Media coverage of the 1998-1999 Anwar Ibrahim event in Malaysia :a study of the coverage of the story in selected international newsmagazines

Abstract

Focus in studies on communication and media is most often directed towards audiences, the level of influence on the audience by their local as well as international media and the audience perceptions with regard to various media content. The focus of the present study is however directed towards examining the use of metaphors in the coverage given to a Malaysian event in selected International magazines. The International newsmagazines selected for the study were: the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Economist, the Newsweek and the Time. Individual metaphors were used as unit of analysis. In all, 1318 metaphors were coded into four thematic categories and three image categories to answer two research questions. First research question was: What categories of metaphors were emphasized in the International magazines coverage of the 1998 – 1999 Anwar Ibrahim event? The second research question was: What kind of image of the Malaysian actors was contained in the coverage? Quantitative content analysis revealed that the coverage mostly emphasized the thematic category (1) political metaphors, followed in that order by (2) the social, (3) legal and (4) economic categories. It was also found that the coverage of the Malaysian actors was pervasively negative, as a vast majority of metaphors were coded as unfavourable to Malaysian actors. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of Gramsci’s hegemony theory and media framing research.