‘Stranger in the Dark’ : a comparative analysis of the reporting of rape cases against minors in Malay and English newspapers in Brunei and Malaysia

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 int...

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Main Authors: Sharifah Nurul Huda Alkaff, McLellan, James
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2018
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17604/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17604/1/22922-82953-1-PB.pdf
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author Sharifah Nurul Huda Alkaff,
McLellan, James
author_facet Sharifah Nurul Huda Alkaff,
McLellan, James
author_sort Sharifah Nurul Huda Alkaff,
building UKM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description 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.
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spelling oai:generic.eprints.org:176042021-11-22T04:56:22Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17604/ ‘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, McLellan, James 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. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2018-08 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17604/1/22922-82953-1-PB.pdf Sharifah Nurul Huda Alkaff, and McLellan, James (2018) ‘Stranger in the Dark’ : a comparative analysis of the reporting of rape cases against minors in Malay and English newspapers in Brunei and Malaysia. GEMA ; Online Journal of Language Studies, 18 (3). pp. 17-34. ISSN 1675-8021 https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1098
spellingShingle Sharifah Nurul Huda Alkaff,
McLellan, James
‘Stranger in the Dark’ : a comparative analysis of the reporting of rape cases against minors in Malay and English newspapers in Brunei and Malaysia
title ‘Stranger in the Dark’ : a comparative analysis of the reporting of rape cases against minors in Malay and English newspapers in Brunei and Malaysia
title_full ‘Stranger in the Dark’ : a comparative analysis of the reporting of rape cases against minors in Malay and English newspapers in Brunei and Malaysia
title_fullStr ‘Stranger in the Dark’ : a comparative analysis of the reporting of rape cases against minors in Malay and English newspapers in Brunei and Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed ‘Stranger in the Dark’ : a comparative analysis of the reporting of rape cases against minors in Malay and English newspapers in Brunei and Malaysia
title_short ‘Stranger in the Dark’ : a comparative analysis of the reporting of rape cases against minors in Malay and English newspapers in Brunei and Malaysia
title_sort ‘stranger in the dark’ : a comparative analysis of the reporting of rape cases against minors in malay and english newspapers in brunei and malaysia
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17604/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17604/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/17604/1/22922-82953-1-PB.pdf