A Text Analysis of News Media Framing of Government Response to the 2023 Türkiye–Syria Earthquake

The February 2023 Türkiye–Syria Earthquake had a profound impact on political, economic, and social life in Türkiye. Despite criticism about government disaster response, the government of Türkiye won an election 3 months later. We examine variance in media coverage of government disaster responses with Structural Topic Modeling of 12,268 articles in five pro- and anti-government newspapers in Türkiye (Anadolu Ajansi, Hurriyet, Sozcu, Cumhuriyet, and Posta) between the February earthquake and the May election. We identify five general topical themes in the data: emotion, science, information provision, government response, and the economy. We conduct sentiment analysis and find little direct criticism of the government's responses, although anti-government newspapers are more negative on topics related to building structures and damage. The general pattern of positive sentiment among all newspapers regarding government responses to the earthquake may help us understand why the disaster was not as consequential for the election outcome as some observers expected.