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Figure 2. Number of gay-related articles per month in Straits Times in period 2. This figure illustrates total number of gay-related articles that appeared in Straits Times in each month of period 2. Period 2 starts from 9 November 2006 to 9 November 2008.
By using 7 July 2003 and 9 November 2006 as the watershed points, the time period under investigation was divided into 2 sections. In the first section, 7 July 2003 to 7 July 2005, there are 264 news stories related to gay or homosexuals identified in The Straits Times. And the second section, 9 November 2006 to 9 November 2008, contained 295 articles in the same newspaper. The sample size in the second section was around 12% larger than that in the first because as what Debenter et al. (2007) described, the appeal to decriminalize gay sex saw heated public debate and
unprecedented public participation online. As for The Online Citizen, 43 news article related to Section 377A was generated. A two year time frame was applied for The Online Citizen as well firstly so that a fair comparison can be made inter media in period two. Secondly, The Online Citizen started operation only on December 2006.
Thus, time frame beyond that would not be plausible.
Searching methods
Using LexisNexis Academic database, I generated articles by searching for 0
10 20 30 40 50 60
Nov‐06 Dec‐06 Jan‐07 Feb‐07 Mar‐07 Apr‐07 May‐07 Jun‐07 Jul‐07 Aug‐07 Sep‐07 Oct‐07 Nov‐07 Dec‐07 Jan‐08 Feb‐08 Mar‐08 Apr‐08 May‐08 Jun‐08 Jul‐08 Aug‐08 Sep‐08 Oct‐08
No. of ST Articles in Period 2
No. of ST Articles in Period 2
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“gay” OR “homosexual” OR “homosexuality” OR “Section 377A” in the body of all items and adding index terms Geography to Singapore in Straits Times archive from 7 July 2003 to 7 July 2005 and 9 November 2006 to 9 November 2008. I chose this search term so that I can include all local news that are related to gays and
homosexuality but at the same time exclude local report on foreign issues related to homosexuality. “Section 377A” was used as search term because I can include all local news that are related to the debate to repeal Section 377A but at the same time exclude reports that discuss repealing other constitution that is unrelated to our topic.
Penal Code is not chosen as a keyword because Penal Code is a very broad constitution that encompasses more than criminalization of homosexual sex and would produce significant number of articles that is irrelevant to this study if used as a search term. In addition, keywords like “gay” and “Section 377A” usually comes with
“Penal Code” when discussing gay-related issues. Thus, exclusion of “Penal Code” as a keyword should not result in significant loss of information.
I went through the samples and removed totally irrelevant articles that are generated because the articles contained the keyword “gay” due to a person’s surname or first name. Other articles that are generated because articles contained the word
“Gay World” (name of a demolished building) and “Ching Gay” (name of an annual street parade) are also taken out. In the instances when “gay” is used in the articles to describe having or showing a merry, lively mood, or used to described being bright or showy, such news stories are removed from the sample as well. For Straits Times, a total of 39 articles are removed from the sample of the first period and 26 articles are removed from the sample of the second period. With that, 225 articles in the first period and 269 articles in the second period of samples are remained. See diagram 3 below for better illustration.
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Figure 3. Number of gay-related articles in Straits Times over the two time period examined. This figure illustrates the total number of gay-related articles that appeared in Straits Times over the period 1 and 2 respectively.
As The Online Citizen is not a formal channel of news, there are 43 articles published in the web portal from the period between 9 November 2006 to 9 November 2008 when I search for keywords “gay” OR “homosexual” OR
“homosexuality” and “Section 377A” in The Online Citizen website. Thes search terms were chosen for the same reason explicated above. Altogether 537 news stories were studied to find out how homosexuals are framed intra-media (analyzing Straits Times) and inter-media (analyzing The Straits Times and The Online Citizen) during the two time periods.
Reasons for comparing Straits Times and The Online Citizen
Firstly, although there are a few English daily in Singapore including The Business Times, The New Paper and Mypaper15, Straits Time is the most-read
15 My paper is a bilingual newspaper in Singapore that covers home and world news, business, sports, lifestyle and entertainment in two languages (Singapore Press Holdings).
225 269
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newspaper in Singapore. 34 percent of the population that is age 15 and up reads the Straits Times in 2011. It is also the highest circulated newspaper in the country (Singapore Press Holdings, 2012). Thus, it serves as a suitable platform for studying how the mainstream press portrays homosexuals or homosexual-related news.
There is a number of online platforms such as Yawning Bread (Commentaries on politics and social issues in Singapore by Alex Au who is also an open gay and gay activist), Singapore Politics (Blog on Singapore politics and current affairs by Ng E-Jay), TR Emeritus (An independent Singapore blog site on politics and social issues), STOMP (i.e. Straits Times Online Mobile Print. So called citizen journalism website with user-generated material but was involved in a scandal in which they allegedly ask their employee to pass herself off as a citizen journalist and fabricate news.
STOMP belongs to the government owned Singapore Press Holdings which also publish the English Daily Straits Times), Public House (Singapore blog site on politics and social issues in Singapore) etc.
The Online Citizen is chosen because firstly, it is established since 2006, hence enables the comparison between the news reporting of Straits Times and The Online Citizen on the review of the Penal Code. Secondly, it was gazette as a political association and is registered as a media outlet under the Media Development Authority, providing a layer of objectivity and credibility. Also, the authors, editors, members and legal advisors of The Online Citizen team are all introduced in their real identity without anonymity. Therefore, providing their content an extra level of reliability. Lastly, the web portal has a readership of around 500,000, making it one of the leading socio-political website that produce quality and content in the country (Kumaran, 2012).
Measurements
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Each article in the Straits Time and The Online Citizen is the unit of analysis.
This paper segregates two time period in which period 1 is defined as time period between 7 July 2003 to 7 July 2005 whereas time period 2 is time period between 9 November 2006 to 9 November 2008.
News outlet.News outlet refers to the two medium examined in this paper i.e.
Straits Times and The Online Citizen.
Content relevancy.Content relevancy of articles measure whether less than or greater than 50% of the news content is on gay issues. This variable exists because we are only interested in examining articles that focus mainly on male homosexual issues and if male homosexuality is not the primary focus of the article, we exclude it from overall pool of articles. By primary focus, I mean that the homosexual issue content exceeds 50%. Relevancy percentage is calculated using number of paragraphs applicable to gay-related issues over total number of paragraphs of article. To be counted as paragraphs related to gay-related issues, that particular paragraph do not necessarily need to contain any of the four keywords. The important thing is the paragraph should discuss or report issues related to gay or homosexuals.
News focus.News focus of the articles can be gay-related news other than Section 377A, gay-related news with mention of Section 377A but is not the focus of the article and news focusing on Section 377A. By focus, I mean that the specified issue content exceeds 50%, calculated using number of paragraphs applicable to specified issues over total number of paragraphs of article.
News Section.News Section refers to which section do the news stories belong to. This is only applicable to the Straits Times as The Online Citizen though has its own categorization, the website is designed in such a way that it is technically impossible to identify which section each article falls under. Possible sections are
“Prime news”, “Singapore” (i.e. Local news), “Lifestyle” which includes art,
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entertainment, television, music etc., “Money” which includes financial news,
economic trends, “Forum” which includes letters written by public or organizations to the newspaper to discuss issues, “Commentary, Opinion and editorial” are clustered together under one category. Articles are coded 88 if it falls under sections other than the above and 99 if the section cannot be determined.
Length.The length of each news stories is measure by the total number of words in the main body text of the article excluding the headlines.
Number of Facebook “Like”.The number of Facebook “Like” of the article measures the total number of people who click “Like” on Facebook for the news stories. This is only applicable for news stories of online media The Online Citizen.
Story type.Story type of the news stories includes straight news, feature stories or indepth interview, news agency/translated stories and commentary or editorial. “Straight news” refers to news that is usually based on issues or events and start with all or some of the 5W and 1H. “Feature stories or indepth interview” refers to news stories that focus on products, people, or events in relation to homosexuality, or news analysis of trends, policies. “News agency/translated stories” refers to stories translated based on information from one or several foreign sources or datelined by wire services or news agencies. “Commentary or editorial” refers to articles that contain subjective opinions of the writer. Articles will be coded as commentary if the writer uses first person in writing. Articles that appeared in forum will be coded as commentary as well. Story types other than the above are coded as “Others”.
Topic.Topic refers to the subject of the article. One dominant focus will be coded. Possible topics include but not exclusive police arrests or charges, social trends, censorship, sex education, gay events, art and entertainment, scientific
findings, gay space, Section 377A and others. “Police arrests or charges” refer to news on gays being arrested or charged in court for molest, having sex in public or private,
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prostitution etc. “Social trends” refer to reports on gays turning straight, teenage homosexuals seeking counseling services, social behavior of gays etc. “Censorship”
refers to reports on censorship on gay-related topics on theatre drama, television programme, publications or application to hold gay events etc. “Sex education” refers to report on sex education provided by schools or external vendors to students that includes information on homosexuality. “Gay events” refer to news stories that report on events specifically for gays such as Nation, IndigNation and Pinkdot. “Art and Entertainments” refer to interviews, reports or reviews on movies, celebrities, theatres or performers related to homosexuality. Scientific findings refer to discovery related to homosexuality such as medical report showing homosexuality is genetic or inborn;
gay-related HIV/AIDS news. “Gay space” refers to reports for or against
discrimination or job equality for gays, same-sex union etc. “Section 377A” refers to news stories on Section 377A. Topics other than the above are coded as “Others”.
Number of news sources.Total number of sources quoted or paraphrased towards gay or related issues measures how many sources related to gay or gay-related issues were quoted or paraphrased. News source were defined as any person or group to which information was attributed. If a source appeared more than one time in a single story, the source will only be coded once. One, two, three, four and more or no source will be coded. Present perfect tense does not count as a source. e.g. The Minister has said…”. In this case, what the Minister said is not deemed as a news source. In addition, Media Development Authority (MDA) and spokesman of MDA, for instance, will be coded as different sources. Special care is taken to note the differences between information and description. News sources are information expressed by the source for the purpose of the event/issue related to the news. e.g.
“Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said in 1998…” This statement is a description of what happened in 1998 but not information provided for the current issue or event,
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hence it is not a news source. Questions i.e. statements that ended with a question mark are not coded.
Identity of news source.The identity of the source may be official-speaking people, elite people, gay activist or ordinary people. Official people refer to people who serve the government e.g. Ministers or Members of the Parliament. Elite people refer to opinion leaders that do not serve the government e.g. academia scholars, doctors, lawyer or professionals in specific areas. Gay activist refer to people who try to improve the way homosexuals are treated by society. Gay activists are coded only if the articles refer to the source specifically as gay activist or gay interest group.
Ordinary people refer to individual citizens who do not serve under the government or not member of any activist organization. The “reporter’s/writer’s source is what we are trying to find out. That is even if the source got its information from other source e.g. “the school said that the Ministry of Education informed them that…” the source should be attributed to the school. If a source appeared more than one time in a single story with different title e.g. first time as Professor of the National University of Singapore and second time as Singapore gay activist, source will be coded as elite people and not gay activist.
News tone. The news tone of the source could be pro-gay, anti-gay or neutral towards male homosexuals in terms of gay sex and space, media representation of gays and gays being inborn. For example, the following statement is pro-gay in terms of people are born gay. “If you are genetically born a homosexual – because that’s the nature of the genetic random transmission of genes – you can’t help it”. Another instance, the following statement is pro-gay in terms of gay sex. “Let’s not go around like this moral police… barging into people’s rooms. That’s not our business”. Giving another example, the following statement is pro-gay in terms of gay space. “Our job as a government is to manage an environment in which there’s maximum space for
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each person, each view… for each people to live his own life without impinging on other people”.
Dominant frame.The dominant frame of the news stories includes but not exclusive, morality, equality, scientific frame and other frames. None is coded if there is no dominant frame. The headline and top three paragraphs will be read to determine the dominant frame. A news story that is framed in morality places the gay-related issues or events in the context of morality. It stresses that Singapore is by and large a conservative nation and that the gay community threatens traditional moral values and compromise the nation’s position on procreation. It refers homosexuality as a Western decadence and incompatible with Asian society like Singapore. In some cases, it gave successful examples of “ex-homosexuals that convert to “normal heterosexual”. In the case of the debate on whether to repeal Section 377A, opponents to repeal the
constitution also discuss the possibility of leading to future undesirable scenarios of approval of bestiality and paedophila if Section 377A was repealed. Morality frame can be used to support gay rights as well. For example, gay supporters maintained that hatred is not part of family value. On the other hand, a news story that is framed in equality frame places gay related issues or events in the context of equality, stressing that gays as part of Singapore should not be discriminated or excluded or deprived of human rights that other heterosexuals counterparts enjoy. For example, gay supporters might argue homosexuality is as fundamental to gay people as heterosexuality is fundamental to straight people. Equality frame can be used by anti-gay people too.
For example, anti-gay supporter purport gay activists are lobbying for special rights by labeling themselves as sexual minorities. A scientific frame places gay-related issues in the context of science. It can be used by gay supporters to contend homosexuality as a sexual orientation that is genetic and inborn and thus
uncontrollable. On the other hand, anti-gay supporters can use the lack of scientific
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evidence to back their argument as well. Anti-gays may also use scientific frames to argue that men having sex with men (MSM) resulted in a surge of HIV cases which calls for concern.
Attitude of article.The overall attitude of article towards male homosexuality measures the overall attitude of the news stories towards male homosexuality. It could be favourable/positive, unfavourable/negative or no valence. To code this variable, coder ask themselves whether it seems like the writer likes gays, dislikes gays, or neither.
Reliability Test
To establish intercoder reliability, two graduate students of the
Communication Department coded 10 percent (n = 54) of the total sample. A table of random numbers was used to draw a simple random sample of 54 articles from 537 news articles. The Cohen (1960) kappa interrater agreement coefficient for each variable ranged from 1.0 to .79. The Cohen’s kappa is a statistic used to access inter-coder reliability when observing qualitative or categorical variables. This coefficient ranges from 0 to 1.0 with larger values reflecting higher reliability. In general, a coefficient greater than .75 is acceptable (Wimmer & Dominick, 2010). Cohen’s kappa is chose to check intercoder reliability because it uses “marginal distribution”
to correct the relative frequency of agreement between coders to account for
agreement which occurs by chance (Zwick, 1988). Although Scott’s Pi (1955) can do the same, according to Zwick (1988), in the presence of marginal homogeneity, Cohen’s kappa produces the same information as Scotts Pi. To support the above argument, assumption of marginal heterogeneity may be more realistic than assuming marginal homogeneity (Hsu & Field, 2003). See table 1 below for intercoder
reliability coefficient for each variable.
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Content Relevancy
News Focus
News
Section Length No. of
Section Length No. of