National interest Through News Lens: A Computer-Based Textual Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccine Coverage in China, United Kingdom, and the USA

Abstract

This research is a comparative text analysis on the news of Covid-19 pandemic vaccine invention updates in China Daily, The Guardian, and USA Today. The relevant countries of the origin of these media outlets (China, UK and the USA) were in the race of vaccine solutions for the Covid-19. To find out how they represented their country’s updates in comparison to other countries, the study was initiated. Only the text-based news from 1st May to 31st May 2020 was collected from the respective newspapers. The computer-based text analysis using MAXQDA software was used to perform the study based on the theoretical framework of framing. The study found how the news is presented by such globally known national dailies. By analysing their news texts; using word frequencies, word cluster combinations, and semantic associations between the news published during the selected time. A total 105 text-based news from the print edition of the newspapers were listed and 84,295 words were analysed to determine how the Covid-19 vaccine updates were presented by the highest circulated national daily newspapers in China, the UK, and the USA. After the textual analysis, six individual frames were found, and the result indicated three similar frames and three different frames. The similarities and differences such as framing each other’s vaccine outcomes, public health issues and the positive updates of their respective country’s vaccines were addressed from the base of different framing frameworks. Additionally, the coverage of local and foreign news from the individual newspapers was also taken. It has also addressed the geopolitical and socio-economic factors behind the frames.