Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2020-3
A tale of four cities: A semantic analysis comparing the newspaper coverage of air pollution in Hong Kong,London,Pittsburgh,and Tianjin from 2014 to 2017
A computer-aided semantic analysis (using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count [LIWC]) examined how newspaper coverage of air pollution from 2014 to 2017 may affect the public agenda in four cities—Hong Kong, London, Pittsburgh, and Tianjin. Results show that after controlling for the real-time air quality, the agenda-setting effect was found in Hong Kong, London, and Pittsburgh, but not Tianjin. Tianjin’s reports also contained more future-framed words but fewer present-framed words than other cities.
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