Foreign News Coverage in Conservative and Liberal U.S. Newspapers: A Case Study of Saudi Arabia between 1932 to 2023

Abstract

This study investigated the historical coverage of foreign issues in U.S. newspapers. The study mainly focused on four primary areas, as previous studies mentioned, which are coverage of wars, leaders, human rights, and economic issues in foreign countries, and it qualitatively analyzed data to find if there are any other common topics discussed during the time frame. Then, these topics were analyzed by applying the framing theory to news stories about Saudi Arabia, used as a case study from September 1923 to December 2023. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times were investigated and representative of two distinct newspaper orientations, which are conservative and liberal ideological orientations. Finally, sentiment analysis was used to find the dominant tone for each frame. This study found that the topics discussed were leaders, wars, human rights, economics, sports, Islam & culture, terrorism, education, and natural phenomena. The focus of topics was on leaders, economics, and wars in The New York Times, and it was on leaders, economics, and Islam & culture in The Wall Street Journal. In terms of applied frames, NYT mostly applied responsibility, cooperation, and consequences frames, While WSJ mostly applied consequences and cooperation frames. The sentiment analysis of data showed that NYT mostly used negative tones, while WSJ mostly used positive tones. This study provided a comprehensive view of the coverage of U.S. newspapers from past to present, leading to predicting a model for each newspaper to understand how these newspapers were covering Saudi issues in the past, explaining the present, and formulating future expectations.