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Abstract

This study examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is framed in Kazakhstan’s online news media during a period of accelerated, state-led AI adoption. Drawing on a dictionary-based content analysis of 677 Russian-language articles published between January 2023 and December 2025 across five major online news outlets (608 from four main outlets used in the primary analysis; 69 from Technews.kz included as a technology-specialist comparator), the study applies framing theory and agenda-setting by omission to identify dominant thematic patterns. Results show that AI coverage is overwhelmingly oriented toward narratives of economic modernization, innovation, and administrative efficiency. Governance-related concerns, including ethics, data privacy, and transparency, are absent from 71.4% of articles overall, declining from 82.4% in 2023 to 65.1% in 2025. No outlet group consistently foregrounds governance concerns, with independent outlets showing the highest silence (81.1%) and pro-government commercial outlets the lowest (67.5%). These patterns suggest that AI functions as a narrative tool for reinforcing technological optimism in Kazakhstan, contributing to a public discourse centered on efficiency rather than accountability. This study contributes to the existing literature on soft authoritarianism by showing how AI narratives narrow public debate on ethics through specific framing rather than censorship. It also challenges assumptions about media ownership, demonstrating that editorial independence does not necessarily translate into more critical coverage of emerging technologies. Finally, the paper also extends research on the AI governance literature to the understudied Central Asian context, providing empirical evidence on how political and media systems shape technological discourse.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; media framing; agenda-setting; Kazakhstan; content analysis; soft authoritarianism; governance silence