Coverage in the Foxconn Suicide Jumps by Political Affiliation

To study news media in Taiwan, it is very important to include the political factor for consideration. Feng (2001) also suggested that the quantity and content of labor news tended to differ with different political affiliations of newspapers. Since the Foxconn suicide jumps are considered as China news, this thesis also included political affiliations of each newspaper to see if it makes any difference in coverage.

Firstly, in terms of coverage quantity, it can be observed that the

pro-independence Liberty Times contributed the least coverage to this incident with only 38 stories throughout the whole year, while the pro-unification United Daily published 71 stories, which nearly doubled Liberty Time’s output. The limited coverage demonstrated that Liberty Times paid less attention to the incident. Such

conclusion corresponded to previous findings that suggested its indifference to China affairs (Lee, 1998).

With regards to the framing of the Foxconn Suicide Jumps, it was found that Liberty Times and China Times showed a preference in using economic consequence to frame the incident. On the other hand, Apple Daily and United Daily employed more “attribution of responsibility” frame.

In terms of tones of labor coverage in the incident, all of the four newspapers contributed great portion of coverage to the neutral stories for worker. As for coverage of employer, as neutral stories still accounted for the largest part among the four newspapers, the percentage of positive and negative stories is much more than that of worker. Generally speaking, the proportion of positive stories is larger than negative stories. Therefore, it can be said that the four newspapers were generally holding a neutral but with a slight leaning toward negative for workers. In contrast, they showed a neutral but leaning toward positive for employers.

A significant finding is that Liberty Times showed no obvious preference for either workers or employers in the coverage, yet it clearly demonstrated its resentment against Chinese government in two of its editorials, by shifting the focus to China’s seeming oppression on the Taiwan-based Foxconn, as in:

In the early stage of economic development in China, it is very important to make good use of Taiwan-based companies. Furthermore, drawing Taiwan-based enterprises into its side helps bring economic as well as political values. Taiwan-based companies’ heading to Mainland China has not only hollowed Taiwan’s industry but also made Taiwan more economically dependent on China. In this way, Taiwan will gradually fall into China’s de facto control. (Liberty Times- May 28, 2010)

在中國發展經濟的原始階段，利用台商是重要的手段，尤其，同樣 是外資，拉攏台商投入中國，不但具經濟效益，更具有政治附加價值。台 商帶著台灣資金、人才西進，除讓台灣產業空洞化，更衍生經濟依賴中國 的效應，使台灣逐漸落入中國的實質控制。（自由時報，2010 年 5 月 28 日）

Liberty Times even referred to the signing of Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in its castigation of the government, as in:

In fact, what Taiwan has been through economically is much more difficult than Taiwan-based companies in China. Despite the oppression from Chinese government, they can still go back to Taiwan for a new start.

However, under Ma’s administration, Taiwan’s enterprises have been pushed to China. Also, as the government actively promoted ECFA to bring in China’s influence to the island, our economy, with the inner and outer threat, is likely to have no future down the road. (Liberty Times- May 31, 2010)

其實，當前台灣經濟處境，比台商更嚴峻，台商面對中國打壓，若 願回流台灣，仍有再起的希望，但台灣在馬政府執政下，企業被推向中國，

送入火坑，加上力推ＥＣＦＡ，欲將中國勢力引進台灣，台灣經濟在內外 夾攻下，哪有明天可言？（自由時報，2010 年 5 月 31 日）

In short, political affiliation of each daily did not cause a great influence in terms of tone and framing when covering workers and employers in coverage. However, the pro-independent Liberty Times seized the chance, clearly demonstrating its hostility toward the Chinese government and other China-related affairs, such as ECFA, in its editorials. On the other hand, the other three newspapers showed no apparent favor or disfavor toward the Chinese government in their articles.

Chapter 5

Conclusions and Discussion

This study has examined the coverage of the Foxconn suicide incidents in general and labor issues in particular by both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the four major newspapers in Taiwan. This chapter summarizes the findings for each research question, discusses how coverage of those specific incidents relates itself to previous research, and concludes with a discussion on limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.

5.1 Conclusions

The thesis first examined the coverage of the suicide incidents to answer the first research question on the news presentation in terms of quantity of coverage, news source, and the use of photographs. The results showed that the four newspapers demonstrated a sharp difference in coverage quantity, where Liberty Times contributed rather limited articles, not even half of that of United Daily.

Source analysis revealed that the frequency of employers and workers being quoted as sources in news changed as the incident developed. Worker’s presence decreased, while employers gained greater attentions in coverage. Also, most interviewees in the “entrepreneurs” and “NGOs” were found to speak from the management’s perspective.

As for the news photographs, four major themes stand out: 1) the workers as parts of the dull working system, 2) the families of those who committed suicide as victims, 3) the dynamic hardworking Chairman, and 4) the iron-hand tough Guo.

The second research question addressed the framing in coverage of the

Foxconn suicide jumps. Analysis of the data revealed that “attribution of responsibility” and “economic consequence”, were identified to be the most significant frames in coverage. However, these two major frames were split in the four dailies: While both Liberty Times and China Times coverage was dominated by the “economic consequence,” Apple Daily and United Daily used “attribution of responsibility” the most.

It is also observed that these frames change to one another in different periods of the incident. June 1, the day when the company announced the wage increase policy, appeared to be the most obvious time divide. Stories published before June 1 mainly talked about attribution of responsibility and soon shifted to economic consequence afterwards. As for tone, coverage of workers generally stayed neutral with a subtle change from positive to negative. In contrast, stories of employers showed a shift from negative in the beginning to positive afterwards. However, the difference is too small to warrant a significant conclusion.

The third research question on the lexical presentation of worker and employer was answered with a further examination on how the two subjects were presented in each frame. In “attribution of responsibility”, workers tended to be negatively represented. They were described as “permissive”, “fragile”, “vulnerable to handle work under pressure,” and “spoiled as the product of one-child policy.” On the other hand, the company was also negatively portrayed as an iron-hand and capitalist exploiter with heavy wordings like “killing production line”, “blood and sweat factory”, “industrial monster”, “military management”, and “exploitation of young workers.” However, there was the discourse defending the company from different perspectives, such as working welfare, suicide rates, enterprise culture, and historical context.

In “economic consequence”, workers accounted for very limited portion in coverage throughout the incident. Before June 1, news subjects concerning workers fell on their expectation of wage increase with only one story published in China Times on May 27. After June 1, workers in this period usually referred to those who strived for better wages by strikes. Of significance is that no quote from any

individual worker was employed in this period, while only opinions from companies or scholars were used to express their attitudes toward workers’ actions. Similarly, media stopped picturing a worker’s hard time under difficult circumstances. Instead, they focused on the series of strikes, by negatively describing it as “a time bomb that threatens Chinese government” and the source of “the tension between labor and management, labor-management disputes, and the worries of social security.” Little positive coverage was observed towards this wave of strikes.

In contrast, employer’s discourse dominated news in this frame. In the beginning, most articles drew upon the economic consequences that the incidents brought to the company and the cross-strait economic relationship. After Foxconn’s announcement of wage increase on June 1, media started to shift their focus to discuss the economic consequences that might cause to Foxconn, other Taiwan-based

companies, and the global economy by suggesting that the wage increase range was

“far too much” that it might cause “inflation”, “pressure”, “management crisis”, and

“inestimable loss.” It seemed that Foxconn, other companies in China and consumers worldwide became the victim of workers’ request of wage increase.

In the “human interest” frame, the dailies usually drew upon those young workers’ working life and sorrows, by describing them as “robots” or “ants” that “are trained to be machines” and “live in the cycle of going to work, coming off work and sleeping” with “their eyes showing unhappiness.” On the other hand, Foxconn

chairman Guo, as the most described employer in the coverage, was presented from different perspectives. For example, he is “keen”, “strategic”, and “military” at work.

During the incident, Guo appeared to be “tired”, “tense”, “deeply painful”,

“occupied”, “teary red eyes.” After the crisis, Guo showed up as a “loving father” to his daughter as well as the workers. These adjectives carried heavy emotions that seemed to bring readers to focus on and sympathize with Guo, instead of the suicide victims.

“Morality” has been considered as one of the most commonly seen frames in suicide news. However, since the four dailies focused more on the labor issue in this incident, “morality” received less attention. On the other hand, although “conflict”

used to be regarded as the major frame in labor news, it turned out to be the least applied in news of the Foxconn suicide jumps. Reasons for such findings may be attributed to the fact that the conflicting nature of the incident appeared to be rather implicit than the other labor events.

The last research question took political affiliation as a factor to examine the coverage of the incident. Findings showed that difference could be obviously observed in the quantity of coverage, where the pro-independence Liberty Times covered the jumps much less than the pro-unification United Daily and China Times.

There was no obvious difference by tone in the four newspapers when describing workers and employers. Liberty Times showed apparent negative attitude to the

Chinese government and other China-related affairs in analysis of the suicide jumps in its editorials.

5.2 Discussion

Decades of research show that both Western and Taiwanese researchers have found that the two most observable characteristics of labor news to be its infrequency and negative portrayal of labor (Cirino, 1971; Morley, 1981; Parenti, 1986; Puette, 1992).

This thesis, which aims to explore the media representation of labor coverage in the Foxconn suicide jumps, confirmed both long-discussed observations.

Martin (2004) once regarded the most distinctive feature of mainstream coverage of labor is that “the media are often not covering labor at all.” Findings of the present research confirmed this argument in terms of the rare appearance of labor as source in stories. Source analysis revealed that of the 222 articles, only 36 of them quoted a worker as source, which is less than half of the number of employers. In other words, the four Taiwanese dailies covered the Foxconn suicide jumps with very little labor subjectivity. Employers, in contrast, accounted for the most part in the news. The findings also correspond to Feng’s research (2001), which found that labor news with workers as the main subject was very limited between 1945 and 1998 in Taiwan’s newspapers, with less than one piece of news per day on average. After these decades, the situation has not changed at all in Taiwan. Fairclough (1989) noted that source is so important in news reporting that it reflects the unequal groupings in the social hierarchy. That is, if certain group’s perspective is commonly adopted in news, its discourse is more likely to become the dominant discourse. The rare appearance of a worker in coverage not only demonstrates labor’s disadvantaged place in media, whose agenda and discourse show the media’s unfair treatment and

“sub-dued” by those of the employers.

With regards to the portrayal of workers and employers, the results of the present study suggested that the four Taiwanese dailies contributed both positive and

negative descriptions to the two subjects. For workers, positive coverage was mainly distributed over human interest frame by probing into those young workers’ working life and sorrows of this generation. Negative descriptions usually occurred when it came to the attribution of responsibility, where they were often criticized to be too fragile to handle pressure at work. On the other hand, while employers were criticized to be cruel and indifferent in management, some articles also defended the company from different perspectives, such as working welfare, suicide rates, enterprise culture, and historical context. In short, both workers and employers received relatively balanced comments in these two news frames.

One significant finding in the descriptions of employers is that the four dailies tended to manipulate the context and the use of photographs in referring to the

employers.

In the coverage of the Foxconn suicides, employers had attracted much media attention, especially the company chairman, Terry Guo. As shown in the analysis, Guo, the news focus, was always described with both his emotional response and practical policies to the incident magnified, such as “tired”, “tense”, “deeply painful”,

“occupied”, and “teary red eyes.” While these adjectives are infectious by carrying heavy emotions, they are likely to shift the focus of the incident and sympathize Guo himself.

Similar image-building strategy was also employed in the use of photographs.

For Guo, his pictures often appeared to be “dynamic” with his various expressions and movements in a “head-and-shoulders-only” image. According to Hall (1973), such a composition enhances the power of the expressive dimension in such a way to inflect or displace the story away from its original point, towards some aspect of the figure in focus. In other words, the application of “personalizing transformation”

helped transfer the news focus from the incident to his personal response. Although such an application is only identified in the use of news photographs in the first place, this thesis, as aforementioned, also finds similar use in literary frames, in which adjectives that carry strong emotions are applied to serve the same function as the image.

In the “economic consequence” frame, after the company announced a series of wage increase policies on June 1, the four dailies began to change their news discourse to favor the employers more. Foxconn, in this case, turned out to be a generous employer, who voluntarily raised the salaries by a large percentage without its workers’ request. Furthermore, media discourse in this period also focused on economic consequences by suggesting that the policy had brought “pressure”,

“management crisis”, and “inestimable loss” to Foxconn and other Taiwan-based companies in China, and even extended it to a possible worldwide “inflation” in the near future. Foxconn, together with other companies in China and consumers

worldwide, seemed to have suddenly been “victimized” by the wage increase policy.

Workers, on the other hand, indirectly became the one who caused these consequences.

Such news presentations were found to correspond to the concept of Martin’s consumer-oriented frames (2004). In the Foxconn’s case, the articles seemed to describe those business leaders and entrepreneurs as the ones who drive the economy.

Therefore, when the wage increase policy threatens the companies’ survival, the economy is likely to be damaged, and the consumer is always the first to face the consequences. These descriptions actually create a different form of conflict that lies between consumers and labor. Because the audience is usually the consumer

themselves, they tend to interpret the issue from their own perspectives. If labor rights

contradict consumer interest, the pressure on the labor side would become even heavier.

In short, in the coverage of the Foxconn suicides, the press showed its

sympathy to worker’s difficult life in big cities, yet it also “reproached” them on other accounts. It can be said that labor in media is presented not with a totally negative image as suggested in previous research, but with a mixture of positive stories and criticism.

In addition, Chyi and McCombs (2004) contended that during the dynamic process of news making, news media manipulate the issue by emphasizing various attributes at different stages. In other words, a news event is not static. Instead, it is dynamic, and so is the news frame used to present it. Usually, certain key events in an incident could influence media discourse (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989). In the Foxconn’s case, June 1, the day when the company announced a series of wage increase policies, serves as a significant divide in the shift of the frames in the news coverage of the Foxconn suicide incident. Before the pivotal day, the dailies employed the “attribution of responsibility” frame the most to find out the reasons for the

consecutive suicide jumps, while later shifted to “economic consequence” with a special focus on the impact to the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) industry and the economy in general. Furthermore, workers’ chance of being quoted in news also changed after the divide. Before June 1, there were some quotations from workers, while after the divide, they seemed to have disappeared in the coverage.

Although the wage increase policy is an issue between employers and workers, it turned out that employers dominated the coverage with very little voice from workers.

A similar shift can also be observed in the use of tone. The findings showed that despite a large percentage of neutral stories, positive coverage of workers

decreased, while negative coverage increased. In contrast, in coverage of employers,

decreased, while negative coverage increased. In contrast, in coverage of employers,