PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF NICOLAS MADURO’S ILLEGAL ABDUCTION: A COMPARATIVE SENTIMENT-BASED STUDY OF USERS’ COMMENTS ON YOUTUBE ACROSS VENEZUELAN AND AMERICAN NEWS CHANNELS

This article examines the public reaction to the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro, the de jure President of Venezuela, who was captured by the US forces on 3rd January, 2026, under Operation “Absolute Resolve”. The research employs a corpus-assisted mixed-methods approach, comparing the viewers’ comments on YouTube videos from Fox News and TeleSUR News addressing the incident. The research analyzed 500 comments from each video to draw sentimental analysis on the basis of Paul Ekman’s theory of basic emotions. Outscrapper and Apify tools were used for data compilation, and the data was analyzed using Orange software. In Orange software, the sentiment analysis feature was used along with SentiArt and VADER filter for the sub-categorization of emotions. The findings revealed mild and neutral emotions expressed in Fox News YouTube video comments; in contrast, the comments on the TeleSUR YouTube video demonstrated extremely emotional and polarizing emotions. The thematic analysis revealed themes of International Law and State Sovereignty, Resource Motives, Imperialism, and Global Support. Keywords: Nicolas Maduro, Orange, Trump, Politics, Emotions, Sentimental Analysis.