COVID-19 epidemic period? (2) What is the media’s tone when they report China? (3) What is the media’s attitude when talking about China? In detail, we crawled more than 280 000 pieces of news from 57 mainstream media agencies in 22 countries and made some interesting observations. For example, international media paid more attention to Chinese livelihood during the COVID-19 epidemic period. In March and April, “progress of Chinese vaccines,” “specific drugs and treatments,” and “virus outbreak in U.S.” became the media’s most common topics. In terms of news attitude, Cuba, Malaysia, and Venezuela had a positive attitude toward China, while France, Canada, and the United Kingdom had a negative attitude. Our study can help understand China’s image in the eyes of the international media and provide a sound basis for image analysis.
Key words: Country image, COVID-19 epidemic, Topic mining, Entity, Tone of news, Emotion
Chinese Summary <43> 新闻媒体眼中的中国：新冠肺炎疫情下的案例研究
1华中科技大学大数据技术与系统国家地方联合工程研究中心，中国武汉市，430074
2华中科技大学服务计算技术与系统教育部重点实验室，中国武汉市，430074
3华中科技大学集群与网格计算湖北省重点实验室，中国武汉市，430074
4华中科技大学计算机科学与技术学院，中国武汉市，430074
5华中科技大学新闻与信息传播学院，中国武汉市，430074
摘要：中国作为新冠肺炎疫情早期爆发地区之一，在2020年初就引起全球新闻媒体关注。疫情期间，中国人民团结一致，积极抗击疫情。然而，在国际公众眼中，有关中国疫情的报道并不乐观。为更好了解国际公众如何看待中国，特别是在疫情期间，我们利用大数据技术进行了案例研究。我们主要想回答3个问题：（1）新冠肺炎疫情期间，国际媒体关注的焦点是什么？（2）媒体报道中国时的立场是什么？（3）媒体谈论中国时的态度是什么？具体来说，我们从22个国家的57家主流媒体中收集了28万则以上相关新闻，从中分析出一些有趣现象。例如，新冠肺炎疫情期间，国际媒体更加关注中国民生；在3月和4月，“中国疫苗进展”“特定药物和治疗”“美国病毒爆发”成为媒体最常见话题；在新闻态度方面，古巴、马来西亚、委内瑞拉对中国持正面态度，而法国、加拿大、英国则持负面态度。我们的研究有助于理解中国在国际媒体眼中的形象，并为形象分析提供良好依据。
关键词组：
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DOI:
10.1631/FITEE.2000689
CLC number:
TP311.13
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On-line Access:
2024-08-27
Received:
2023-10-17
Revision Accepted:
2024-05-08
Crosschecked:
2021-03-31
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