Framing of the Unified Examination Certificate by Malaysian Ethnic Newspapers
Kai Chee Lam
kclam@unimas.my
Lecturer, Faculty of Language and Communication, Universiti MalaysiaSarawak (UNIMAS), Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia
Yeo Wei Ting
tingyeowei96@gmail.com
Student, Faculty of Language and Communication, Universiti MalaysiaSarawak (UNIMAS), Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia
Lay Hoon Ang
hlang@upm.edu.my
Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor Dr), Department of Foreign Languages, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
Foo Terng Hoe
fthoe@yahoo.com
Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor Dr), Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Penang branch, Penang, Malaysia
Keywords
framing; valence; Unified Examination Certificate; ethnopolitics
Abstract

Media framing makes an issue salient. This study attempts to determine the frequency of episodic and thematic frames in news about the Unified Examination Certificate issue and identify the framing dimensions and valence used. Textual analysis of the content and headlines was performed on 100 news articles from newspapers of two languages. Results indicate that all the articles were framed episodically, with the “attribution of responsibility” dimension used most frequently, followed by the “human interest” and “conflict” dimensions. Chinese articles tended to use neutral valance, whereas Malay articles mostly used negative valence. These findings provide insights into ethnic politically-influenced and reader-oriented presentations of an issue by different newspapers. Future studies may focus on newspapers using the same language and investigate the framing effects by mainstream and alternative media.

DOI
section: Articles
section: Articles

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