Mining themes, emotions, and stance in the news coverage of the Russia–Ukraine War from Reuters and Xinhua

Abstract The Russia–Ukraine War has emerged as a highly contentious global issue since 2022. While China and the UK are not directly involved in the conflict, considerable attention has been drawn to their positions and perspectives on this event. In such context, conducting a comparative study on how the British and Chinese mainstream media cover the Russia–Ukraine conflict can provide valuable insights into the influence of ideological differences on news framing and shed light on the respective stances of these two news agencies. Employing an interdisciplinary methodology, this study integrates corpus tools, critical discourse analysis, text mining, and emotion computation to systematically analyze news reports covering the Russia–Ukraine War from Reuters and Xinhua between 2022 and 2023. Results show different patterns in the news reports from the two investigated news agencies, including the monthly publication of news articles, the occurrence of prominent entities, and the thematic emphasis. Additionally, significant variations are identified in specific dimensions of emotion and emotional intensity, indicating the divergent stances of the two news agencies on a range of significant issues.