News Framing Lynas Plant Project: A Study of Five Malaysian Newspapers

As environmental and ecological issues become an important concern today, every news reporting must capture the attention and the awareness of the society to make sure the right message is received by the readers. Newspapers have the power to influence people's mind and attention hence, it depends on the way that journalists write or based on the house style of the newspapers. The objective of this study is to identify the news orientation on a case study of Lynas Corporation Limited in five Malaysian newspapers. This study is used the quantitative approach based on content analysis of news reporting in The Star, Berita Harlan, Utusan Malaysia, Harakah and Suara Keadilan over a seven-month duration. The findings show that the coverage pattern among the five different mainstream newspapers was different. These findings indicated that the mass media can be a function for the media owner to express their own principles. Based on the findings, the newspapers, however, did not fulfill their role in giving information to the public but still the servant to taskmasters. In conclusion, newspapers have been unsuccessful in its role to educate the public on the environmental issues. Policies were made to control the freedom and to limit the ideology as the media owners still have the power over the source and the idea of each story.