Covering Religious Conflict in Malaysia: How Sin Chew Daily Framed the Lina Joy Controversy

Abstract

In this article, the author reports the outcome of a thorough analysis of how Malaysian Chinese newspaper—Sin Chew Daily reported one of the most controversial religious problems encountered in Malaysia’s recent history—the Lina Joy’s religious conversion. Lina Joy’s decision to pursue changes to her National Registration Identity Card after renouncing Islam to become a Christian in 1990 sparked off complex legal procedure that attracted great attention from the media. Sin Chew Daily is the largest circulating Chinese language newspaper that seems disinclined to the dominant Islamic perspective in Malaysia. Considered an interesting case to examine how major local media represented this conflict, Sin Chew Daily was analysed with the objectives of determining (1) the pattern of coverage of Lina Joy’s case; (2) the predominant news sources used by the newspaper; (3) the news frame used by the newspaper; and (4) the slant of the news articles towards the parties in conflict. Findings show that Sin Chew Daily devoted a huge percentage of its attention to getting straight news stories from representatives of professional organisations, indicating more of surveillance than correlational and creative role. While conflict frame made the strongest showing on the pages of the paper, Sin Chew Daily was also found to have been sympathetic toward Lina Joy and critical of Court ruling on the case.