‘Stranger in the Dark’: A Comparative Analysis of the Reporting of Rape Cases Against Minors in Malay and English Newspapers in Brunei and Malaysia

Sharifah Nurul Huda Alkaff, James Andrew Howard McLellan

Abstract


Journalists of Malay and English newspapers from Brunei and Malaysia are found to adopt different stances in terms of their inclusion of detail and their level of involvement or detachment in crime and accident reports. This study combines an analysis of online news reports of rape cases with interview data from journalists and editors of Malay and English newspapers in Brunei and Malaysia. Our original hypothesis is that Malay news reports would demonstrate a more restrained approach to crime and accident news compared to English news stories.  Four parallel pairs of rape stories from four newspapers were analysed using Fairclough’s (1995) framework and van Leeuwen’s (2008) representation of social actors and social action approach.  Critical case purposive sampling method was used to collect the news stories. The findings reveal clear differences in how rape cases are reported by the Malay newspapers vis-à-vis their English counterparts, with reports in the Malaysian Malay paper, for example, being longer and containing more details of the crimes while the opposite is found in the Bruneian Malay paper. Our findings suggest that differences in the reporting of rape cases are not just due to linguistic differences but are culturally, ideologically and politically situated.

 


Keywords


critical discourse analysis; comparative media discourse; newspapers; rape; reporting

Full Text:

PDF

References


Abdullah Hassan & Ainon Muhammad (2001). Teori dan teknik terjemahan. Kuala Lumpur: PTS Publications

Alkaff, S. & McLellan, J. (2017). "Same News, Different Stances"? A Comparative Media Discourse Investigation of Hard News Texts in the New Straits Times and Berita Harian. Pertanika: Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. Vol. 25(2), 511–540.

Alkaff, S., McLellan, J., & Fatimah Chuchu (2016). Similar story, different angles? A comparative study of ‘Hard News’ texts in the Malay and English print media in Brunei Darussalam. In Noor Azam Haji-Othman, J.

McLellan & D. Deterding (Eds.), The use and status of language in Brunei Darussalam: A kingdom of unexpected linguistic diversity (pp. 211–237). Singapore: Springer.

Alat, Z. (2006). News coverage of violence against women: The Turkish case. Feminist Media Studies. Vol.6 (3), 295-314.

Bell, A. (2014). News Stories as Narratives. In A. Jaworski & N. Coupland (Eds.) The discourse reader (pp. 236–251). Oxford: Routledge.

Bonnes, S. (2013). Gender and Racial Stereotyping in Rape Coverage: An analysis of rape coverage in a South African newspaper, Grocott's Mail. Feminist Media Studies. Vol. 13(2), 208-227.

Charteris-Black, J. (1995). Proverbs in communication. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. Vol. 16 (4), 259-268.

Coates, L. and Wade, A. (2004). Telling it like it isn’t: Obscuring perpetrator responsibility for a violent crime. Discourse & Society. Vol. 15(5), 499-526.

Deterding, D., & Poedjosoedarmo, G. (2001). The grammar of English: Morphology and syntax for English teachers in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Prentice Hall.

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. London: Longman.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Media discourse. London: Edward Arnold.

Fowler, R., Hodge, B., Kress, G., & Trew, T. (Eds.) (1979). Language and control. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the news: Discourse and ideology in the press. London: Routledge.

Hodge, R., & Kress, G. (1979). Language as ideology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Johnstone, B. (2002). Discourse analysis. London: Blackwell.

Kaplan, R. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education. Language Learning. Vol. 16, 1-20.

Knox, J. & Patpong, P. (2008). Reporting bloodshed in Thai newspapers: A comparative case study of English and Thai. In E. Thomson & P. White (Eds.), Communicating conflict: Multilingual case studies of the news media (pp. 173–202). London: Continuum.

Martin, P. & Poedjosoedarmo, G. (1996). Introduction: an overview of the language situation in Brunei Darussalam. In P. Martin, G.

Poedjosoedarmo & Ozog, C. (Eds.) Language use and language change in

Brunei Darussalam (pp. 1-26). Athens, OH: Ohio University Centre for International Studies.

Milner, A. (2008). The Malays. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Nagar, I. (2016). Reporting rape: Language, neoliberalism and the media. Discourse and Communication. Vol. 10(3), 257-273.

Nothofer, B. (1991). The languages of Brunei Darussalam. In H. Steinhauer (Ed.) Papers in Austronesian Linguistics, No 1. Pacific Linguistics A-81 (pp. 151-176). Canberra: Australian National University.

Nurkhalisah Mustapa. (2013). Issues in translation between Malay and English. Southeast Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal. Vol. 13, 27–34.

Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Reiner, R. (2002) Media made criminality: The representation of crime in the mass media. In

R. Reiner, M. Maguire, & R. Morgan (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (pp. 302-340). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Richardson, J. (2007). Analysing newspapers: An approach from critical discourse analysis. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan.

Scollon, R., Wong-Scollon, S. & Kirkpatrick. A. (1998). Contrastive discourse in Chinese and English: A critical appraisal. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Strewig, F. & Stead, G. (2001). Planning, Reporting & Designing Research. Cape Town: Pearson.

Thomson, E., White, P., & Kitley, P. (2008). ‘Objectivity’ and ‘Hard News’ reporting across cultures. Journalism Studies. Vol. 9(2), 212–228.

van Dijk, T.A. (1988a). News analysis. Case studies of international and national news in the press. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

van Dijk, T.A. (1988b). News discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

van Dijk, T.A. (1991). Racism and the press. London: Routledge.

van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wang, S. (1993). The New York Times and Renmin Ribao’s news coverage of the 1991 Soviet coup: A case study of international news discourse. Text. Vol. 13(4), 559–598.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/gema-2018-1803-02

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


 

 

 

eISSN : 2550-2131

ISSN : 1675-8021