From theft to racist brawl: the framing of Low Yat incident by Malaysian newspapers

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to conduct a framing analysis on the coverage of the Law Yat incident, whereby a theft case was escalated into racist brawl in Malaysia. The study compared the coverage of mainstream Malay-, English- and Chinese-language as well as alternative newspapers. The findings indicated that the newspapers reported the incident with different intensity, prominence, news sources, news frames and valence. It was found that the Law Yat incident has been highly racialized by irresponsible bloggers, social media users and politicians in the country. The findings also reflected that race and ethnicity issues remain highly politicized in Malaysia.

KEYWORDS:

• Framing
• interethnic conflict
• vernacular newspaper
• alternative newspapers
• Law Yat incident

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Lai Fong Yang is a senior lecturer at the School of Communication, Taylor’s University, Malaysia. Currently she teaches Communication Theory to undergraduates, and Political Communication and Advanced Communication Theories at graduate level. Her areas of research include media and ethnicity, media and diplomacy, political communication, and media sociology. Her publications can be found in the Asian Journal of Communication, International Journal of Communication, Ethnicities, Chinese Journal of Communication, International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, Malaysian Journal of Communication among others. She is also the sub-editor of SEARCH Journal, which is published by Taylor’s University Malaysia, and indexed in SCOPUS since 2012.

Antoon De Rycker is an associate professor at the School of Communication, Taylor’s University, Malaysia. He holds a PhD from the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and a Master’s degree from the University of Reading, UK. His research interests include recontextualisation and discourse (especially the [mis]representation of research activities among postgraduate students), the material and semiotic aspects of ‘doing crisis’ as a social practice and more recently, the complex interactions among urban Malaysians’ online activities, their participation in traditional local settings and the diversity of their social networks. With Zuraidah Mohd Don (University of Malaya), he edited Discourse and Crisis: Critical Perspectives.