Fifty Muslims were assassinated in a Mosque by a racist gunman in New Zealand 2019, which departs from media’s habitual cognition that Muslims are the perpetrators.
Therefore,
- How would US media, preferring stigmatizing the Muslims and link them with terrorism , respond to this incident?
- How would Chinese media which are prudent on reporting religion news view this event?
- Most importantly, as the stakeholder, how would the Arab media regard this massive gun-attack?
To address the questions, and guided by the framing theory, this study examines the differences among US, Saudi Arabian, and Chinese news media in reporting the New Zealand Mosque attack in 2019. The frames for analyzing in this study include high-, medium-, and low-level frame, proposed by Zang Guoren contending in each of the news reports, there are similar structures consisting of high-level frame defining a news, medium-level frame composed of major events, previous events, attribution, etc., and low-level frame referring to the words, sentences, or metaphor in the text.
In this study, a sample of 512 news reports published in the three news outlets within the week of March 15, 2019, was collected, and 217 passages were content-analyzed after data-cleaning, with 88 in English, 100 in Arabic, and 29 in Chinese. The result shows that,
- The New York Times constructed the event with interpretation for the high-level frame (29.5%), attribution for the medium (45.5%), and neutral long stories for the low (48%, 69.3%).
- Asharq Al-Awsat, the world’s premier pan-Arab daily newspaper, the human-interest accounted the most (27%) for the high, attribution for the medium (41%), and positive short news for the low (60%, 74%).
- Xinhua News Agency, the biggest and most influential media organization in China, as well as the largest news agency in the world in terms of correspondents worldwide, focused on news fact for the high (20%), major event for the medium (44.8%), and neutral short stories for the low (60%, 64%).
To be specified, social network analysis was introduced to clarify what agenda networks these media framed, which generated interesting outcomes: the New York Times networked terrorist’s background and motivation; Asharq Al-Awsat cared about the victims, survivors, and mourning events, while China’s Xinhua News Agency connected the governmental control with the social network site (SNS) regulation.
Finally, this paper discussed that, compared to the reporting of Muslim-triggered attack, which is frequently linked with terrorism, the three representative media have modified their reporting frames on this Mosque attack, indicating media frames are dynamic, and changes aligned with the newsmaker. Specifically, media reporting on non-Muslim attacks are more cautious than that on Muslim-terrorist attacks, which reflects the reporting discrimination. To build a world of inclusiveness, respect, and reciprocity in digital era, news outlets should reevaluate their biased reporting frames, especially on religion and race.