富士康墜樓事件中台灣報紙勞工新聞的框架研究 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學國際傳播英語碩士學程 International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies College of Communication National Chengchi University. 碩士論文 Master’s Thesis. 富士康墜樓事件中台灣報紙勞工新聞的框架研究* Framing Labor in News of the Foxconn Jumps. Student: Mindy, Xin-hua Kuo (郭欣華) Advisor: Professor Leonard L. Chu (朱立教授). 中華民國 101 年 1 月 January, 2012 *. 本論文榮獲吉星福張振芳伉儷文教基金會 2011 年李瞻教授新聞研究論文獎，謹此致謝。 1.

(2) 富士康墜樓事件中台灣報紙勞工新聞的框架研究 Framing Labor in News of the Foxconn Jumps 研究生：郭欣華 Student: Mindy, Xin-hua Kuo 指導老師：朱立 Advisor: Leonard L. Chu. 國立政治大學國際傳播英語碩士學程碩士論文 A Thesis Submitted to International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies National Chengchi University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Master in International Communication Studies. 中華民國 101 年 1 月 January, 2012. 2.

(3) Acknowledgement Firstly, I would like to give my sincerest gratitude to my advisor Prof. Leonardo L. Chu for his support and encouragement. Sometimes, when I felt uncertain about the thesis or myself, he could always see through it and offer timely support that made me feel better. Without his help, I could not have gone this far. I am really a fortunate one to have him as my advisor. I would also like to give my thanks to Prof. Chen Yi-ning and Prof. Ku Lin-lin for their generous help and inspiring comments to my thesis. To my peers in school. Your concerns have been keeping me warm. Ji-sun, thank you very much for your generous encouragement. And my coder, Yuji. Although we are only casual acquaintance, you still spent your summer time helping me collect and code stories in the cold and quiet basement of Social Sciences Information Center. Thank you! To my best old friends, Ivy and Lila in senior high, Sam and Eliza in college. You would never know how those silly gathering and nonsense talks meant to me at those stressful moments. I am really grateful to have you guys in my life. Dr. Sam, in particular, thank you for encouraging me to apply for the graduate program in the first place. Your profound knowledge in academic writing and linguistics also helped me a lot solve tons of problems in thesis format and data analysis. To those places that I have worked for in my graduate, such as NCCU Campus News of the Secretariat, Silkroad of the Office of International Cooperation, Newsletter of the IMBA, and CNA Newsworld of the Central News Agency. I love writing news much more than writing this thesis. These jobs were like a retreat for me to escape from pressure. They also helped me know what I really want for my future career. 3.

(4) To all the teaching, advising and administrative resources provided by NCCU. My thanks go to the Center for Teaching and Learning Development and Mr. Lu Ke-ren (盧科任) for the thesis advising service. Thank you, Miss Conny Li, for your kind assistance in those annoying administrative procedures. To Professor Thomas Lee Chan Journalism Scholarship (李瞻教授新聞研究論文獎學金) and the Rosalind Foundation (財團法人吉星福張振芳伉儷文教基金會). For a novice of communication academic writing like me, being awarded this scholarship is not only an honor for me but a recognition of my efforts in the past two and half years. I look upon it as a responsibility that motivates me to work hard and apply what I have learned now and here. To my dearest family. My father, in particular, gave me a timely push, pulling me out from the no-end idleness. My mother has kept asking me to finish what I should have done but is still on the way of finishing it now. My sister has tolerated me a lot for all these days with the midnight noise and my forever nagging. My two adorable nieces, though being annoying most of the time, they indeed gave me a lot of energy with their sweet and worriless laughter whenever I felt exhausted. And Jim, your presence plays an essential part in this thesis. Writing a thesis is never an easy job for me. I was struggled, depressed and feeling like to quit at some moments. But, I am glad that I have stuck to it and have successfully completed the thesis. Being able to carry all these out, I want to give my sincerest gratitude to those whoever have helped me. Thank you all!. Mindy, Xin-hua Kuo December 2011 at NCCU 4.

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(6) 謝. 辭. 首先，我最要感謝指導教授朱立老師。老師總是不厭其煩地指導我課業上遇到的問題，並不斷地給我信心，不吝惜給予我鼓勵，我真的感到很榮幸能在研究所生涯遇到這麼好的指導教授。另外，謝謝陳憶寧教授及谷玲玲教授，在百忙之中抽空參加我的論文口試，並不吝給予我指教與意見，讓本文更臻完善。感謝在政大的好同學們，彼此的關切和祝福，尤其是 Jisun，總是很有信心地鼓勵我說，「你可以的」。還有我的 coder，Yuji，交淺義氣卻很深，在空盪盪的暑假校園裡，陪我在社資中心的地下室蒐集報導，謝謝！感謝我高中及大學的好友，高中牛奶團的 IVY 和 LILA、大學的 Dr. Sam 和 ELIZA，每次的飽食聚會，毫無重點的談天說地，總是能讓我抒壓不少；尤其是學術底子深厚的 Dr. Sam，幫忙我解決不少論文格式和資料分析的難題。感謝就讀研究所兩年半以來，曾經待過的工讀崗位：校訓、絲路、商院 IMBA，以及「全球中央」，我熱愛寫稿遠遠勝過寫論文，這些工讀讓我在學業煩悶之餘，手中握的筆能有其他去處及功用。感謝政大提供所有的教學行政資源。謝謝教發中心提供的論文輔導服務，以及不厭其煩幫我跑數據的盧科任學長；謝謝 IMICS 辦公室的支援，還有細心的所祕 Conny 幫忙處理一些惱人的行政程序。感謝李瞻新聞論文獎學金的肯定，完全沒有傳播學術寫作背景的我，一直以來對自己的論文都沒什麼信心，這份獎學金肯定的不只是這份論文，也讓我覺得過去兩年來的努力沒有白費。除了肯定，我也很感念李瞻老師對新聞事業的心心念念，這是份殊榮，也是責任，激勵我，讓我在往後的新聞職涯裡，握筆的力道又加重了些。最後，我要感謝我的家人，特別是父親，在關鍵時刻推了我一把，雖然那一把讓我跌了個踉蹌，但是也讓我更下定決心完成這一切；謝謝媽媽，每天像故. 6.

(7) 障了的鬧鐘，提醒我得趕緊完成未完成的事；謝謝跟我同房的姐姐，晚上睡覺還得忍受鍵盤敲敲打打的聲音；謝謝兩個可愛的小姪女，雖然她們大多扮演干擾的角色，但是每當覺得疲累，看著他們純真的笑靨，又會重新充滿活力。還有吉姆，你的存在對這篇論文來說很重要。寫論文對於某些人來說，可能是輕而易舉，或是稍加努力就可以完成的事；但是對我而言，卻是個讓我身心靈都掙扎很久的惡夢。曾經，我覺得自己手上拿到的是一副爛牌，但現在這手爛牌已經讓我給出清了，甚至還獲得論文獎學金的殊榮，人生際遇變化之快速，讓我至今都無法置信。有幸能扭轉乾坤，我要再次感謝所有曾經幫助或關懷過我的師長、家人及朋友。. 欣華 2011 年 12 月於政大. 7.

(8) Abstract Framing Labor in News of the Foxconn Jumps Mindy, Xin-hua Kuo. This thesis examines the frames used in the news coverage of the Foxconn suicide jumps in general and labor issue in particular, along with political affiliation as a factor in Taiwan’s dailies. Framing analysis of 222 articles in the four major newspapers in Taiwan showed that “attribution of responsibility” and “economic consequence” were identified to be the two most used frames in coverage. These frames shifted to one another on June 1, the day when the company announced the wage increase policy. After the time divide, stories published before that 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, while stories of employers showed a shift from negative in the beginning to positive in the later stage. In terms of political affiliation, findings showed that difference could be obviously observed in the quantity of coverage, where the pro-Green Liberty Times contributed much less than the pro-Blue United Daily and China Times. While showing no obvious difference in the use of frame and by tone in the four newspapers when describing workers and employers, the pro-independence Liberty Times demonstrated apparent negative attitude toward the Chinese government and other China-related affairs in its editorials.. Keywords: Foxconn suicide jumps, labor news, framing analysis, political affiliation. 8.

(9) 富士康墜樓事件中台灣報紙勞工新聞的框架研究. 中文摘要本研究以 2010 年富士康連續墜樓事件作為觀察對象，採用新聞框架理論，檢視國內報紙對於勞工議題的報導。另鑑於本事件為台商在中國投資的事件，牽動敏感的兩岸話題，因此本研究加入各報政治偏差之因素，探討國內報紙對該事件報導的異同。研究發現，事件發生初期，國內報紙多以「責任框架」報導，追究雇主應負的責任與提出的解決辦法；到了中後期，各報則以「經濟影響框架」為主，探討加薪將對雇主、國家，乃至全球經濟造成的影響。各報報導立場雖多為中立，但仍可見媒體對雇主的立場出現由負轉正的趨勢。此外，無論是「責任框架」或是「經濟影響框架」，在本事件勞工議題的討論中，雇主佔去了大部分的發言權，反觀以勞工為主體性的文章，則是少之又少。政治立場偏藍的報紙，如«聯合報»和«中國時報»，皆以廣大篇幅報導之；反之，政治立場偏綠的報紙，如«自由時報»，則企圖淡化該新聞；而市場導向的«蘋果日報»位於兩者中間。所有報紙的報導皆以雇主發言為大宗，勞工仍處於弱勢，至於新聞框架的使用，則無明顯政黨偏差。關鍵字：富士康墜樓、勞工新聞、框架研究、報紙政治偏差. 9.

(10) TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgement ……………………………………………………………………..i 謝辭 ………………………………………………………………………………….iii Abstract (English) …………………………………………………………………….v Abstract (Chinese) ……………………………………………………………………vi Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………vii 1. Introduction ………………………………………….……………………….….1 1.1 The Foxconn Company ………………………..……………………………...2 1.2 The Foxconn Suicide Jumps ….………………………………………………3 1.3 Significance of Research and Research Questions………………………….....8 2. Literature Review ………………………..……………………………………..11 2.1 Conceptualization of Framing Analysis ……………………………………..11 News Frame and Frame-changing …………………………………………...13 News Frame, Ideology and Bias …………………………………………….14 2.2 Research on News Framing about Labor-Management ……………………..17 Research of Labor and Industrial Journalism in the West …………………...17 Research of Labor and Industrial Journalism in Taiwan …………………….24 2.3 Research on News Framing about Suicide Issues …………………...............28 2.4 Research on the Foxconn Jumps……………………………………………..31 2.5 Cross-Strait Coverage and Newspaper Political Affiliation …………………34 2.6 Research Questions ………………………………………………………….36 3. Research Method .………………………………………………………………38 3.1 Selection of Newspapers for Analysis ……………………………………….38 3.2 Research Time Frame and Selection of Articles …………………………….41 3.3 Data Analysis …………………………………………………….…………..42 Identifying the Discourse in the Dominant Frames ………………………….42 3.4 Reliability Test ……………………………………………………………….46 10.

(11) 4. Findings …………………………………………………………………………48 4.1 Coverage of the Foxconn Suicide Jumps …………………………...……….48 Coverage Frequency and Size ……………………………………...………..48 Source in News ………………………………………………………………49 Photographs ……………………………………...…………………………..53 4.2 Framing of the Foxconn Suicide Jumps ……………………………………..60 Frame-changing …………………………………………………...…………62 A.. Attribution of Responsibility ……………………...…………..……...63. B.. Economic Consequence ………………………………………………68. C.. Human Interest ……………………………………………………..…76. D.. Morality ……………………………………………………………....86. E.. Conflict …………………………………………………………….....87. F.. Others ………………………………………………………………....88. 4.3 Tones of Labor Coverage in the Foxconn Suicide Jumps …………………...88 4.4 Coverage in the Foxconn Suicide Jumps by Political Affiliation …………...91 5. Conclusions and Discussion ……………………………………………………94 5.1 Conclusions ……………………….…………………………………………94 5.2 Discussion …………………………………………………………………...98 5.3 Limitation and Suggestion …………………………………………………103 References ……………………………………………………………………….....105. 11.

(12) LIST OF TABLES. Table 1.1 Foxconn Workers Who Committed Suicide in 2010 ………………..…...5 Table 3.1 The Four Dailies by Founding Year, Readerships and Political Affiliations ………………………………………………………………..…41 Table 4.1 Coverage of the Foxconn Jumps by Numbers and Size of Articles …….49 Table 4.2. Coverage of the Foxconn Suicide Jumps by Sources ………………….50. Table 4.3. Coverage of the Foxconn Jumps by Numbers and Size of Photos …….53. Table 4.4. Coverage of Foxconn Jumps by Sources of Photos………………………54. Table 4.5. Coverage of Foxconn Jumps by Actors in Photos ……….………...…..54. Table 4.6. Frames in Coverage of the Foxconn Suicide Jumps …………………...61. Table 4.7. Frames in Coverage of the Foxconn Suicide Jumps by Different Time Periods ……………………………………………….…………….…..61. Table 4.8. Coverage of Worker and Employer by Tone ………………………………89. Table 4.9. Tones of Coverage of Worker and Employer by Different Time Periods ………………………………………………….……………...90. 12.

(13) Chapter 1 Introduction The media are very influential in modern society and the way audience perceptions and values are shaped by attention to news can be inferred from news content. Such concern has been particularly evident in writings about labor news. The year of 2010 was probably the most difficult and stressful period for both Foxconn, a Taiwan-based company in China, and its workers. During the first half of the year, more than 10 Foxconn workers plunged themselves to death, yet the incident did not see its end until the early 2011. While national and international concerns toward the serial suicide jumps continued to mount, the labor issue has started to draw public attention, especially the media. This particular piece of labor suicide news created a wave of hysteria in the mainstream media in China. Until May 29, 2010, a total of 1,549 stories could be found in sina.com, one of the busiest entrance websites in China, if searched by typing in “Foxconn” and “jump” as keywords. Because of its influence and potential impacts, the incident was also listed in the highlights of the year by many international news outlets. Moreover, more than a hundred of Chinese reporters were said to have disguised themselves as workers to sneak into Foxconn branch plants to obtain firsthand reporting materials. Media’s intensive reporting on the incident brought the public not only access to a variety of facts of the case, but also greater awareness of labor issues. Despite the active coverage of this incident, the media have been noted to be rather passive in the reporting of labor issues. Labor news has been a topic without receiving much attention in media industry. Tasini (1990) found that only slightly more than 1 % of the airtime of more than 1,000 network news broadcasts was. 13.

(14) devoted to U.S. unions. As for the printed media, labor news has almost disappeared in the coverage as little money and limited space were allocated for labor reporting. Even with news exposure, labor is usually described in a rather negative way in comparison to the employer side, which appears to be always positive and tolerant. However, these observations seem not to explain the sudden media hysteria in news of the Foxconn suicide jumps. It makes us wonder if the labor force could finally get their voice heard. Or, was it because the media were attracted to the generation of the suicidal jumps? Or, does the extensive coverage ensure a fairer description of both workers and employers in news? These are the questions that the present research aims to find out. This thesis is aimed at examining the news frames employed in the coverage of the Foxconn event in Taiwan’s newspapers. We focus particularly on the treatment of workers and employers to find out if and when frames may change during the course of the year-long incident. Moreover, this thesis examines if political affiliation of a daily would bring any influence to its coverage on the incident.. 1.1 The Foxconn Company Foxconn, a Taiwan-based company listed in Hong Kong, whose full name is Foxconn International Holdings (FIH, 富士康國際控股有限公司), is a multinational subsidiary group of its anchor company, Hon Hai Precision Industry Company Ltd. (鴻海精密工業股份有限公司), founded by Terry Guo (郭台銘, Guo Taiming) in 1974. Stick to the “eCMMs” (Component Module Move & Service) pattern, Foxconn offers a vertical integration of mechanical and electrical engineering expertise, which covers from product development and design, manufacturing and assembly, to after-sales services and repairs. With such an innovative integration providing 14.

(15) comprehensive set of services Foxconn, within decades, has its business strategically spread across Americas, Europe and Asia with more than one million employees worldwide, and takes orders from such international brand names as Nokia, Motorola, Apple, Sony Ericsson, LG, etc. The Taiwan-based company has now become the world’s largest maker of electronic components, the largest exporter in the Great China region and the second largest exporter in the Czech Republic. According to statistics given in Pan et al. (2011), Foxconn started to expand its business territory in China in the late 1980s. The first plant construction was located in the coastal city of Shenzhen (深圳), China’s special economic zone bordering Hong Kong, in 1988. Later on, within 25 years, Foxconn built more than 20 plants around China with more than 900,000 workers. In 2008, Foxconn has a revenue exceeding US$ 61.8 billion in which its export volumn reached US$ 55.6 billion, accounting for 3.9% of China’s general export. Since 2003, the Taiwan-based company has become the largest exporter in the Greater China (Pan et al., 2011). The legendary success of Foxconn’s experience as a foreign enterprise in China has long become a widely discussed topic in the business field and has attracted much media and academic attention. Aside from its successful business model, Foxconn is always regarded as one of the best examples to demonstrate the various social phenomena appearing in the Chinese capital market since the country’s economy boomed (Pan et al, 2011). The company has become the focal point where a social phenomenon is captured, as seen in the serial Foxconn jumps.. 1.2 The Foxconn Suicide Jumps On January 8, 2010, a 19-year-old worker serving as an operator in the Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group jumped from a dorm at Guanlan (觀瀾). 15.

(16) Plant, Shenzhen. Before the police could find out the causes for the accident, another Foxconn worker was found dead by jumping from a dorm on March 11 at Longhua (龍華) Plant in Shenzhen, within two months after the first. At the end of 2010, there were a total of 18 Foxconn workers who had jumped from the buildings, with 16 dead and 2 injured (Pan et al., 2011). However, the exact count of numbers in the media varied because some cases were alleged to have been blocked by the company and the Chinese government. A reading of the survey report and media reports identifies 18 suicides that resulted in either deaths or injuries during this period, with the last case of the year containing only sketchy information (See Table 1.1). As the high frequency aroused the public’s attention, the same way the workers chose to commit suicide also triggered media hysteria about the event. It is noted that most suicides in news appear to be isolated individual cases, yet, in Foxconn’s case, although all the reported jumps happened separately, they were often considered connected. Furthermore, while the exact motivation for some of the jumps has still been suspicious, Chinese media named the series of mysterious suicide events as “Tiaoloumen1” (跳樓門), or “Jump gate” in English, to describe its puzzling development.. 1. Media are believed to borrow the term “Tiaoloumen” from two possible sources- Japanese film Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa or the Watergate Scandal- to describe the incident of being so mysterious that is very difficult to unveil the truth. 16.

(17) Table 1.1. Foxconn Workers Who Committed Suicide in 2010. Name. Gender. Age. Plant. Date. Rong Po (榮波). Male. 19. Langfang. Jan 8, 2010. Ma Xiangquian(馬向前). Male. 19. Guanlan. Jan 23, 2010. Surnamed Li (李). Male. 21-29. Longhua. Mar 11, 2010. Tian Yu (田玉). Female. 17. Longhua. Mar 17, 2010. Li Wei (李偉). Male. 23. Langfang. Mar 27, 2010. Liu Zhijun (劉志軍). Male. 23. Longhua. Mar 29, 2010. Rao Shuqin (饒淑琴). Female. 18. Guanlan. Apr 6, 2010. Surnamed Ning (寧). Female. 18. Guanlan. Apr 7, 2010. Lu Xin (盧新). Male. 24. Longhua. May 6, 2010. Zhu Chenming (祝晨明). Female. 24. Longhua. May 11, 2010. Liang Chao (梁超). Male. 21. Longhua. May 14, 2010. Nan Gang (南鋼). Male. 21. Longhua. May 21, 2010. Li Hai (李海). Male. 19. Guanlan. May 25, 2010. Surnamed He (何). Male. 23. Longhua. May 26, 2010. Chen (陳). Male. 25. Longhua. May 27, 2010. Liu (劉). Male. 18. Nanhai. July 20, 2010. Liu Ming (劉明). Female. 23. Kunshan. Aug 23, 2010. Unknown. unknown. Shenzhen. Nov 5, 2010. Sources: Pan et al., 2011; wikipedia.. Soon, media’s focus on the snowballing suicide incident shifted to the labor issue. Similar backgrounds of those who committed suicide have brought the public to associate the consecutive jumps to the company’s management problem, and further incurred public’s accusation of “blood and sweat factory” against Foxconn. To defend the reputation of his company, the chairman Terry Guo not only stepped forward to face the public and media but also adopted different measures for crisis management.. 17.

(18) On May 26, for the very first time since the company’s establishment, Guo invited journalists from all over the world to go inside the Longhua Plant to have a further look at the living and working environment. He also apologized to the public at a press conference in the wake of the tour and announced several measures to prevent future tragedies. However, the action did not work out as Guo had expected. The very following day after the news conference, the 12th jump was reported in media, triggering another wave of condemnations against the company. Under great public pressure, Guo announced the increase of the minimum monthly wages to 2,000 RMB, adding 800 RMB more onto a previous raise in June, and other employee-welfare related policies in the hope of clearing the negative image after the serial jumps. The incident became more than just a serial suicide case but a labor issue. Although no workers took to the street to protest, one researcher argued that each suicide jump alone could be seen as a strike, where workers “fight with their lives” (Liu, 2010b). To understand more about the incident, it is necessary to examine it in the context of contemporary Chinese society. In this perspective, China as the world factory is a point to start with. Since 1978, when China started opening up from almost isolation, it has integrated into the world economy in a dramatic way. Statistics show that China’s export volume increased over 60-fold in 26 years, from $9.8 billion in 1978 to $593.4 billion in 2004 (Zhang, 2007a). By 2009, its export volume reached $1,201.6, becoming the world’s largest exporting nation. With these impressive figures, China is now turning itself into an exporting machine and has grown so fast that many people view China as the world factory (Shenkar, 2005; Zakaria, 2005; Zhang, 2007b). One of the most crucial key factors for China to become the world factory is its labor competitiveness, namely, the huge labor supply and cheap labor cost (Zhang,. 18.

(19) 2007a; Zhang, 2007b; Wang, 2007; Liu et al., 2007). Wang (2007) quoted China’s market share in major export markets from International Monetary Fund, demonstrating that it increased steadily from 1970 to 2003 by exporting labor-intensive goods, including clothing, footwear, and home electronics such as TVs and cameras. Indeed, labor-intensive industries make more profits and generate more new jobs needed each year to maintain social stability. Yet, these labor-intensive works have also meant low salaries, long working hours and bad working environment for the Chinese workers. In fact, tensions between workers and employers have mounted in China during the past decade. Chen (2010) argued that a series of strikes in Pearl River Delta Economic Zone (珠三角經濟區) during 2004-2007 had urged the government to increase the minimum wage and legislate for better labor laws, including Labor Contract law (勞動合同法), Employment Promotion Law (就業促進法), and Labor Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law (勞動爭議調解仲裁法). Apparently, the improvement was limited and did not solve the problem from the root. The Foxconn incident became the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. Soon, another waves of labor strikes occurred after the event. BBC quoted Asahi’s survey, saying that workers from at least 43 foreign-owned enterprises in China organized a series of strikes from June to July in 2010 to strive for better welfares and it eventually forced companies in China to increase the wages (Tong, 2010). As the Foxconn suicide jumps reflected the long-existing labor problem in Chinese society, it is understandable to see it hit the headlines of Chinese media during the period. However, the same phenomenon also happened in Taiwan, where a great deal of attention from the media and the public were also received although they were focused on rather different reasons. 19.

(20) First of all, the incident itself deserves to be treated as big news as it contains a couple of appealing news interests, such as consecutive suicide jumps and the conflict between workers and employers. In a market-driven media environment like Taiwan, sensational topics always guarantee circulation. Moreover, the person involved, Terry Guo, the chairman of Foxconn, is another major “selling point” in this news event. Guo being one of the richest men in Taiwan, his every movement and decision, whether it is about business or private life, all attract media attention. The charm of the media darling has thus further increased media’s interest in covering the event. Taking a political-economic perspective, Foxconn plays an important role in the Cross-Strait trade. As aforementioned, Foxconn is one of the most successful models of Taiwan-based enterprises in China. Its survival and prosperity in China tells the hard-working stories of most other Taiwan-based enterprises. Likewise, the labor issue it faced in the suicide incident, sooner or later, could also be encountered by other Taiwanese businessmen. According to a Radio Taiwan International’s report (中央廣播電台) on May 28, 2010, Wang, Jin-pyng (王金平), the President of Legislative Yuan, once said in an interview during the incident, “His (Terry Guo) problem is the nation’s (Taiwan) problem.” This statement shows the index significance the Foxconn suicide jumps has played in Taiwan’s economic issue and suggests its significance as a news and research topic.. 1.3 Significance of Research and Research Questions As elsewhere, labor is often left with little attention in Taiwanese media. Empirical research of labor news coverage is, not surprisingly, scarce. In addition to the infrequency, the other major observation for news about labor is its negative portrayal in media. 20.

(21) Ever since the Foxconn jumps happened in the beginning of 2010, this particular piece of suicide news has created a wave of hysteria in the mainstream media. Media contributed a great amount of resources to cover the incident from an industrial perspective that has aroused the public awareness of labor issue. The active coverage makes the incident appear to be especially extraordinary than other labor news, which used to account for very limited space in media. However, does quantity guarantee quality? Does the high exposure provide the audience with detail to form a comprehensive and fair picture of the labor issue? Since mass media are always regarded as a major information source for the audience to know the outside world, how media cover the event and portray workers and employers through the coverage of the suicide jumps decides the audience’s perception on the labor issue and therefore, highlights its significance as a research topic. Also, compared to the relatively developed literature about labor news research in western countries, scholars in Taiwan have shown very little concern in this topic. Most of the research findings quoted in this thesis mainly comes from western studies. In view of the social, cultural and historical divergence between Taiwan and western countries, western literature, though with certain reference value, is yet able to completely fit in the local context in Taiwan. Therefore, this thesis hopes to enrich the existing body of literature about local labor news research. The present study aims at examining the news coverage of the Foxconn event in Taiwan’s newspapers, to sort out the news frames that have been employed in reporting. Although “suicide” in the incident is also an important issue, this thesis would only cover media’s attitude toward the labor issue. To be more specific, it focuses especially on media’s treatment of workers and employers in their reporting. 21.

(22) and pay attention to if the way the press frames the incident changes with time and the pattern. In addition, also it will examine if political affiliation would bring any influence to a newspaper’s coverage on the incident. The thesis will also provide an in-depth analysis to the lexical detail in hopes of gaining more insights into how Taiwanese dailies “construct” the image of workers and employers in the coverage of Foxconn suicide jumps by way of their respective editorial routines and news frames. Having laid out the background information of the news event in detail and presented the significance and purpose of the study, the following second chapter will review current research on framing studies and labor in news. The third chapter discusses the methods of data collection and analysis for the research. Finally, the findings are presented to be followed by discussions and conclusions.. 22.

(23) Chapter 2 Literature Review “Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading the newspaper is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.” Ben Hecht, Guide for the Bedevilled. The quote from the famous American screenwriter is as true of commentary as of news. People rely on mass media for information and interpretation of the outside world. Most people tend to assume that news media are neutral gatekeepers, who always keep objectivity as the top priority and the only principle when covering events or places. However, media are never mirrors that faithfully reflect what happens in reality. What they present is not a complete picture, nor a faithful one. Instead, they only show a very limited part of social reality. If what we read in news is, as what Hecht suggested in the quote, “the second hand of a clock,” what is the gap between the exact time and the time we know from the clock? So, what has happened to the news? How do media shape people’s images and affect their thinking of a news event or actors in the news? What are the images that media have built for workers, employers and suicide? These questions will be explored by reviewing the related theorizing and research on framing in different fields before the thesis examines how labor in the Foxconn suicide jumps was covered.. 2.1 Conceptualization of Framing Analysis The concept of framing was first brought up by Erving Goffman (1974) in his ethnographic theorization. He described frames as “schemata of interpretation” that generates from people’s past experience where words help individuals communicate. 23.

(24) between cultural beliefs and worldviews. Frames enable individuals to interpret and understand the real world, answering the question of “what is it that’s going on here” (Goffman, 1974). In the wake of Goffman’s theorizing, research on framing and framing effects has mushroomed during the past decades (Tuchamn, 1978; Entman, 1991, Gamson, 1992; Neuman et al., 1992; Iyengar, 1991). Continuing Goffman’s work, researchers have developed their own definitions and characteristics of “frame”. Scheufele (2010) defined frame as “the applicability of semantic or visual devices in communication to underlying culturally shared audience schemas”. It notes the essence of the issue by providing “meaning to an unfolding strip of events, weaving a connection among them” (Gamson & Modigliani, 1987). Frames allow individuals to “locate, perceive, identify, and label issues, events, and topics” (Goffman, 1974). Framing is a selection of certain aspects of perceived reality “in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation” (Entman, 1993). With its rich theoretical implication, framing has been applied to various research topics. The concept of framing also differs with different purposes of applications. Nisbet (2010) concluded that frames are used by audiences as “interpretative schema” to make sense of and discuss an issue; by journalists to translate complex events into interesting and appealing news stories; by policy-makers to define policy options and make decisions; and by experts to communicate to other experts or to broader audiences. In short, framing can be seen as a function of simplifying an area of reality. In the media industry, framing is an important and essential component of news production. Gamson (1989) defined news frame as “a central organizing idea for making sense of relevant events and suggesting what is at issue” in the form of. 24.

(25) metaphors, keywords, concepts, symbols, and visual images (Entman, 1991). However, as an event is always in its way of developing itself, media would also need to adjust themselves to present the ever-changing world.. News Frame and Frame-changing “Frame-changing”, in news production, refers to a certain journalistic practice in which news media reframe an event or issue during its life span to keep the story alive and fresh (Chyi & McCombs, 2004). The notion of frame-changing originally comes from Downs’ “issue-attention cycle” (1972) in agenda setting. In an early attempt to illustrate the process in which problems are discovered by the media, gain prominence, and then fade from public attention, the research identified five stages of the “issue-attention cycle”: the pre-problem stage, alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm, realizing the cost of significant progress, gradual decline of intense public interest and the post problem stage. Downs (1972) argued that issues that go through each stage of the cycle tend receive more attention in its life span. In spite of its original focus on public attention, the issue-attention cycle has later received extensive discussions in news communication studies. In the research examining the coverage of the Columbine school shooting in the New York Times in 1999, Chyi and McCombs (2004) documented the use of multiple frames and identified certain frame-changing patterns in the coverage of this highly salient news event. They suggested that during the dynamic process of news making, news media manipulate the issue by emphasizing various attributes at different stage. Gamson and Modigliani (1989) also found that media discourse of the nuclear power issue has changed with the occurrence of some historic news events, such as the Hiroshima nuclear attack, Three Mile Island accident and Chernobyl 25.

(26) disaster, during the past decades. These key events accelerate the shift of news frame during the presence of the issue and also increase issue’s complexity to extend its life span. Review of the concept of frame-changing demonstrates that a news event is not always static. Instead, it is dynamic, and so is the news frame used to present it. The Foxconn suicide jumps lasted for more than a year. During the period, every response from the worker, company or social groups could become the key to activate the shift of media discourse. By examining the coverage of the incident, the present thesis intends to find out how media covered the incident with special focus on the presence of frame-changing when describing workers and employers.. News Frame, Ideology and Bias Lee and Craig (1992) argued that the complexity of media’s political-economic and ideological aspects make news organizations part of a larger social network that frames and propagates dominant ideological inflections. Hartley (1982) contended that news texts are subject to the social constraints and institutional relations within which business and government are considered as the major media-constraining institutions. For financial survival, corporate media are required to follow commercial dictates by translating capitalist interests into general or national interests. Under such circumstances, Morley (1981) suggested that news events are inevitably presented in the media through some particular conceptual frameworks, where media tend to incline to maintain and emphasize the present situation and social values, while sometimes ignore or even oppress those in opposition of it (Tichenon et al, 1980). To bring out the ideology in news, framing is one of the approaches. As the. 26.

(27) concept of news frame focuses on media’s message content, researchers found that contexts and issues included in news are presented through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion, and elaboration (Hendrickson & Tankard, 1997). In one research that examined CBS’s news coverage of student movement, Gitlin (1980) found that “selection” and “reconstruction” are the two key factors in news production to represent what happens in reality. News staff “selects” the topics, angles and statements from the facts they gather from the scene and “reconstructs” the news by deciding what deserves more emphasis and elaboration or what should be excluded. Researchers argued that the process of reconstruction even starts right in the early phase of the news production. Chung and Tsang (1993) contended that when reporters receive news assignments and leave for interview, they have several news frames set even before arriving at the scene, by forming goals for the story and listing out interview questions. Interview is only a “hypothesis-oriented” action that gathers seeming facts to support reporters’ perspectives (Gitlin, 1980; Tsang, 1998). When journalists organize the facts that they collect on their assignments, they are engaging in the process of news framing cognitively and so do the editorial teams in the newsroom (Parson & Xu, 2001). In other words, frame is a specific issue in news making, bringing out the ideology that embedded with media texts. In the process of constructing news, news frame work among media, source and the audience with the influence from media autonomy, source, media regulation, journalist’s ideology and the social context. Journalists and news organizations are not passive actors in the frame building process, and neither is the audience (Pan & Kosicki, 1993; Entman, 1993). Under such news production process, unsurprisingly, what presents in media is sometimes not necessarily the case in reality. In a research that examined news 27.

(28) articles about labor movement in Taiwan from 1983 to 1989, Weng (2002) found that the attribution of industrial disputes that the press put more stress on was found very different from what was published by the formal statistics from Council of Labor Affairs (CLA). For instance, the top 3 causes of industrial disputes documented by CLA from 1983 to 1988 were “compensation disputes”, “dismissal for cause” and “back pay”, while in the press, “request of salary increase”, “others” and “back pay” became the focus of news (Weng, 2002). The result shows that although media draw the symbolic reality from the details of real events, the facts presented by media can still be very different from the reality after selection and reconstruction during the news production. Yet, the discrepancy sometimes can become the source of stereotype and prejudice (Gitlin, 1980; Chung & Tsang, 1993; Tichenon, et al., 1980; Parenti, 1986). Chung and Tsang (1993) argued that people are so used to applying certain frames that they are familiar with to explain, recount or comment the outside world that they sometimes intentionally or unintentionally “skip” the facts that are not included in the frames (Chung & Tsang, 1993). Bias thus generates and sees no exception in news frames. In Cirino’s (1971) research that examined the news coverage in general by the contemporary American media between 1950s to 1960s, he identified twelve forms of bias, arguing that the press’s bias is in favor of itself to achieve higher circulation, which include bias in the source of news, bias through selection of news bias through omission of news, the art of interviewing, bias through placement, bias through “coincidental” placement, bias in the headlines, bias in words, bias in news images, bias in photographic selection, bias in captions, the use of editorials to distort facts, and the hidden editorial (p.134-179). Moreover, in the research that studied American. 28.

(29) media’s coverage on the student movements in 1960s, Gitlin (1980) found that the mainstream media tend to discredit the protesters by using news frames such as trivialization, polarization, emphasis on internal dissention, marginalization, and disparagement by numbers and of the movement’s effectiveness. Review of existing body of research about framing revealed that while tendency and bias occur in news coverage through media’s use of news frame when media present an issue, the complexity of media ideological nature tends to play an essential role in the process. The following section reviews the existing body of research about news framing of industrial relations journalism.. 2.2 Research on News Framing about Labor News content is constructed by ideological framework. Concern with ideological character of news has especially received more attention in labor news. The extensive research interest has also helped accelerate the generation of rich literature in this field. Due to the social, cultural and historical difference between Taiwan and other western countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, it would not be appropriate to bring them into comparison when it comes to the development of labor and industrial journalism (Feng, 2001). Therefore, a separate discussion of the western and Taiwanese research about labor and industrial journalism would be helpful in this section to sort out its development within each’s own historical contexts.. Research of Labor and Industrial Journalism in the West Many studies on labor and industrial journalism have been conducted. The English-language social science research literature contains a wide range of topics,. 29.

(30) including media representation of industrial disputes, industrial actions and strikes, the relationships between labor news and public opinion, and the representation of other forms of media on labor’s life. After decades of research, scholars concluded that the two most observable characteristics of labor news are infrequency and the negative portrayal of labor. For instance, labor news has been noted as a topic without receiving much attention in media industry. Tasini (1990) found that only slightly more than 1 percent of the airtime of more than one thousand network news broadcasts was devoted to U.S. unions. Studies by the Glasgow University Media Group (1976, 1980) also demonstrated poor coverage of labor issues in the British media. As for the printed media, labor news has almost disappeared in the coverage as little money and limited space were allocated for labor reporting (Martin, 2004). Martin (2004) argued that one possible cause to the scarcity of labor news is because to conduct routine news reporting on the subject, a newspaper has to be large enough to designate a labor section and that requires a professional commitment from the publisher, editor, and reporter. As it takes more time and money, labor beat has thus faded out from most media. Martin (2004) even regarded the most distinctive characteristic of mainstream coverage of labor is that “the media are often not covering labor at all.” It is of great contrast that while labor news accounts only for very limited coverage after almost a century’s development, business news, which reports the employers’ decision or development, has become such an essential section in press that almost every newspaper owns one. Aside from its rare appearance in news, the treatment of workers and employers in news always appears to be in an unfair balance- labor in media has been and continues to be negative, while the enterprise is always described as brilliant and positive (Parenti, 1986; Puette, 1992). Long before more than half a century ago,. 30.

(31) research has noted that unions are usually described as the “wrong” party in workplace disputes (Sussman, 1945). As contextual structure of news is not simply a description and collection of facts, the use of lexical items is usually considered as a specific kind of reality reconstruction according to the norms and values of society (Glasgow, 1976, 1980). The Glasgow Media Group (1976, 1980) found that media tend to use more positive nouns and verbs when delivering employers’ actions, while workers receive more negative description in the same piece of news. For example, the workers “demand”, while the employers “offer.” Under such circumstances, labor is commonly regarded as less credible when it comes to industrial disputes and conflicts. Studies also noted that in coverage of industrial disputes, quotes and interviews are most typically from management representatives, occasionally from union representatives, and least likely from regular workers (Martin, 2004). The unbalanced information source tends to lead the audience to rather biased news coverage of labor. Even when the reporter has told the story fairly and evenly, newsroom operation (i.e. headline, size, placement, etc) can still bring the news to the opposite from where it was. In the United States, studies noted that labor coverage in many newspapers is placed next to police beat or other reports of criminal activities (Cirino, 1971; Puette, 1992). Findings suggested that the public image of labor is likely to be spoiled by criminal association even with a 10 percent occurrence of labor headlines next to criminal reports (Cuperfain & Clarke, 1985). While no studies to date come to a conclusion that if it is carried out by coincidence or on purpose, similar editorial operation somehow is bound to have an effect on readers. Given the prevailing newsroom operation in a market-oriented society, the negative presentation of labor seems to have become a stereotype. Usually, when. 31.

(32) issues are relegated to effects and consequences, media focuses on strikes and boycotts rather than on the working conditions or wage inequities that may have occasioned them (Puette, 1992). Furthermore, Cirino (1971) and Parenti (1986) found that stories in line with the stereotype are encouraged, while others that appear to be inconsistent with the stereotype tend to be routinely dropped or run in an unassuming context, left unnoticed. In other words, the principle shows that when labor appears negative in news, media tend to make it big. On the other hand, if labor is portrayed positive, media consider it not news at all. After studying labor news for decades, researchers have come up with their own observations on the coverage of labor, mainly focusing on media’s relationship with labor, labor union and consumer. Morley (1981) proposed a structure of the message being composed of both linguistic and social structures, which is also called “fragments of an ideology”, in his analysis of the coverage of industrial conflict in the media during the industrial action against the conservative government’s counter-inflation policies in U.S. in the early 1973. The model demonstrated media’s tendency of focusing on the immediate form of event- what happened and who was involved- while ignoring the underlying context of the situation. Labor news rarely offering any analysis of the relationship between particular events and underlying structural processes. This is the basic “event orientation of the media” (Morley, 1981). Parenti (1986) looked at the press coverage of a series of strikes, including the 1977-78 coal strike and the 1982 contract negotiations between the steel industry and the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). He found that the press refers to those workers as greedy, stubborn strikers whose protest action is likely to damage the industry and even to the entire economy by identifying seven misrepresentations of. 32.

(33) labor stereotyping in media. Since they are written in a whole chapter, it is difficult to list them out in full texts. Puette (1992) quoted and summarized Parenti’s findings in his work, Through Jaundiced Eyes: How the Media View Organized Labor, as below: 1. The larger struggle between capital and labor is ignored, making it possible to present labor struggle as senseless conflicts that could be solved if only the union would be willing to negotiate in good faith. 2. Company “offers” are emphasized, while company takebacks, employee grievances, and issues such as job security, health insurance, and safety are underplayed or ignored. As a result, workers appear irrational, greedy, and self-destructive. 3. While “fat” labor wages are reported, management compensation usually is not. Especially when workers are asked to make concessions, no coverage is typically given to management salaries, bonuses, and other perquisites. 4. The problems a strike has on the economy and public convenience are emphasized to the detriment of in-depth coverage on the cause(s) of the strike. Striking workers are thus portrayed as indifferent to the interests of the public’s well-being. 5. Reports fail to consider the impact on the workers if they were to give up the strike and accept management’s terms. 6. Instances of union solidarity and broader public support are rarely covered, eliminating the class dimension of a strike. 7. Governmental agencies are cast as neutral entities upholding the public interest, yet the president, courts, and police often act to force workers back into production, protect corporate property, or guard strikebreaders.. Using findings from previous research, Puette (1992) analyzed the relationship between media and labor unions. He proposed “eight lenses” that have traditionally and consistently distorted the media images of labor unions and their leaders. These lenses, as he noted, lead to misrepresentation of labor unions in media and is likely to be guided into further negative stereotypes. These eight lenses are, in Puette’s words (p.154-155):. 33.

(34) 1. Labor unions protect and encourage unproductive, usually fat, lazy, and insubordinate workers. 2. America is unable to compete internationally in open markets because big, powerful unions have forced the nation’s employers to pay exorbitant union wages to unproductive laborers. 3. Although some very poor and abused workers (particularly women and immigrants) may need to form unions to protect themselves, big international unions usually fail to represent the interests of such workers. 4. Union leaders, because they do not come from the educated/cultured (privileged) classes, are more likely to be corrupted by the power they achieve than are business or political leaders. 5. Unions should be volunteer societies organized and led by unpaid, unprofessional staffs of selfless workers; union dues should not be used to pay anyone’s salary. 6. There was a time, long ago, when unions were necessary (when some of our older friends and relatives were in the movement), but now things are different. Employers are enlightened and would not generally try to abuse their workers. In the few cases where they might, new federal laws (Fair Labor Standards Act, the various civil rights acts, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act) can provide reasonable protection against employer abuse. 7. Unions institutionalize conflict. Unions came into being to solve a specific labor relations problem. They solved the problem and, instead of going away, they remain to dredge up conflict where there would otherwise be perfect harmony. 8. All unions are the same. All unions are, therefore, accountable for the corruption or excess of any one union or union leader and share the guilt or shame. Extrapolating on previous research on media’s relationship with workers and labor unions, Martin (2004) suggested that consumer is usually used as the excuse for media to cover its intention of misrepresenting labor. He came up with a consumer-oriented model: 1) the consumer is king; 2) the process of production is none of the public’s business; 3) the economy is driven by great business leaders and entrepreneurs; 4) the workplace is a meritocracy; 5) collective economic action is bad. He found that these five frames structured the U.S. corporate mass media’s. 34.

(35) news stories about labor throughout the 1990s that was often severely critical of labor’s actions and enthusiastically supportive of capital’s action. All these principles vary from one to another, yet they do share the same concept- workers’ welfare is usually ignored and their needs are magnified, while company’s profits are usually ignored and their offer is overemphasized. These frames and principles dominated labor news coverage from the 1970s to the early 1990s and eventually led to the formation of labor’s negative stereotype. However, in the late 1990s, media’s unfair coverage of labor showed some changes in the reporting of a series of strikes. Martin (2003) found that in the United Parcel Service (UPS) strike of August 1997, not only the majority of citizens stood in line with the striking workers, but also many mainstream news media dropped their consumer-oriented frames, starting to provide the audience with in-depth analysis on the status of part-time workers in the American economy. He argued that UPS workers successfully turn the traditional consumer-oriented frames to their benefits “with social activism and a message that reveals the connection between production and consumption (p.191).” Another example took place in November 1999, when fifty thousand people representing more than seven hundred organizations met on Seattle to protest the World Trade Organization’s Third Ministerial Conference. Despite the fact that some reports on the WTO protest still upheld the typical consumer-driven news frames, Martin (2004) found that the mainstream news media changed their coverage in certain degree to cover something positive about the protesters during the event. With heavy pressure from the great numbers and persistence of the demonstrators, media altered their typical framing of the story and began to include some criticism of the WTO and police. It seems that labor in news appears to gain relatively balanced coverage in the late 1990s and early 2000s than before. 35.

(36) Martin (2004) argued that the widespread public activism by labor and other social groups holds the news media back from framing labor in a complete consumer-oriented perspective and pushes media to include at least some criticism of the employers to sustain their credibility. Despite the unfavorable frames against corporations, he also found that the mainstream media would either mix some favorable coverage in the criticism or reestablish corporate-friendly framing of news events later on to repair its relationship with the enterprises. The clever manipulation of news reporting strategically brings the news media to a win-win situation either when facing the public or its advertisers. In general, western media have shifted their attitude when coping with labor issues. From consistent findings of biased coverage against labor since 1970s, the mainstream media in the early 21st century seem to have given up its hostile practice that they used to adopt when covering labor and turn to play tricks by shifting the framing of news event to benefit their advertisers in the wake of a series of pro-worker coverage. Although the “pro-labor” coverage has been too limited to identify it as a trend of the entire media environment, it still can be taken as a “sign” of the present employer-favored situation is being reversed. This is the situation in western countries, whose early industrialization has led to more well-developed labor awareness as well as richer literature of related issues. In contrast, owing to the social, cultural and historical difference, the case in Taiwan seems to be very different.. Research of Labor and Industrial Journalism in Taiwan Scholars noted that labor movement in Taiwan has risen in 1988 after the lifting of Martial Law (Weng, 1992). Such a short history has made research on labor and. 36.

(37) industrial journalism in Taiwan rather scarce compared to that in the English language. To date, the author can only find four related research articles (Hsieh, 1990; Weng, 1992; Feng, 1999; 2001). Despite the limited number, three can shed light on different dimensions of labor news to provide the thesis with insights into the situation in Taiwan. In her MA thesis, Hsieh (1990) analyzed labor-related editorials in newspapers published during 1969-1988. As expected, the number of articles was little, less than one piece of editorial for a month. Besides, the researcher found that editorials in the early stage emphasized more on collective values, but turned to be personal values more as time went by. However, Hsieh’s (1990) research did not cover the portrayal of image of workers and employers described in the editorials. Such topic received more concern in later research. Studying news about labor movements during 1983-1989, Weng (1992) obtained a series of findings that refuted the observations commonly made in the English literature, i.e., workers usually appear to be negatively portrayed. For example, she found that labor as the news subject accounted for a greater percentage than both official sources and employers. In the articles, news favored workers (30%) much more than employers (5.5%). However, Weng (1992) also found that when reporting labor movement, media tended to stereotype the event with the use of “conflict” frame. Moreover, by comparing the cause of disputes between workers and employers as reported in news and as recorded by Council of Labor Affairs (CLA), she found that the facts that presented by media were different from those by CLA. Apparently, media had their own autonomy in constructing the reality as they saw it (Weng, 1992). Continuing the research interest, Feng (2001) conducted a quantitative. 37.

(38) research, “An Historical Analysis of Labour News in Four Newspapers, 1953-1998”, and identified four features of labor news in Taiwan: 1) the overall amount of coverage was meager, but 2) different newspapers differed in the quantity and 3) the percentage of labor subjectivity in the coverage was lower, and 4) the shift of quantity was in accordance with the historical background. In consideration of Taiwan’s economic and political circumstances, the researcher then proposed five factors to explain these features: state policies toward the labor (i.e. when there was any power struggle, labor news increased), media competition, media’s affinity to political parties (i.e. party-run newspapers had the least labor news), and labor-capital conflicts of the newspapers concerned. This is the first study in this field to specify the difference of news about labor and industrial journalismin Taiwan and in western countries and proposed new perspectives to examine the case in Taiwan. Aside from using quantitative analysis to observe the rise and fall of labor news in Taiwan, Feng (1999) also drew upon the annual, and most representative labor movements from 1988 to 1998, the Autumn Sruggle or ciou dou (秋鬥), to analyze the news discourse. He found that negative coverage of the movement started to change in the third year, namely 1991, to be represented in a more neutral way with less extreme adjectives. However, Feng (1999) argued that the so-called “neutral” way of reporting eventually made the coverage of ciou dou a journalistic routine to report. It turned out that journalists only went to the scene, took pictures, did the interview, and finished the story with no attention to the meanings and significance behind those slogans. In general, the research of labor news in Taiwan is scarce, too little to draw a systematic conclusion. Yet, the previous research has demonstrated that unfair news coverage of labor does exist, but is not as extreme as it does in western countries.. 38.

(39) Taking an overview of labor’s presence in news, we found that western research tends to draw upon “strikes” or “industrial actions” to analyze labor in news, instead of other labor issues. Of course, a strike is noteworthy enough to be a research topic, yet the conflicting nature of these activities also verifies labor’s difficult situation in the media coverage suggested by Cirino (1971) and Parenti (1986) that when labor appears negative in news, the media either tend to make it big or consider it not news at all. Also, with a common application of discourse analysis, researchers examining coverage of newspapers and TV news observed a consistent pattern in media coverage of labor before the late 1990s- news media held a hostile attitude toward labor. From Cirino’s twelve forms of bias (1971), Morley’s fragments of an ideology (1981), Glasgow University’s findings about the media’s bias coverage of the labor (1978, 1980), Parenti’s seven generalizations (1986) to Puette’s eight lenses (1992), labor has been put in a rather disadvantageous position in the media coverage, usually with direct use of negative languages. Although Martin’s five consumer-oriented labor frames (2004) seem to have avoided the traditional employer-centered reporting style, they actually create another form of conflict that lies between consumers and labor. Because the audience is usually the consumers themselves, they tend to interpret the issue from their own perspectives. If labor’s rights should contradict consumer’s interest, the pressure on the labor side would become even heavier. However, after almost three decades’ unfair treatment, Martin’s research (2003) on the 1997 UPS strike and the 1999 Seattle protest suggested that UPS workers successfully turned the traditional consumer-oriented frames to their benefits. In spite of this change, he argued that it is nothing but a trick played by the media to balance pressure from the public and advertisers by either mixing some favorable coverage in. 39.

(40) the criticism or reestablishing corporate-friendly framing of news events later on. In other words, the media environment, generally speaking, is still hostile to labor despite a little improvement. Some research from Taiwan, though limited, also showed similar features identified in western studies, including the infrequency and negative portrayal of labor. This thesis is aimed at extending the research of labor and industrial journalism in Taiwan by examining labor’s treatment in the coverage of the Foxconn suicide jumps to see whether the shift of news frames appears in the coverage of the Foxconn jumps in Taiwan, create concrete differences, and have impact on labor news for workers. Besides, the research can also help to see if news coverage of labor in Taiwan has followed this similar “pro-labor” sign as seen in the American media.. 2.3 Research on News Framing about Suicide Issues Suicide has been one of the top ten leading causes of death in Taiwan during the past two decades (Chen, 2006). Statistics from Taiwan Suicide Prevention Center (自殺防治中心) show that the reported cases of suicide have reached a new high every year since 2006. Despite a slight drop than previous years, the suicide rate in Taiwan in 2010 was considered as the second highest in the world. The astonishing statistics has urged the local society to pay more attention to the issue. Researchers also suggest that the media plays an important role of informing in the process of communication (Chen, 2006; Weng, 2006; Chang, 2009; Tseng, 2007). In a research that collected suicide news from the two major newspapers in Taiwan, United Daily and China Times, Chen (2006) found that there were a total of 8,059 pieces of suicide related news from 1995 to 2004. In other words, a reader could on average read two pieces of suicide news in a newspaper per day. The high 40.

(41) frequency demonstrates media’s high interests in such issues. It also notes the crucial role that the media play in influencing how the public understands the issue. Therefore, a growing number of researchers in Taiwan have started to study what and how the media cover suicide events. Many studies confirmed that the media use frames when covering suicide events (Chen, 2006; Weng, 2006; Chang, 2009; Tseng, 2007). Chen (2006) suggested that three most frequently used frames were found in press, including using attribution frame to specify the motivation, process frame to describe the process of committing suicide, and the treatment frame to quote doctors or experts’ professional opinions about the suicide (Chen, 2006). Researchers continued to study the phenomenon and some of them went on to focus on the attribution frame. Studying TV news on a Taiwanese performing artist Ni Ming-rang 倪敏然’s suicide, Weng (2006) found that nearly twenty percent of them do not explore possible causes for the suicide; instead, they simplify the motivation that psychological factor dominates the case. Similar situations also happen in Taiwan’s magazine articles. Chang (2009) found that when dealing with one of its cover story on the suicide of Peach Gramma, Business Weekly《商業週刊》, one of the most prestigious business magazines in Taiwan, puts most its effort on describing the psychological status of the person who committed suicide instead of bringing up her physical and social conditions. French socialist Emile Durkheim (1897) suggested in his Le Suicide that suicide cannot be attributed to personal factors only as human is such a social animal that the structure of the society also plays a part in one’s decision to kill himself/herself. Therefore, simplification of motivation is likely to mislead the audience to form an incomplete understanding of suicide. A Mainland China study found a similar frame in Chinese media’s coverage of 41.