Coronavirus on the Agenda of RIA Novosti and Reuters News Agencies

The article presents the results of the comparative content analysis of publications by RIA Novosti and Reuters news agencies on the coronavirus pandemic. The purpose of the research is to identify the place of COVID-19 on the agenda of Russian and English-speaking regions' news agencies. The goal of the research is to determine the features of news media pandemic coverage. There is the hypothesis that coronavirus has taken a dominant position on the world agenda in all sectors of society: political, economic, social and cultural, transforming their priorities. The specifics of the work of news agencies have also undergone transformation. The relevance of the chosen topic is explained by the novelty of the phenomenon that was studied, as well as by lack of research of information agencies compared to such media subsystems as press, radio, television, and especially new media. In addition, there was much public and scientific discussion of coronavirus infection. The study found that COVID was a big story and dominated news coverage on the flagship websites of news agencies. The topic is at the top of Russian and English-language media agenda. At the same time, Reuters focused on international and economic discourse, while RIA Novosti preferred social and cultural issues. Nevertheless, both agencies focused on human interest stories; had inflammatory headlines and emotionally colored vocabulary, which is not typical for news stories. The topic of coronavirus is expected to remain a big story on the media landscape at least for the first part of 2021.