Framing Analysis of ASEAN Online News Media Coverage of South China Sea Dispute between China and the Philippines
Framing Analysis of ASEAN Online News Media Coverage of South China Sea Dispute between China and the Philippines
Abstract
This study aimed to know how the online news media in ASEAN , particularly that of Brunei - The Brunei Times (www.bt.com.bn); Indonesia - The Jakarta Post (www.thejakartapost.com); Malaysia - The Borneo Post (www.theborneopost.com); Philippines - Philippine Daily Inquirer (www.inquirer.net); Singapore - The Straits Times (www.straitstimes.com); Thailand - The Nation (www.nationmultimedia.com); and Vietnam - Thanh Nien Daily (www.thanhniennews.com) gave attention and emphasis to the territorial dispute in South China Sea between China and the Philippines, and to know if these online news media covered the issue towards peace, war or neutral.
Guided by the theories of Transnational Comparative Framing Model (TCFM), an emerging approach in Framing Theory, the Peace and War Journalism of Johan Galtung (1970), and the Political Institution Theory, and by doing content analysis, the study found out that there was little attention given to the Sea dispute by the majority of the ASEAN online news media. . Only the Philippine Daily Inquirer of the Philippines and Thanh Nien Daily of Vietnam who were vocal claimants to the Sea gave higher attention. The study also found out that war journalism frames were the most dominant frame indicators used over peace journalism. These indicators were elite-orientations, partisan, one-party-orientations and differences-orientations. It also found out that the strong relations among the ASEAN member states gave rise to the biased coverage towards the Philippines.
Keywords
Framing, Peace and War Journalism, South China Sea dispute, China, Philippines, UNCLOS, ASEAN, Online News Media