2. Literature Review
2.6 Research Questions
The present study examines the news coverage of the Foxconn event in Taiwan’s newspapers, to sort out the news frames that were employed in reporting labor and observe whether the news frames used in reporting the incident changed with time and whether any pattern can be identified. In addition, this thesis also examines if political affiliation would bring any influence to a newspaper’s coverage on the coverage of labor in the suicide jump incident.
Specifically, the thesis aims to answer the following four questions:
RQ1: How do the four dailies in Taiwan present the Foxconn suicide jumps in terms of quantity of coverage, news sources, and the use of
photographs?
RQ2: What are the news frames most frequently applied in the Foxconn jumps news coverage?
RQ3: How do news media in Taiwan frame workers and employers in news about the Foxconn suicide jumps?
RQ4: Does the news coverage of the Foxconn suicide jumps differ in terms of quantity of coverage and news frames in the chosen newspapers with different political affiliations? And how?
A news event cannot be explained by a single perspective, and neither can the
Foxconn suicide jumps. This thesis attempts to examine the coverage of this incident in general and labor issue in particular. It will first employ the concept of framing to illustrate the mechanism of news media. News frames help make sense of relevant events, suggest what is at issue, and influence the audience’s perception on a
particular event. However, the complexity of media’s ideological aspects makes news organizations part of a larger social network that frames and propagates dominant ideological inflections. News frames have thus become an approach to practice such ideological nature. In this perspective, this thesis also reviews previous research about labor and industrial journalism in western countries and Taiwan. In general, although
“infrequency” and “negative portrayal” of workers are the commonly identified two features of labor news, a “sign” of pro-labor coverage has emerged throughout 1990s in the American media. However, some scholars argued that it is a trick played by media to please both the public and the capital by providing pro-labor coverage first and then shifting it to a pro-employer one. The thesis explores if news coverage of labor in Taiwan’s dailies shows the “pro-labor” sign as seen in American media.
Besides, in view of Taiwan’s unique political-economic media nature, this thesis also examines the variable of media’s political affiliation to see if it predicts any bias coverage in this complex.
Chapter 3 Research Method
This research uses quantitative analysis to examine the news coverage in the four Taiwanese dailies on the Foxconn jumps in 2010 to give a general statistical picture of the editorial items and note the number of news frames used in the media. In addition, the present research also concerns with the lexical and syntactic styles to show how the incident, labor, and employer are framed and, whether and how the frames shift with the development of the whole event.
3.1 Selection of Newspapers for Analysis
Scholars have noted that newspapers not only carry the responsibility of educating the public and promoting social values but also have strong effect for agenda-setting among all kinds of media channels in empirical studies because they are able to provide more steady news sources and detailed information (Benton & Frazier, 1976;
King, 1994). With all the features mentioned, including the mission in educating the public, the ability of carrying detailed information, and the power in framing issues, the press is expected to be the starting point for studies into this major social incident of the Foxconn suicide jumps in 2010.
The four major newspapers in Taiwan are used for analysis: Liberty Times, Apple Daily, United Daily, and China Times. With the highest circulation rates in the nation, they are expected to display greater influence on the general public.
Liberty Times, owned by the Liberty Times Group (自由時報企業股份有限 公司), was established in 1980 with the name of Liberty Daily (自由日報). In 2008, newspaper readership statistics published by Nielsen Media Research shows that
Liberty Times outnumbered the other three major rivals at 17%. In 2010, according to Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) of Taiwan (財團法人中華民國發行公信會), the average circulation of Liberty Times, as the only newspaper since 2009 in Taiwan participating in the statistics, is 667,4652. This daily was also chosen in the 2010 Taiwan Media Billboard (媒體風雲排行榜)3 by Shih Hsin University (SHU) in 2010 as the best newspaper to understand the political and social landscape in Taiwan but with little recognition in equipping itself with a global view. As one of the major newspapers in Taiwan, Liberty Times has been considered to affiliate itself with the pro-independence Pan-Green coalition centered the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (Lien, 1999; Lin, 2003). As mentioned in Chapter 2, it employs less coverage on China’s affairs and is the only newspaper of the four dailies in this research to go without a China News Center. And, when it does report China, its coverage is mostly negative in tone, reflecting its pro-Green leaning.
Apple Daily, first published in Taiwan in 2003, is a Hong Kong-originated newspaper under the Next Media Group. According to ABC of Taiwan statistics in 2008, Apple Daily outplayed Liberty Times to become the No. 1 in retail sales. It was also ranked as the most read newspaper with the greatest variety of content in the 2010 Taiwan Media Billboard by SHU. As a market-driven newspaper, it has
seriously challenged the traditional news making practice in Taiwan with its selection of news, photo-intensive layout and paparazzi news reporting style. Chen (2005) noted that Apple Daily tends to use more sensational photos than other newspapers in Taiwan, yet it also provides more details for prevention of suicide in its suicide news.
2 Publishing surveys of average circulation of Taiwanese dailies and magazines is one of the annual routines of ABC of Taiwan. Since Apple Daily withdrew its participation in 2009, Liberty Times becomes the only mainstream daily that has joined the survey until now.
3 Taiwan Media Billboard (媒體風雲排行榜), started from 2004, is an annual media survey project held by SHU with the approach of stratified random sampling. The team first randomly chooses 50 towns in Taiwan and then draws out 20 people, whose age falls between 15-64, from each town to
Being market-oriented, Apple Daily also strikes hard to maintain its detachment from any political affiliation issues and is regarded as the most neutral newspaper in
Taiwan as it has no clear editorial pattern in side with either of the two major political parties (Hsiao, 2006; Wang, 2005).
United Daily was founded in 1951. Its mother business group, United Daily News Group, owns four domestic newspapers, six international newspapers and other publishing business. With a long history and a huge mother group, United Daily is considered as the most profound newspaper in Taiwan with a global view in the same media research by SHU (2010). United Daily was ranked as No. 3 in the section of
“the most read newspaper” with 25.4% readership. Furthermore, United Daily is commonly noted as a pro-China Pan-Blue newspaper as shown in its more favorable coverage of China affairs (Lien, 1999; Lin, 2003). With the establishment of its China News Center in 1979, United Daily has an entire page to accommodate Cross-Strait news.
China Times was founded in 1950 under the name Credit News 《徵信新聞》
and changed to the present name in 1968. In the 2010 Taiwan Media Billboard by SHU (2010), China Times was ranked as the No. 4 in the section of “the most read newspaper” with 20.9% readership. Aside from press business, its new mother group in 2010, Want Want China Times Group (旺旺中時集團), has expanded its media business to television, internet, advertising and publishing. China Times is often considered as a pro-China newspaper, which has played a pioneering role in the Cross-Strait journalistic exchange (Lien, 1999; Lin, 2003). With the earliest
establishment of its China News Center in Taiwan in 1969, China Times is the first mainstream newspaper to equip itself with an entire section for Cross-Strait news. In 2010, the group launched Want Daily (旺報), the first daily in Taiwan to produce
news with an exclusive emphasis on China affairs.
Table 3.1 The Four Dailies by Founding Year, Readerships and Political Affiliations
Liberty Times Apple Daily United Daily China Times
Founding year 1980 2003 1951 1950
Readership 36.2%% 49.2% 25.4% 20.9%
Political affiliation
Pro-independence
Pan-Green Neutral Pro-unification Pan-Blue
Pro-unification Pan-Blue Sources: Shih Hsin University, 2010; Lien, 1999; Lin, 2003; Huang, 2009
3.2 Research Time Frame and Selection of Articles
The collection consists of full-body news articles about the Foxconn suicide jumps published in the four major Taiwanese dailies from January 23, 2010 to December 31, 2010, the period leading up to and including the total 18 serial suicide jumps of the Foxconn workers in China in 2010.
Articles for analysis contained straight news, features and editorials.
Commentaries from readers were excluded since they were not news per se. Two sets of keywords, “’Foxconn 富士康’ and ‘jump 墜樓/跳樓’” and “‘Foxconn 富士康’
and ‘suicide 自殺’”, are used to search for news articles in the four target newspaper online databases. Stories were selected if they contain either set of the keywords, and were discarded if they do not provide further details of the event. The keyword search ensures that the present research does not miss any articles concerning the news event.
With the online data collection, the researcher then tracked the hard copies of the articles in the library at National Chengchi University (NCCU). However, the print copies of the dailies were used for analysis. There were two reasons for the author to
analyze the print copies of the articles. One is to measure the size of articles and photographs. The other is to assure the data integrity. By going through the print copies of the four dailies to collect the articles, the author intended to check if there was any article missing so that she could make it up immediately. In other words, the two-phase data collection ensured that the selected articles analyzed in this thesis are the population of all the news about the Foxconn suicide jumps published in 2010.
3.3 Data Analysis
Quantitative analysis informs on general information like frequency, size and type of articles. This is intended for a comprehensive overview and for comparison across the chosen dailies. Frequency and size together show the attention the event received during the research period. The frequency of actors in the articles, such as workers involved, employers, or government officials, are calculated. In addition, the
frequency, size, source, and actors in the photographs are measured for the analysis to give a general overview of how the event is portrayed in news. Statistical tools, which are usually employed in research that uses sampled data, will not be needed since the data collected in this thesis are the population.
Identifying the Discourse in the Dominant Frames
Research on news framing to date has highlighted certain frames that can be
commonly observed in the news (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000; Neuman et al., 1992;
van Dijk, 1988, Lin, 2010). Neuman et al. (1992) found that American media tend to draw on the four news frames: conflict, economic consequences, human interest and morality, to cover major issues, such as apartheid in South Africa, Star Wars, the stock
market crash of October 1987, drug abuse, and AIDS. The findings are confirmed in other later studies that set their research interests in the U.S., Europe and Taiwan (Neuman et al., 1992; van Dijk, 1988, Lin, 2010).
Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) replicated these findings and identified another frame, attribution of responsibility frame. In their research of Dutch news coverage of Eurotop meetings of the heads of government of the EU countries, held in Amsterdam during June 16-17, 1997, all the five news frames, including conflict, economic consequences, human interest, morality and attribution of responsibility, are identified. The five news frames are also identified in Taiwan’s television news
coverage of social movements (Lin, 2010), where the researcher found that human interest, attribution of responsibility and conflict frames are the most used three.
Making reference to previous research in media’s coverage of political and economic issues as well as social issues like suicide or labor issues, the five news frames identified by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) also overlap with the frames used in labor or suicide news. These five frames have been analyzed in many other studies and applied in labor or suicide news research. This thesis also employs these five frames in its analysis.
Conflict frame. This frame is usually applied to cover conflicts that occur to individuals, groups or organizations. It is used as a means to draw the audience’s attention. Neuman et al. (1992) found that conflict frame appears to be the most common among the news frame in American news coverage. To highlight the conflict, reporters transform the issue into dramatic stories (Bennett, 1996). Parenti (1986) also argued that workers always appear to be “crazy strikers” under such situation. As media always favors conflicting strike issues, the frame is very commonly used in labor news. In Taiwan, scholars also found similar use in the press. Weng (2002)
found that more than 50% of news published from 1983 to 1989 applied conflict frame when dealing with labor movement.
Economic consequences frame. This frame presents an issue in a way to describe the economic influences to individuals, groups, organizations, religions or countries. Van Dijk (1988) suggested that the newsworthiness of an event “is partly determined by the seriousness of their economic consequences,” i.e., gain or loss. The concept of economic consequences is also employed in Martin’s (2004) five
consumer-oriented frames. If labor’s rights contradict the employer or consumer’s interest, the economic consequences tend to be emphasized, making the pressure on the labor side even heavier.
Human interest frame. This frame takes advantage of a human face or emotional angle to present an issue dramatically. Reporters or editors usually
“personalize” the issue to draw audience’s attention (Bennett, 1995; Semetko &
Valkenburg, 2000). In Taiwan, previous research also found that reporters tended to cover labor news from the perspectives of human interest. Weng (2002) identified a similar frame named “personalized frame” in her research on labor news. Despite less coverage than the conflict frame, it indeed exists in labor coverage.
Morality frame. News in this frame tends to examine an issue with certain religious doctrines or moral judgments. Journalists, for example, usually take
advantage of quotation or inference to question certain values (Neuman et al., 1992).
Attribution of responsibility frame. This frame attributes an issue or a problem to the cause, which may be individuals, items, organization or the environment, to take the responsibility. It is commonly seen in suicide news in Taiwan (Chen, 2003;
Chang, 2009). Since the Foxconn suicide jumps is a labor issue wrapped with the form of suicide, the attribution of responsibility frame should also be examined in the
current research.
Previous research has shown that the five news frames generally exist in media discussion over political, economic and social issues as well as in labor and suicide news. Furthermore, three of the five frames, namely conflict, human interest, and attribution of responsibility, are also replicated in the labor news coverage in Taiwan. In contrast, “economic consequence” and “morality” have received less attention in previous research in Taiwan. The two frames, are therefore included to measure the news coverage of the Foxconn suicide jumps for a more comprehensive understanding of the incident. Other news frames, if any, that appeared in the articles will also be identified.
The present study will analyze the frames by examining headlines and the lead of each article. However, since the lead often repeats what is already stated in the headlines, yet in a more elaborated manner, the second paragraph will be included in the analysis to ensure a deeper and comprehensive insight about how the issue is framed.
The articles will first be carefully read to identify the main discourses in the five frames about the suicidal incident. In addition, the tone of the article toward labor and employer- whether it is positive, negative or neutral to labor and employer- is also coded. The author also takes account whether and how the framing changes in the coverage of the incident during the year the suicides occurred. Similarities and
differences of dominant discourse and tone among the four Taiwanese dailies, namely Liberty Times, Apple Daily, United Daily, and China Times, are scrutinized.
With the aforementioned information, the tone and framing of the articles were measured to understand how media framed the issue and with what political leaning. Statistical tools will not be applied here since the data collected in this thesis
is the population. An additional lexical analysis on the text was also employed in the wake of framing analysis to provide more details about how workers and employers were presented in the coverage.
3.4 Reliability Test
In statistics, reliability is the consistency of a set of measurements or of a measuring instrument (Wimmer & Dominick, 2003). In this research, there are two coders, the author of the thesis and the other coder, a junior student from the Department of History of NCCU. To ensure the reliability of the coding procedure, training sessions were held beforehand. intercoder agreement (IA), which refers to the levels of agreement among coders when coding the same content with same coding instruments, was calculated to monitor the processing of coding with the following formula:
IA =
M: the number of coding decisions on which two coders agree N1: the total number of coding decisions by the first coder N2: the total number of coding decisions by the second coder
To check the intercoder reliability (IR), the following formula was applied:
IR = N: number of coders
The reliability test was divided into two sessions, including frame category and tone category:
N1 + N2 2M
1 + [(N –1) IA]
N (average IA)
A. IA and IR for frame category
IA = = 0.86
IR = = 0.92
B. IA and IR for tone category
IA = = 0.91
IR = = 0.95
IAIR for frame category were 0.86 and 0.92. For tone category, IAIR were 0.91 and 0.95. All the test outcomes met the requirements, in which the IA and the IR should be above 0.85 and 0.9 respectively. In other words, the outcomes showed that the
research is reliable.
222+222 2 x191
1 + [(2-1) x 0.86]
2 x 0.86
222+222 2 x 202
1 + [(2-1) x 0.91]
2 x 0.91
Chapter 4 Findings
This chapter reports findings about editorial presentations and news frames on coverage of the Foxconn suicide jumps in general and media images of labor and management in particular in Liberty Times, Apple Daily, United Daily and China Times during the event.
4.1 Coverage of the Foxconn Suicide Jumps Coverage Frequency and Size
Of the 222 articles obtained from the study period, 38 (17.12%) were from Liberty Times, 50 (22.52%) from Apple Daily, 71 (31.98%) from United Daily, and 63 (28.38%) from China Times (See Table 4.1).
Aside from using the amount of articles to display the attention each
newspaper gave to the Foxconn suicide jumps, the actual sizes in square centimeters of the items were also measured to show the importance and details that each
newspaper gave to the Foxconn suicide jumps, the actual sizes in square centimeters of the items were also measured to show the importance and details that each