Media Bias in Sports Journalism: A Comparative Study of Qatar 2022 World Cup Coverage

The Political Economy of Journalism

Political economy theory examines how power relations shape news production and consumption across economics, political science, and communication (Freedman, 2008; Hamilton, 2007; McChesney, 2008; Ryfe, 2021). News creation is not solely driven by market forces but also reflects political, social, and cultural influences (Lacy, 1989; Mosco, 2015). Media conglomerates such as The New York Times Company, News Corporation, and Amazon (which owns The Washington Post) exemplify how ownership structures influence news content and framing (John & Silberstein-Loeb, 2015). Similarly, Al Jazeera’s state-backed model reflects Qatar’s foreign policy priorities in its coverage (Samuel-Azran, 2013). Concentrated media ownership can restrict pluralism non-Western settings, such as Indonesia (Masduki & d’Haenens, 2022). This consolidation often leads to homogenized perspectives that align with corporate interests (Bagdikian, 2004; Dunaway, 2013), raising concerns about media regulation, power dynamics, and equitable access to unbiased information (Curran, 2002).

Power, wealth, and ideology extend beyond journalism, influencing knowledge production and entertainment (Mosco, 2016). News coverage is shaped by funding sources, ideological leanings, and both international and local editorial pressures (Doyle, 2013; Picard, 2011; Wasko et al., 2011). News values reflect cultural norms and audience preferences (Mast & Temmerman, 2021; McIntyre, 2016), with mega-events like the 2022 FIFA World Cup revealing how economic, political, and cultural forces converge in framing narratives. While newsworthiness is often seen as a cognitive construct, it is also influenced by ownership and advertising priorities, affecting coverage prominence and focus (Shoemaker, 2006). Media portrayals of the same event vary across outlets, shaped by regional, political, and economic contexts (Schudson, 2003).

The political economy of journalism extends beyond economics to institutional and ideological forces driving editorial decision-making. Media conglomerates and market forces shape coverage depth and focus (Freedman, 2008; Hamilton, 2007; McChesney, 2008). This perspective explains why The Guardian and the NYT emphasize labor rights and critical narratives aligning with audience expectations, while Al Jazeera prioritizes Qatar’s national image and soft power, often defending its policies against Western critiques.

Framing and Bias in Media

The role of mass media in shaping public opinion and societal norms is well-established (McQuail, 2010; Vladisavljevi´c, 2015). For example, framing theory is central to understanding how media influence public discourse. It highlights how specific aspects of a topic are emphasized, influencing not just what the audience thinks about, but how they think about it (Entman, 1993). Framing is inherently linked to media bias, as it involves selective emphasis that shapes audience perceptions in alignment with specific interests, whether political, economic, or cultural (Gentzkow et al., 2015). For instance, when media highlight certain aspects of a story while downplaying others, they create a narrative that aligns with particular viewpoints, guiding the interpretation and prioritization of issues. As research points out, political bias in news reporting is widely acknowledged, but its effects on societies, cultures, political systems, and democracies are profound and multifaceted (Groeling, 2013). Framing theory explains how media outlets shaped narratives around the 2022 FIFA World Cup, prioritizing labor rights, corruption, or national pride. It also clarifies why Arab media may adopt defensive frames against Western critique. These choices—whether intentional or shaped by cultural biases among journalists, editors, owners, and audiences—reflect distinct editorial perspectives.

The definition of media bias remains elusive, often described as ‘editorial slant' - an inconsistent term that varies based on context and research focus (Hamborg et al., 2019; Puglisi and Snyder, 2015; Spinde et al., 2021). Bias can manifest in different ways, such as gatekeeping (selecting stories from certain groups over others), coverage (varying amounts of attention given to issues), and statement bias (favorability toward one side) (D’Alessio & Allen, 2000). Bias can also be ideological or “spin” bias, where ideological bias reflects the personal views of editors or reporters, while spin bias emerges from efforts to present stories in a compelling or memorable manner (Mullainathan & Shleifer, 2002). This often results in the omission of crucial details or the addition of sensational elements (Fan et al., 2019). The choice of images, headlines, and story placement can all contribute to shaping audience perception, reinforcing stereotypes, and influencing attitudes (Beukeboom & Burgers, 2017). These forms of bias are critical to interpreting how Western and Gulf media framed Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup, with Western outlets potentially amplifying criticism and Gulf outlets emphasizing achievements.

Framing theory provides a crucial lens for understanding how media outlets construct narratives around the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Western media emphasized Qatar’s labor rights violations, reinforcing a critical stance, while Al Jazeera framed labor reforms as progress and modernization (Bettine, 2024; Samuel-Azran et al., 2016). This reflects broader media bias and geopolitical interests, with Western outlets challenging Qatar’s legitimacy and Al Jazeera focusing on reputation management (Ben Labidi & Al Zo’by, 2025; Swart & Hussain, 2023). For instance, Western media strategically highlighted labor exploitation (Bettine, 2024), whereas Al Jazeera omitted such critiques, reinforcing Qatar’s soft power (Samuel-Azran et al., 2016).

Speaking about the soft power, it is a concept introduced by Joseph Nye (1990) that refers to a nation’s ability to influence global affairs through attraction rather than coercion. It operates through cultural diplomacy, international media, and public engagement to shape perceptions and build alliances. Sporting mega-events, such as the Olympics and FIFA World Cup, serve as key soft power tools, enhancing a nation’s global reputation and strategic influence. Countries such as Germany, the UK, and Japan have effectively utilized these events for national branding and political influence (Grix & Brannagan, 2016; Grix et al., 2015; Grix & Houlihan, 2014). Similarly, emerging states use such events to strengthen their political and economic standing, reinforcing their position on the global stage (Grix & Lee, 2013).

Media’s reliance on a profit-driven model can further exacerbate bias, as outlets may emphasize polarizing content to build a loyal, partisan audience base, leading to greater societal division (All Sides, 2024). This phenomenon aligns with the “propaganda model,” which posits that media in the United States often serve the interests of powerful societal actors, reflecting broader institutional structures and power dynamics (Herman & Chomsky, 2010). Applying these insights to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, it is plausible that Western outlets’ critical narratives reinforced broader political critiques of Qatar, while Al Jazeera’s favorable portrayal aligned with its sponsor nation’s soft power agenda. This pattern is particularly evident in frames that take defensive postures against Western critique.

Framing Mega-sports Events

Mega-sport events, like World Cups and Olympics, are not only globally popular but also serve as important arenas for projecting national image, soft power, and public diplomacy (Billings & Hardin, 2023; Grix & Houlihan, 2014). These events often attract significant international attention, but they can also become sites of intense scrutiny, particularly regarding human rights, corruption, and broader geopolitical tensions (Brannagan & Giulianotti, 2018). As research notes, the framing of such events is often shaped by geopolitical dynamics, which influence both media portrayals and public perceptions (Manzenreiter, 2010).

Studies of media coverage of mega-sport events reveal how framing varies based on cultural and political contexts. For example, U.S. media coverage of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics heavily focused on human rights issues, driven by broader political narratives, such as the Peng Shuai case, illustrating how media can use sports events to highlight geopolitical concerns (Boykoff, 2022). The interplay between framing and geopolitical dynamics is also evident in media portrayals of Brazil’s 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympics. While the World Cup coverage emphasized Brazil’s cultural connection to football, the Olympics coverage focused more critically on Brazil’s sociopolitical struggles, underscoring how the nature of the event shapes the framing (Gutierrez et al., 2021).

The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar provides a strong case for examining how cultural and geopolitical factors shape media framing. Comparing Western media’s critical narratives with Al Jazeera’s favorable portrayal reveals broader patterns of media bias. Framing extends beyond national perceptions to influence how athletes are portrayed. For example, Yoo et al. (2022) used Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling to analyze Paralympic Games coverage in the U.S. and South Korea. U.S. media reinforced ableism through the supercrip narrative, while South Korean media emphasized government-led promotion, reflecting cultural values of individualism and collectivism.

Computational methods in sport communication are expanding but remain in early stages. Boatwright (2023) highlights computational social science (CSS) as a tool to bridge theoretical and methodological gaps, advocating for automated text and social network analysis, interdisciplinary collaboration, and ethical considerations in Web 3.0 research. In the Arab region, sports media framing is equally significant. Kozman and Liu (2025) analyzed 874 sports stories across Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, and the UAE, identifying variations in journalistic roles. The UAE showed the strongest loyalist tendencies, while Qatar emphasized infotainment. Political sources drove loyalist content, whereas diverse sources increased watchdog and infotainment coverage. These findings suggest that Al Jazeera’s framing of the 2022 World Cup likely prioritized loyalty and positive narratives, reinforcing Qatar’s soft power.

Specifically, the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar serves as a recent example of how mega-sport events can be subject to critical framing, particularly in Western media. The NYT and The Guardian have been noted for their focus on human rights violations and issues related to migrant workers, often adopting an Orientalist lens that depicts Qatar as dangerous or corrupt (LeJeune & Workneh, 2025). Western media often scrutinize non-Western nations hosting sports mega-events (SMEs), contrasting their narratives with these nations’ efforts to project modernization and economic growth. Coverage tends to highlight security, inequality, or ethnocentric concerns, aligning with audience priorities (Cornelissen, 2010; Graeff et al., 2019; Zaharopoulos, 2007).

Comparative studies of the 2022 FIFA World Cup reveal how different outlets framed Qatar’s hosting. Abdul Rehman and Jebril (2023) analyzed coverage from Al Jazeera, BBC World News, and Russian Television (RT English) between 2013 and 2021, identifying three main themes: workers and immigrants, security, and infrastructure. While official sources dominated, their use varied—Al Jazeera relied on local officials, the BBC on international ones, and RT on unofficial sources, often employing a conflict frame more frequently than the others. Another study examined allegations of bribery in Qatar’s World Cup bid, comparing Al Jazeera Arabic, English, and America with international networks (Sky News, CNN International, ITV). While Al Jazeera English and America upheld high journalistic standards, Al Jazeera Arabic rarely criticized its Qatari sponsor, illustrating the stark differences in editorial approaches across its language editions (Samuel-Azran et al., 2016). Such findings illustrate how media outlets within the same organization can adopt different narratives, tailored to specific audiences, further complicating the global media landscape.

This review of theoretical frameworks highlights the complexities of media coverage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, demonstrating how different media environments, influenced by cultural, political, and economic factors, shape narratives around mega-sport events. By examining the coverage from prominent Western outlets like The NYT and The Guardian, alongside Al Jazeera, this study aims to uncover how geopolitical contexts influence portrayals of both the event and its host nation, Qatar. These findings underscore the need for continued critical analysis of how media narratives are constructed around global events, as they not only reflect but also shape public perception and international relations. Through this lens, mega-sport events like the World Cup become more than just athletic contests; they are complex cultural and political spectacles that reveal broader dynamics of global media coverage.

Data & Analytical Strategy

To analyze media coverage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, we employed a comprehensive data collection and analysis strategy to examine framing and agenda differences. As the first World Cup held in the Arab and Muslim world (November 20–December 18, 2022), it generated significant global discourse. Using LexisNexis, we compiled 393 articles from Al Jazeera (157), The Guardian (106), and The New York Times (130). We categorized them into 198 sports-related and 195 non-sports stories (see Online Appendix for coding details). The dataset was then processed by removing punctuation, special characters, spaces, numbers, and stopwords, yielding 162,162 words for analysis.

The preliminary analysis was both descriptive and interpretive. Two independent readers conducted a close reading of all articles to exclude irrelevant ones, classify them as sports or non-sports focused, and identify recurring themes. This deep reading contextualized the machine coding process, clarifying how specific terms functioned in narratives. We then analyzed common words in each outlet’s corpus to assess framing, revealing a critical tone in Western coverage, particularly on social and political issues. For instance, “human rights” frequently appeared in discussions of social controversies, while “migrant worker” was tied to reports on deaths during stadium construction. Based on this, we refined our dataset to focus on stories containing these critical terms. This dual-layered approach—close reading followed by machine coding—ensured a robust understanding of framing. The subsequent analysis, using sentiment analysis and topic modeling, builds on these initial descriptive findings to further explore differences between Western and Arab coverage.

Subsequent analyses aimed to determine the likelihood of stories with critical terms originating from Western outlets, confirming our initial observations. We further scrutinized the non-sports stories, revealing a propensity for Western media to engage more with these topics. To go deeper into the narrative tone, we delve into the domain of automated text analysis, specifically employing sentiment analysis, which is a robust technique for evaluating the emotional content of text. For this purpose, we utilize the NRC Word-Emotion Association Lexicon (NRC), a comprehensive sentiment dictionary known for its categorization of words according to discrete emotions (Bravo-Marquez et al., 2014). The NRC lexicon includes 13,900 words, each associated with particular sentiments, thereby facilitating the analysis of emotional undertones in text. ² Among the eight discrete emotions identified by NRC (anger, anticipation, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, and trust). ³ Our sentiment analysis, visualized through heatmaps, compared the proportion of words associated with various emotions across the different sources, both in the full corpus and the subset containing critical terms. Notably, anger emerged as a predominant sentiment, prompting a more detailed examination of its prevalence over time and across sources within the critical subset. ⁴

The culmination of our methodological approach was the application of topic modeling to each media source’s full corpus, revealing that the predominant topics in Western outlets were more politically charged and critical compared to those of Al Jazeera. In our study, we apply a latent variable modeling technique known as latent topic modeling (Ostrowski, 2015). Specifically, we employ Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a popular form of topic modeling, to discern sets of words that define distinct “topics” within our dataset, which includes stories from various media outlets about the World Cup. This method allows us to isolate thematic elements within the coverage, providing insights into the focal points and framing employed by different sources. ⁵ Through this analysis, we aim to understand how various aspects of the World Cup, such as sports performance, cultural implications, and sociopolitical issues, are emphasized differently across the media landscape.

Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling has been increasingly adopted in framing analysis due to its ability to systematically detect word co-occurrence patterns that correspond to latent thematic structures. DiMaggio et al. (2013) argue that LDA topics can serve as proxies for frames since they capture recurring associations between concepts, aligning with framing theory’s emphasis on meaning construction. Similarly, Ylä-Anttila et al. (2021) demonstrate that topic modeling can be a powerful tool for uncovering framing patterns across different media contexts, provided that topics are validated through qualitative interpretive analysis. However, as Maier et al. (2018) highlight, equating topics directly with frames is problematic because topic modeling’s outcomes are highly dependent on methodological choices, such as the number of topics specified and the preprocessing steps applied to the data. Additionally, some topics may emerge as linguistic artifacts without substantive meaning, raising concerns about interpretability. Walter and Ophir (2019) further caution that while LDA is useful for frame detection, it should be complemented with additional methodological steps, such as network analysis, to establish meaningful relationships between topics and validate them as coherent framing devices.

Thus, while topic modeling provides a scalable, data-driven approach to identifying frames in media discourse, its application in framing research should be supplemented with qualitative validation and theoretical rigor to ensure that the extracted topics meaningfully represent frames. We began with a close reading of articles to examine frames, this guided the machine coding, and we offer qualitive validation of our results through manually interpretating random excerpts in their context to validate the model.

Descriptive Results

Figure 1 highlights the top 25 words from World Cup stories across three media sources, revealing thematic differences. Based on the earlier close reading, terms like “workers,” “migrant,” “rights,” and “human” were identified as critical lens words due to their frequent association with narratives around labor rights and human rights issues. These terms appear prominently in The Guardian and the NYT but are absent from Al Jazeera’s top 25 words. This contrast underscores different framing strategies, with Western outlets adopting a critical stance on Qatar’s labor issues and human rights, while Al Jazeera appears to sidestep these themes, possibly reflecting editorial choices or differing agendas.

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Figure 1.

Top 25 words from World Cup Stories across Sources.

Western and Al Jazeera media outlets exhibit distinct but equally selective framing approaches in their coverage of Qatar’s World Cup. Western outlets, as seen in Figure 1, prominently feature terms related to labor exploitation, human rights abuses, and governance issues, embedding these critiques within their broader narrative. While they also cover the matches, teams, and fans, their reporting consistently intertwines sports coverage with socio-political concerns, reinforcing a critical stance on Qatar’s ethical and political shortcomings. Al Jazeera, in contrast, adopts an overwhelmingly event-focused approach, with its top 25 words exclusively related to football. This reflects a different but equally deliberate framing choice—not necessarily to refute Western critiques but to sideline them in favor of emphasizing the sporting event itself. When Al Jazeera does address controversial issues, it takes a more defensive posture, highlighting Qatar’s labor reforms or redirecting scrutiny toward Western hypocrisy rather than engaging in direct criticism. Both approaches reveal implicit biases. Western media frame the event through persistent critique, linking Qatar’s role as host to broader ethical debates, while Al Jazeera selectively engages with these concerns in ways that defend Qatar’s image. The differences in word usage and framing strategies illustrate how geopolitical positioning shapes media narratives, reinforcing distinct editorial priorities rather than presenting an unbiased account.

Further context analysis of the words shown in Figure 1 confirms that Western outlets often focus on migrant worker deaths, framed through a human rights lens. For example:

NYT: It may have succeeded in hosting more international events and promoting indigenous athletes, but the “morbid attainment” of migrant worker deaths and a “questionable human rights record” remain a significant concern.

These excerpts illustrate a Western narrative that critiques Qatar’s human rights practices. The broad critique encompasses various social issues, extending beyond sports to ethical considerations of mega-events.

In contrast, Al Jazeera adopts a different approach. One story, discussing the BBC’s decision not to air the opening ceremony, highlights this difference:

Muhammad Jalal: When Russia hosted the 2018 World Cup despite annexing Crimea, the BBC had no criticism yet chose to “sanctimoniously lecture” during Qatar’s event.

Al Jazeera acknowledges labor reforms but emphasizes progress, noting the abolition of the Kafala system and improvements in working conditions, while attributing remaining challenges to implementation issues. This contrasts with the critical framing seen in Western outlets (see the Online Appendix for examples of every word critical word for all three papers with a thematic analysis of each). Table 1 further emphasizes this divergence, with 73% of Al Jazeera’s stories focusing on sports compared to just 28% and 4% for The Guardian and NYT, respectively. In terms of critical lens words, only 22% of Al Jazeera’s stories included such terms, compared to 62% for The Guardian and 61% for the NYT. The chi-square tests indicate significant differences in coverage type and use of critical words, suggesting distinct agendas.

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Table 1.

Type of Coverage and Use of a Critical Lens Across Papers.

	Al Jazeera	The Guardian	New York Times
Comparing type of coverage
Sports stories	73%	28%	42%
Non-sports stories	27%	72%	59%
Column total	157	106	130
Comparing use of critical lens words
No critical words	78%	39%	39%
Uses critical words	22%	62%	61%
Column total	157	106	130

The stark contrast in critical word use between Al Jazeera and Western outlets indicates not only different frames but also divergent agendas. Only one critical term needed to appear for a story to be coded as such, yet 78% of Al Jazeera’s stories contained none of these terms, while the majority of The Guardian and NYT stories did. Figure 2 reinforces these findings by comparing top word counts in non-sports stories. Even within this subset, Al Jazeera maintains lower frequencies of critical words, indicating a distinct agenda. Meanwhile, Western outlets frequently use terms like “workers,” often outnumbering general terms like “people.” This pattern underscores the critical focus of Western coverage, contrasting sharply with Al Jazeera’s approach. The results demonstrate that Western media tend to politicize the event, emphasizing human rights and ethical issues, while Al Jazeera adopts a narrative focused more on regional pride and Qatar’s achievements. This aligns with distinct editorial agendas that shape how global events are portrayed across different media landscapes.

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Figure 2.

Comparing the top 25 and critical lens words from non-sport stories across source.

Sentiment Analysis Results

The heat map in Figure 3 visualizes sentiment analysis of news stories from the three publications. ⁶ The top figure represents all stories, while the bottom focuses on stories containing at least one critical lens word. In the “All Stories” category, Al Jazeera exhibits a higher proportion of ‘anger' and ‘disgust' compared to The Guardian, but less than the NYT, which has the highest proportion of these sentiments. In the “Critical Lens Articles,” both The Guardian and the NYT show increased ‘anger' compared to Al Jazeera. The Guardian also exhibits a notable rise in ‘fear' compared to its general coverage. While the NYT maintains a similar level of negative sentiment across both subsets, The Guardian and Al Jazeera flip positions: The Guardian intensifies its use of negative sentiment, while Al Jazeera reduces it. This suggests that when Western outlets adopt a critical lens, they tend to frame stories with more negative emotions, potentially reflecting political, cultural, or ethical oppositions influenced by journalist, editor, and audience perspectives. Again, Al Jazeera’s lower proportion of ‘anger' and ‘disgust' in the critical lens subset suggests a more neutral tone, even when covering contentious issues related to the World Cup. This indicates that Al Jazeera may critique events differently, reflecting a distinct editorial approach or audience sentiment.

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Figure 3.

Heat map of the proportion of sentiment.

The heat map reveals context-dependent sentiment differences across publications, which shift when a critical lens is applied. Western outlets’ critique of the World Cup is framed with more emotion, particularly anger, while Al Jazeera adopts a potentially more detached approach, likely influenced by geographic, political, and cultural contexts. To better understand these proportions, we examined how “anger” is used in specific stories from each publication. We chose to focus on the extended interpretation here on anger not only due to its prominence as the most prevalent sentiment, but because the stark differences in the use of anger-related language across outlets further underscores key framing distinctions. Western media, often characterized by political bias, tends to employ anger-laden rhetoric, whereas Al Jazeera, with its sports-centric coverage, exhibits a noticeably lower presence of anger-related terms. This contrast reinforces the distinct editorial approaches of these outlets. To ensure clarity, we have revised the manuscript to explicitly address this rationale.

In Al Jazeera, “anger” appears in a story about international fans experiencing safety in Qatar, contrasting Western media’s negative portrayal of the region:

“The US media's portrayal of the Middle East has been very different from what I have experienced here,” Andrea, 29, told Al Jazeera, adding that her friends decided against travelling to Qatar. Andrea said she is glad she came. “Simple things like taking a walk around the city late at night, that's something I can't do back home.”

This instance of “crime” emphasizes safety, challenging Western narratives.

In The Guardian, “anger” is found in a story on FIFA’s increased revenue from the World Cup, urging Western entities to confront their own issues before criticizing others:

“Mark Drakeford said that while the FIFA president’s speech reminded him of the former chancellor Denis Healy’s first law of holes – ‘when you're in one, stop digging’ – he thought Infantino had made valid points about the need for Western countries to confront their own history before criticizing the contemporary failings of others.”

This quote uses “confront” to critique ethical implications within the broader sociopolitical context.

The NYT uses “anger” in a story about Budweiser’s marketing challenges following Qatar’s last-minute ban on beer sales at stadiums, highlighting commercial-cultural tensions: “I’m just glad it wasn’t us,” said a representative for another FIFA sponsor, who spoke on condition that neither she nor her company be identified, saying that she did not want to publicly criticize the Qatari government.

In this context, “criticize” relates to regulatory changes’ impact on sponsors.

In summary, Al Jazeera uses “anger” to counter stereotypes and affirm safety, while The Guardian and the NYT apply it to critique the sociopolitical and commercial aspects of the event. This illustrates the distinct editorial lenses through which each outlet approaches coverage of international events, especially in the Arab region.

Topic Model Results

Our analysis of topic models applied to the full set of articles on the 2022 World Cup, from Al Jazeera, The Guardian, and the NYT, reveals distinct thematic patterns. To allow for maximum topic variation, we included all articles - both sports-centric and non-sports. Lacking a theoretical basis to predict the exact number of themes, we used an inductive approach, common in the field (Blei et al., 2003). We identified the optimal topic count by maximizing the average “coherence” score, which measures how often words co-occur within topics (Kherwa & Bansal, 2019). To calculate coherence scores, we set an upper limit of five potential topics, given the lack of prior expectations about topic count. Coherence scores were computed for one to five topics, averaging the probabilities of word co-occurrence across topics. The topic count with the highest coherence score was deemed optimal, indicating the most robust links between word occurrences. ⁷

Figure 4 shows that coherence scores vary by outlet. The Guardian has three distinct themes, suggesting its World Cup coverage revolves around three core topics. The NYT focuses on two main themes, while Al Jazeera has five themes, reflecting broader coverage. These numbers do not imply that coverage was limited to just 2, 3, or 5 topics; rather, they capture the primary thematic structure within each outlet’s articles.

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Figure 4.

Predicting the number of topics: Coherence scores across papers.

The thematic analysis of articles covering the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, as presented in Tables 2 and 3, reveals stark differences in the focus between Al Jazeera and these prominent Western newspapers. Al Jazeera predominantly centers its coverage around sports-related topics, underscoring the event’s athletic and competitive aspects. This is evident from the five main topics extracted from its articles, which revolve around key sporting figures, teams, matches, and overarching tournament themes, with a notable emphasis on the unifying power of sports despite cultural divergences, as indicated by the inclusion of words like “united” in the context of cultural discussions.

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Table 2.

Top 20 Words Extracted From Each Topic for Al Jazeera.

Messi/Argentina	Culture/Differences	Fans
World	cup	Al
Argentina	world	qatar
Cup	Football	world
World cup	fifa	world cup
Messi	qatar	cup
France	Iran	Fans
Brazil	world cup	Al jazeera
Football	country	Jazeera
Team	President	People
Final	Sports	country
Croatia	United	Doha
December	alcohol	Tournament
Newstex	year	Team
Content	Countries	Football
Al jazeera	Time	Told
Jazeera	Media	morocco
Lionel	culture	Told al
French	Iranian	Fan
Lusail	Twitter	Support
Lionel messi	Host	city

Teams/Matches	Matches/Teams
World	Stadium
Cup	Qatar
World cup	Match
Group	Team
South	Goal
Brazil	Win
Cameroon	England
Portugal	Game
Time	Saudi
Serbia	Arabia
Korea	Tournament
South Korea	Time
Game	Croatia
Players	Saudi arabia
Uruguay	Match
Ghana	November
Goals	Year
Year	Stadium
Match	Players

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Table 3.

Top 20 Words Extracted From Each Topic for the Guardian and NYT.

The Guardian
Migrant workers	Human Rights/LGBTQ	Messi/Matches
Qatar	World	World
Cup	Fifa	Cup
World	Qatar	World cup
Workers	World cup	Team
Migrant	Football	Game
Stadium	Rights	Final
Migrant workers	Country	Football
Work	Infantino	Argentina
Years	Tournament	France
Doha	Human	Time
Home	Fans	Group
Al	Players	Al
Guardian	Human rights	Match
Year	Host	Argentina
Tournament	Media	France
Day	England	Stadium
Back	Lgbtq	Goal
City	President	Tournament
NYT

Tournament/Women	Workers/Rights
Team	Qatar
Cup	World
World cup	World cup
Players	Fifa
Soccer	Tournament
National	Workers
Fans	Stadium
Country	Workers
Tournament	Stadiums
Match	Year
Women	Teams
People	Host
Teams	Doha
Morocco	People
Players	Stadiums
Argentina	Teams
Time	National
Match	Rights

Note. Model was fit to include two-word combinations. Stopwords were removed.

Conversely, the topics extracted from The Guardian and The NYT underscore a decidedly political and critical evaluation of the event and the host region. The preeminent themes in these outlets pertain to migrant workers, human rights, and LGBTQ issues, with these topics not merely serving as peripheral narratives but as central foci of their coverage. Notably, even when The Guardian addresses the tournament itself, the discourse extends to cultural critiques, exemplified by the prominence of “women” within the sports context, pointing to a nuanced examination of women’s rights within the sporting milieu. ⁸ Again, it is important to remember that the analysis is based on the full corpus of articles, so these extracted topics represent the most central themes covered across the time period. When allowing for maximum variation in the data by not restricting the corpus only to those stories containing critical lens keywords or to those stories we manually filtered as non-sports centered, our research results here are clear: Western outlets choose a political issue agenda when covering a sports event, and this agenda is a critical one.

This dichotomy in thematic focus underscores the influence of editorial choices, journalistic values, and target audience expectations on media coverage. Western newspapers, driven by their editorial policies and perhaps a perceived audience appetite for critical narratives, tend to politicize the event, weaving in discussions on social justice and human rights. In contrast, Al Jazeera, catering to a potentially different audience with distinct values and interests, predominantly celebrates the sporting spirit and the uniting force of football, albeit with a nuanced acknowledgment of cultural differences. This analysis not only highlights the diverse lenses through which media outlets view major international events but also reflects the broader geopolitical and sociocultural undercurrents that inform global sports journalism.

Conclusion

This article analyzes media coverage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, comparing Al Jazeera with Western outlets like The Guardian and NYT. Through descriptive analysis, sentiment evaluation, and topic modeling, it highlights stark contrasts in thematic focus, revealing how cultural, political, and editorial factors shape media narratives. Our findings support the hypothesis that Western media outlets framed the event critically, emphasizing issues such as labor rights, corruption, and geopolitics, while Al Jazeera adopted a more favorable tone, focusing on national achievement, unity, and cultural significance—aligning with Qatar’s broader soft power strategy. This discrepancy underscores differing journalistic priorities and demonstrates how sports coverage serves as a lens for broader societal and political discourses.

By employing sentiment analysis, we identified a significant divergence in emotional tone: Western media used more negative sentiments, particularly anger and fear, while *Al Jazeera* maintained a comparatively neutral tone, even on critical topics. This suggests that editorial strategies and audience expectations shape not only thematic focus but also emotional framing. Topic modeling further illustrated these distinctions, showing *Al Jazeera’s* emphasis on sports coverage while Western outlets foregrounded political critiques of Qatar’s role as host. These findings contribute to framing theory and the political economy of journalism by demonstrating how sentiment-laden discourse reflects institutional and ideological influences on media narratives.

However, the study has limitations, including the potential biases of lexicon-based sentiment analysis and inductive topic modeling, as well as the relatively narrow dataset. Future research could expand this work by incorporating a broader range of media sources, multimodal content (e.g., visual and social media), and alternative computational approaches to enhance the robustness of framing analyses and further explore the intersection of sports and political discourse.

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