Dataset for: Media Narratives and Agenda-Setting on the Election Impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI): A Comparative Content Analysis of the New York Times and the Chosun Ilbo during the 2024 U.S. and Korean Elections

Technological advancements and societal changes are giving rise to numerous ripple effects. Among these is a crucial question for democracies: Will AI-based disinformation influence elections? Concurrently, media outlets may use attention-grabbing keywords and present narratives in sensationalist contexts to attract more views. By setting agendas, the news media can make the public aware of the topics they have identified without directly mentioning them, and how the news covers certain topics can influence public perception. Therefore, this study examined AI and elections coverage from the Chosun Ilbo(South Korea) and the New York Times (U.S.) during the 2024 election period to determine what narrative structures they employ and how they convey this information to the public. I asked: How are readers exposed to content on AI and elections, and what can this tell us about how ambient agenda setting on disinformation operates across distinct media environments?

To answer the question, this study collected a total of 634 articles, 342 from the NYT and 292 from the CI, and analyzed those through content analysis. The study yielded three main findings through the empirical data and analysis. 1. The two newspapers showed distinct differences in layout and writing style.  2. The two newspapers employed very different framing strategies for the same topic (Act vs. Concern). 3. Numerous ‘poor-fit’ articles included AI and election fears, even though the article body did not address elections or AI. The NYT especially exhibited a pattern of repeatedly including AI-related articles and keywords in election-related coverage, reflecting recurring patterns of agenda-setting within the newspaper’s coverage. These findings expand studies of agenda setting to new topics of AI fears and realities, showing that how the media covers AI technology can be even more important than the quantity of coverage as concerns current and possible future impacts upon democratic elections. In particular, this study proposes ambient agenda-setting as a framework for understanding how repeated, subtle, and indirect exposure to AI and election-related content shapes public perceptions of disinformation across distinct media environments. While both the NYT and the CI utilized elections and AI as major agenda items, the precise reasons why these editorial decisions were made remain an opportunity for future research.

Keywords: AI, disinformation, election, agenda-setting, ambient agenda-setting, content analysis, New York Times, Chosun Ilbo, the United States, South Korea