Yukiko Sato

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the news media played a crucial role in disseminating information to the public and influencing public opinion, such as governmental responses to the outbreak. The way the pandemic and pandemic-related news were handled varied across different countries and regions. This study analyzes a random selection of newspaper articles from three different sources: the German Bild, the Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun, and the American USA Today. The aim is to shed light on how these newspapers reported on COVID-19 during its initial stages, from January to March 2020. The study presents initial findings from comparing the coverage of these three newspapers with respect to (1) mentioned actors, (2) depicted regions, and (3) mentioned themes. In addition, we compare the results of our analysis with cultural values and discuss how the cultural context influences the coverage. Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun places more emphasis on the government’s response to the pandemic, while Germany’s Bild and America’s USA Today focus more on how the pandemic has affected the lives of citizens and the individual measures taken to deal with the virus. The results show the contrast between the cultural values of individualism and uncertainty in the media coverage of the pandemic.

The realisation of smart cities has attracted much attention in recent years from private and governmental actors, as a means to make cities more efficient, climate friendly and socially inclusive through the use of modern technology. However, few studies examine how smart cities are framed and understood within the public sphere. The aim of this study is to compare how domestic smart city initiatives are reported in the news of their respective countries, and to clarify the differences and similarities in media content. In this paper, we present the initial findings of our planned long-term comparative news content analysis. As a first step, we analysed national newspaper articles published between 2011 and 2019 in Japan and Slovenia. Our corpus consists of 41 Japanese and 20 Slovenian articles, written in relation to domestic smart city initiatives. In total, we identified 14 themes, five of which were common in both countries, while the remaining nine appeared exclusively in the news of one country. Our conclusions indicate that the news in both countries differ in what application domains of Smart Cities are discussed (e.g. natural resources and energy, transportation and mobility). We establish a procedure for further cross-cultural analyses, necessary to understand how smart cities are framed in the public sphere. Thereby, we contribute to further discussion on the nature and definition of smart cities and how they are communicated.

The choice of expressions used in news reports is dependent on their language, the perspective of the journalist and the purpose of the news. Previous research by Miyata (2002) and Chomsky (2003) shows that religious language has often been used in the media to convey political ideas and legitimize political acts to the public. Based on that theory this research will try to clarify the reasons for utilizing religious language as a method of expression when delivering news articles about the 2011 catastrophe in Japan. Religious language, which in the context of this paper refers to expressions originating from a Christian context, appears in Western news reports, even when reporting about secular events. This study will investigate Japanese, American and German newspaper articles, related to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan, since Germany and the USA have different cultural as well as religious backgrounds compared to Japan. It aims to analyze the use and function of religious (Christian) expressions, especially religious metaphors and symbols, and to clarify how religious elements can change perception of an article, concerning the Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster. In total 540 articles in Japanese, German and English were analyzed. 37961 words, 2400 sentences and 36 pictures appearing in German and American national newspapers, printed from 2012 to 2016, were taken into account through a critical discourse analysis. 40 religious elements were found. Religious language is mostly used symbolically as well as metaphorically in order to illustrate the devastation caused by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, as well as the suffering and hope of the victims. Furthermore, in Germany, religious language employed in news articles concerning the catastrophe in Japan also serves to emphasize domestic social and political problems.