China in the information discourse of the USA (July - December 1937): computerized analysis of print media materials

The subject of the research is the U.S. periodicals from 1937 regarding the Sino-Japanese War. The object of the study is the informational discourse of the United States. The author examines in detail the reasons for the heightened interest among American editors and journalists in the Chinese topic. Japan's attack on China on July 7, 1937, became a prelude to a large-scale conflict in Asia, which subsequently transformed into World War II. Materials from both major central newspapers and smaller provincial ones were analyzed. The collected data pertains to the second half of 1937 and cannot characterize the entire period of the Sino-Japanese War, but with the methodology validated during the research, it is possible to study all stages of the war. Special attention is given to publications in U.S. newspapers from August to December 1937. An initial analysis of newspaper articles was conducted using the "Leximancer" program. This established a semantic core for each of the articles. The markers constituting this core were analyzed in the context of the historical formation of assessments of the Chinese crisis in U.S. newspapers through correlation analysis. The main conclusions of this study are: for the first time in the history of the study of the Sino-Japanese War, an analysis using the "Leximancer" program of articles from 1937 showed that the Japanese invasion highlighted discussions about plans for the expansion of the Japanese Empire, as well as the attitudes of the U.S., Britain, and the USSR toward military actions, and issues related to the "Open Door Policy"; American newspapers emphasized the colonial nature of Japanese foreign policy in China (as evidenced by publications from August to September 1937, such as the "Evening Star" from September 5) and used Japan's historical past as proof of its imperial ambitions; the semantic core of the analyzed articles demonstrates the beginning of the transformation of the image of China in U.S. periodicals from "a country of chaos and disorder" to a state ally of the United States. The scientific novelty of the study lies not only in applying the "Leximancer" program but also in using statistical analysis methods to determine the role of China in the informational discourse of the United States. A subject-specific analysis has not been made in historiography regarding the extent to which information about China occupied materials in U.S. periodicals.