Global news media coverage of artificial intelligence (AI): A comparative analysis of frames, sentiments, and trends across 12 countries Muhammad Ittefaq a,** , Ali Zain b , Rauf Arif c,* , Mohammad Ala-Uddin d , Taufiq Ahmad e , Azhar Iqbal f a School of Communication Studies, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, United States b Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University, Phoenix, United States c Department of Mass Communication, Towson University, Towson, United States d Department of Communication Studies, Dance and Theatre, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, United States e Department of Communication, University of Maryland, College Park, United States f William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Kansas, Lawrence, United States A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Artificial intelligence Framing of AI Framing of emerging technologies Global South Sentiment analysis ABSTRACT This study examined the coverage of artificial intelligence (AI) in newspapers from 12 countries by analyzing news articles (N = 38,787) collected from 12 mainstream English newspapers, between 2010 and 2023. We used LDA topic modeling to identify prevalent frames in the news articles and SentiStrength to examine sentiments in the news headlines. Framing theory was applied in interpreting our results. Our analysis identified nine frames across newspapers: AI impacts on businesses, economy, and jobs (37.40 %), AI transformations in education and research (17.70 %), AI in national security and global partnerships (11.20 %), AI disruptions in media and creative industries (9.6 %), AI-based innovative solutions (7.30 %), AI regulations, ethics, and data privacy (6.40 %), AI competition and market dynamics in tech industries (4.90 %), AI in healthcare and climate change (3.47 %), and AI in politics, elections, and public opinion (2.03 %). A comparative analysis suggested that the Global North newspapers gave relatively lower coverage to AI-based innovative solutions and AI in healthcare and climate change while AI regulations, ethics, and data privacy and AI disruptions in media and creative industries received minimal coverage from the Global South newspapers. Our overall sentiment analysis indicated that 21.04 % of news headlines evoked negative, 13.33 % positive, and 65.63 % neutral senti- ments. The Global North newspapers such as The Guardian and The NYT framed AI negatively in the 24 % of their news headlines, while the Global South newspapers such as China Daily and Bangkok Post framed AI positively in the 14.5 % of their news headlines. * Corresponding author at: 8000 York Road, Towson, Maryland 21252, United States. ** Corresponding author at: 54 Bluestone Drive Harrisonburg, Virginia, 22807, United States. E-mail addresses: ittefamx@jmu.edu (M. Ittefaq), ali.zain@asu.edu (A. Zain), rarif@towson.edu (R. Arif), malauddin@saintmarys.edu (M. Ala- Uddin), taufiq@umd.edu (T. Ahmad), azhariqbal@ku.edu (A. Iqbal). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Telematics and Informatics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tele https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2024.102223 Received 8 July 2024; Received in revised form 20 November 2024; Accepted 6 December 2024 Telematics and Informatics 96 (2025) 102223 Available online 9 December 2024 0736-5853/© 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.