This study investigates the influence of mass media on public opinion regarding China. Utilizing BERT, a deep neural network-based natural language processing model, the researchers analyzed 267,907 China-related articles from The New York Times (1970-present). Comparing this analysis with longitudinal data from 101 cross-sectional surveys of American public opinion on China, the study reveals that NYT reporting in a given year explains 54% of the variance in American public opinion on China the following year. This finding supports the link between media and public opinion formation concerning foreign countries.

Junming Huang, Gavin G. Cook, Yu Xie