Singapore Male Homosexuals in the Media – A Comparison Between a Mainstream Press and a Citizen Journalism Site

• Main Authors: Loh, Li Hwee, 盧莉薇
• Other Authors: Shih, Tsung Jen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/k6dyek

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 國際傳播英語碩士學位學程(IMICS) === 101 === This content analytic study investigated the reporting approaches of a mainstream newspaper — Straits Times and a citizen journalism site — The Online Citizen on homosexual issues in Singapore. This paper examines the reporting pattern of these two news outlets in the coverage of homosexuality surrounding two important issues — (1) the interview by Time magazine with former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong conducted in 2003, in which he openly commented about nondiscriminatory policies towards the gay people in the country for the first time. (2) The initiation to review the Penal Code in 2006 whereby Section 377A was not repealed after gay supporters petitioned to abolish the law that criminalizes homosexuality. The purpose is to find out how gays were represented in the media with the shift in politics of homosexuality. Using Chi-square tests, the results indicated that there is significant relation between news focus, news section, story type, topic, number of sources, identity of dominant news sources and attitude with time for the Straits Times. In addition, this paper found evidence that pro-gay news tone were likely to come from official source whereas anti-gay news tone tended to originate from ordinary source. Significant relations were also found between attitude and news outlets. Lastly, Straits Times was better diversified in terms of topics of gay-related stories while The Online Citizen was more diversified with regards to story frames.