Media Sentiment Towards Chinese Investments in Malaysia: An Examination of the Forest City Project

We collected national newspaper articles on the largest Chinese investment project in Malaysia, Forest City, and examined media sentiment polarity using alternative automated sentiment analysis tools. We further checked the robustness of these results using content analysis, and consistently found that sentiment polarity for mainstream news is more volatile than independent online journalism. We also found that the sentiment polarity of Malaysian mainstream media towards Chinese investments is aligned with government interactions between the two countries. This suggests that the sentiment of Malaysian mainstream media towards Chinese investments complies with local government attitudes, while independent online media are less constrained by government control. In light of this, foreign investors looking to more effectively estimate risks should monitor both independent and mainstream media to calculate the sentiment of the host country towards their foreign direct investment projects.