This paper continues the line of inquiry that unites the paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with quantitative methods. It suggests that Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), a software for automated text analysis broadly employed in social sciences, can enrich the CDA toolkit. In two case studies LIWC is used to analyze the construction and representation of the ‘Other’ in mass media. Study 1 centers on the representation of Russia in The New York Times (NYT) before and after its annexation of Crimea; Study 2 explores the change in sentiment toward Islam in NYT before and after 9/11. It is found that in both cases the attitudinal change is driven by a growth in negative emotion words rather than by a diminution in positive words.