Underlying Sentiments in 1867: A Study of News Flows on the Execution of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico in Digitized Newspaper Corpora

Abstract

<p>This article focuses on the international news flow regarding the execution of Maximilian, the Emperor of Mexico. The execution occurred in June 1867, but it received global attention only at the beginning of July when the news started to spread over the borders, via telegraph, and rapidly through the network of newspapers. The article concentrates on international news on Maximilian's execution between 5 and 20 July 1867. The aim of the study is both empirical and methodological. It explores the sentiments underlying the news about the execution and the regional differences in these sentiments on an empirical level. On a methodological level, the article investigates the strategies to analyze sentiments via newspaper corpora in a multilingual research setting. The study is based on optically recognized historical newspapers in three languages (German, Spanish and English), and four regions (Austria, Germany, Mexico, and the United States). Our analysis shows content variations in the corpora, mainly that news was framed differently in each studied region, indicating that the local perception of the event and political interests shaped the news. In our corpus, the Mexican press –published in the middle of a political crisis– tended towards a neutral stance, the Austrian and German papers mainly were negative, and the United States showed mixed sentiments on the incident.<br></p>