Applying a method for semi-automatic text content analysis to newspaper coverage of Japan(and - work in progress - Romania) in Brazil and Portugal

Luis Costa

In this talk, I will describe a method for semi-automatic text content analysis that I applied to the newspaper coverage of Japanese personalities and cities in Brazil and Portugal. The research was based on 9,152 texts related to Japan published in a Portuguese and a Brazilian newspaper from the 90s. Results revealed that the most referred Japanese personalities were politicians. Additionally, in general, there are more texts related to Japan (and naming Japanese personalities and cities) in the Portuguese newspaper than in the Brazilian newspaper. A detailed analysis of the texts where these personalities were named revealed events related to Japan with different impact in Portugal and Brazil. In the context of my visit to the University of West Timisoara, I would like to apply this method to study the references to Romanian personalities and cities in Portuguese and Brazilian newspapers. Let's see how far I can get :-).