Framing Corruption in Malaysian Mainstream and Alternative Media

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject South Asian Studies, South-Eastern Asian Studies, grade: 1,3, University of Frankfurt (Main) (Institut für Ostasiatische Philologien), language: English, abstract: This paper will carefully examine the different frames to the presentation of corruption in four Malaysian online newspapers, within which selection are included examples of both mainstream and alternative media. These frames determine the coverage of a specific event or topic, which means that they define the information that is selected and that which is left out when reporting on a certain issue. As different frames can lead to very different and perhaps even opposing point of views, they strongly influence and guide peoples thinking process. The first section is subdivided into three parts. As a first step, I will consider the origins of the close alliance between mainstream newspapers and the government. On the basis of articles from The Star Online and The Sun Daily, which are online examples of daily mainstream newspapers, the next two parts analyze how corruption is reported. In the following chapter I will start by giving an overview of alternative media in the Internet. This will precede a re-examination of articles from the alternative online newspapers Malaysia Today and Free Malaysia Today, with regard to the presentation of corruption. The principal conclusions of this study will be summarized in the end.