Exploring Media Images of Librarians in Newspapers of Mainland China and Taiwan

Abstract

Public opinion shapes the image of organizations. Stereotypes about libraries have harmed their image in conjunction with the quick development of technology. It is necessary to initiate new strategies so that public opinions on libraries could be improved and resources of libraries could fully demonstrate their values. Librarians play an important role in shaping the image of libraries. This study attempts to identify the image of librarians in the media based on two major newspapers in mainland China and Taiwan through text and sentiment analysis. The considered lexical features are high-frequency words, shared words, keyness words, and sentiment words. The results revealed that in mainland China, librarians are regarded as history experts whose key functions are protecting, preserving, and studying ancient materials. In Taiwan, librarians provide various high-quality services for readers. In both regions, individuals agree that patrons and resources are the major concerns of librarians, and librarians are a bridge between patrons and resources. Finally, the sentiment values of words related to librarians are positive in both regions, but only slightly exceed neutral sentiment.

Keywords

• librarian
• media image
• sentiment analysis
• text analysis