China in the eyes of news media: a case study under COVID-19 epidemic

Hong HUANG; Zhexue CHEN; Xuanhua SHI; Chenxu WANG; Zepeng HE; Hai JIN; Mingxin ZHANG; Zongya LI

doi:10.1631/FITEE.2000689

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China in the eyes of news media: a case study under COVID-19 epidemic

Special Feature on COVID-19 | Updated：2022-01-05

- China in the eyes of news media: a case study under COVID-19 epidemic
  Enhanced Publication
- 新闻媒体眼中的中国：新冠肺炎疫情下的案例研究
- Frontiers of Information Technology & Electronic Engineering Vol. 22, Issue 11, Pages: 1443-1457(2021)
- Affiliations：
  
  National Engineering Research Center for Big Data Technology and System, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
  Services Computing Technology and System Lab, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
  Cluster and Grid Computing Lab, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
  School of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
  School of Journalism and Information Communication, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
- Author bio：
  
  [ "", "Hong HUANG, first author of this invited paper, is an associate professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan China. She received her PhD degree in computer science from the University of Göttingen, Germany in 2016, and her ME degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 2012. Her research interests include social network analysis, social influence, and data mining", "Hong HUANG, E-mail: honghuang@hust.edu.cn" ]
  [ "Zhexue CHEN, E-mail: chenzhexue@hust.edu.cn" ]
  [ "", "Xuanhua SHI, corresponding author of this invited paper, is currently a professor with the School of Computer Science and Technology, HUST, Wuhan, China. He is the deputy director of the National Engineering Research Center for Big Data Technology and System (NERCBDTS). He published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers in conferences and journals such as ASPLOS, VLDB, ACM Trans Comput Syst, and IEEE Trans Parall Distr Syst. He is a corresponding expert of Front Inform Technol Electron Eng. He received research supports from several governmental and industrial organizations, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, and the European Union. His current research interests include cloud computing, big data processing, and AI systems" ]
  [ "Chenxu WANG, E-mail: wangchenxu@hust.edu.cn" ]
  [ "Zepeng HE, E-mail: hezepeng@hust.edu.cn" ]
  [ "", "Hai JIN received his PhD degree in computer engineering from HUST, Wuhan, China, in 1994. He worked at the University of Hong Kong from 1998 to 2000, and was a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA from 1999 to 2000. He is currently the Cheung Kung Scholars Chair Professor of Computer Science and Engineering with HUST. He has coauthored 15 books, and published over 700 research articles. He is now serving as an editor of Front Inform Technol Electron Eng. He was awarded the German Academic Exchange Service Fellowship to visit the Technical University of Chemnitz, Germany in 1996, and was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Distinguished Young Scholars in 2001. He is a Fellow of China Computer Federation (CCF) and a Life Member of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). His research interests include computer architecture, virtualization technology, cluster computing and cloud computing, peer-to-peer computing, network storage, and network security", "Hai JIN, E-mail: hjin@hust.edu.cn" ]
  [ "Mingxin ZHANG, E-mail: mingxinzhang@hust.edu.cn" ]
  [ "Zongya LI, E-mail: lzy901014@sina.com" ]
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1631/FITEE.2000689
  CLC： TP311.13
- Published：20 November 2021，
  
  Published Online：26 May 2021，
  
  Received：10 December 2020，
  
  Revised：31 March 2021，
  
  Accepted：2021-02-08
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
HONG HUANG, ZHEXUE CHEN, XUANHUA SHI, et al. China in the eyes of news media: a case study under COVID-19 epidemic. [J]. Frontiers of information technology & electronic engineering, 2021, 22(11): 1443-1457.
DOI：

HONG HUANG, ZHEXUE CHEN, XUANHUA SHI, et al. China in the eyes of news media: a case study under COVID-19 epidemic. [J]. Frontiers of information technology & electronic engineering, 2021, 22(11): 1443-1457. DOI： 10.1631/FITEE.2000689.

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。

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.

关键词

国家形象新冠肺炎主题挖掘实体新闻立场情感

Keywords

Country imageCOVID-19 epidemicTopic miningEntityTone of newsEmotion

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