How do the Australian dominant media represent the Asia-Pacific region?

choose to study and analyse the representation of any current issue pertaining to the Asia-Pacific region in any medium (newspapers, television etc) in Australia. You have to monitor the coverage for 2 weeks (at least 10 days) to distil the ‘frames’[1] through which the issue is represented in Australia. The representation of the issue is to be analysed within the framework of edward Said’s argument(2). How are ‘Western values’ (such as capitalism, democracy) instrinsic or explicit in the representation.

What are the implications of such coverage for understanding of the issue?

Was the issue ‘framed’ differently outside the region?

Format of the essay:

? Introduction stating briefly your observation/argument, methodology: what have you analysed, within what time frame and what are the units of analysis. Please also state the dominant theories you employ to support your argument.

? Analysis to be sub-divided thematically (not chronologically). Referencing style to be consistent . Harvard or Intext references preferred. Page numbers must be mentioned. Ensure that theories are intertwined with the analysis and are not listed in a separate section.
Conclusion, not repeating but highlighting the salient points of your analysis.

? Appendices: attach hard copies of newspaper articles/online journal articles; mention details of TV programs and provide You-tube links if available.

? Reference list in alphabetical order with all details.
[1] For those who are still unsure of ‘frames’, first think of ‘frames’. What happens when you look through a frame? A ‘frame’ puts things within a boundary. If a picture is framed, then it means that the attention is contained within the frames. People are expected to look at the picture within the frame and appreciate it, in other words what is framed is what must be focussed on. Similarly when issues are framed by media, they are given certain perspectives, that is media tells people that this is the way to understand these issues.

To repeat a well-known example, relating to media coverage of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne in 2008-2009, the Australian media covered it as a ‘law and order issue,’ i.e., the media here conveyed that it was not something peculiar to Indian students, that people who belonged to the vulnerable sections of society were attacked whether they were Indian or of any other nationality.

But the Indian media reported the attacks as a case of racism. It reported the events in such a way that people were led to believe that only Indian students were attacked. This was done in a number of ways. First, only incidents involving Indian students were reported; second, the incidents were clearly described as examples of racism; third, other cases of racism were specified. Thus the frame used by the Indian media was one of Indian students as ‘victims of racism.’

Please read up on framing analysis and follow an accepted method :-
Edward Said’s Oreintalism ( Click http://www.renaissance.com.pk/FebBoRe2y6.htm link to open resource. )
Clash of civilisations? ( Click http://www.thenation.com/article/clash-ignorance?page=0,1 link to open resource.

Daniel Martin Varisco, Reading orientalism: said and the unsaid, 2007.

Edward W. Said Moustafa Bayoumi, The Edward Said reader, Andrew Rubin 2000