Covering racial political issues in Malaysia: The effect of news frames on readers' thoughts.

MUSTAFA, HASRINA; WAN MOHD GHAZALI, WAN NORS HIRA; MOHAMED, RAMLI

This paper seeks to investigate the prevalence of four media frames as identified in an earlier study of Malaysian newspapers with regard to a racial-political issue. This study likewise surveys the audience frames to explore the extent to which media frames influence readers' perception on the issue. A comparative content analysis of news articles on Teoh Beng Hock's death was conducted on the New Straits Times, Sin Chew Daily, Utusan Malaysia and Malaysia Kini from 17 July 2009 to end of July 2010. Meanwhile, a survey on 400 readers of the four newspapers was carried out. The result showed that all newspapers favoured the policy/action frame in reporting the issue, followed by the conflict, human interest and attribution of responsibility/ blame frames. Meanwhile, the audience frames echoed that of the media frames but differed in terms of sequence.

MALAYSIA; POLITICAL science; NEWSPAPERS; SOCIAL perception; CONTENT analysis; READERS; COMPARATIVE studies

Media Asia, 2013, Vol 40, Issue 1, p34

0129-6612

Academic Journal

10.1080/01296612.2013.11689949