News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis

The growing concern over the influx of foreign women in Malaysia as sex workers, has continually gained the attention of the local media particularly the mainstream newspapers. The media, despite playing an instrumental role in bringing about social transformation, has the ability to portray the...

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Main Authors:	Puspalata C Suppiah, Surinderpal Kaur, Nalini Arumugam, Alice Shanthi
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2019
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14050/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14050/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14050/1/27931-96300-2-PB.pdf

id	ukm-14050
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-140502020-01-24T09:26:54Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14050/ News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis Puspalata C Suppiah, Surinderpal Kaur, Nalini Arumugam, Alice Shanthi, The growing concern over the influx of foreign women in Malaysia as sex workers, has continually gained the attention of the local media particularly the mainstream newspapers. The media, despite playing an instrumental role in bringing about social transformation, has the ability to portray the foreign women in a positive way or to discriminate against them. This study, based on qualitative analysis, represents an attempt to study a social problem particularly in the way that foreign women in sex work have been represented in Malaysia by the mainstream English-language newspapers. The analytical tools of the discourse-historical approach (DHA) are employed in the analysis of the news articles. In particular, the argumentation strategy in the DHA demonstrates that a number of topoi (i.e., the topoi of control, number, threat, and victimisation) have been employed to represent foreign sex workers in the media. Investigation of the newspaper extracts from New Straits Times and The Star generally revealed that the media have portrayed foreign women in sex work in the offender orientation frame more so than as victims. Furthermore, foreign sex workers are also positioned negatively because of their illegal migrant status, making them doubly discriminated against. Such representations directly impact the women’s lives, leading to further discrimination on the basis of their trade and illegal migrant status, denying them a voice and depriving them of their legal rights. The paper concludes by discussing the contributions of the research and emphasises the need for social justice for these marginalised women. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2019-02 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14050/1/27931-96300-2-PB.pdf Puspalata C Suppiah, and Surinderpal Kaur, and Nalini Arumugam, and Alice Shanthi, (2019) News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis. GEMA ; Online Journal of Language Studies, 19 (1). pp. 136-152. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1171
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	The growing concern over the influx of foreign women in Malaysia as sex workers, has continually gained the attention of the local media particularly the mainstream newspapers. The media, despite playing an instrumental role in bringing about social transformation, has the ability to portray the foreign women in a positive way or to discriminate against them. This study, based on qualitative analysis, represents an attempt to study a social problem particularly in the way that foreign women in sex work have been represented in Malaysia by the mainstream English-language newspapers. The analytical tools of the discourse-historical approach (DHA) are employed in the analysis of the news articles. In particular, the argumentation strategy in the DHA demonstrates that a number of topoi (i.e., the topoi of control, number, threat, and victimisation) have been employed to represent foreign sex workers in the media. Investigation of the newspaper extracts from New Straits Times and The Star generally revealed that the media have portrayed foreign women in sex work in the offender orientation frame more so than as victims. Furthermore, foreign sex workers are also positioned negatively because of their illegal migrant status, making them doubly discriminated against. Such representations directly impact the women’s lives, leading to further discrimination on the basis of their trade and illegal migrant status, denying them a voice and depriving them of their legal rights. The paper concludes by discussing the contributions of the research and emphasises the need for social justice for these marginalised women.
format	Article
author	Puspalata C Suppiah, Surinderpal Kaur, Nalini Arumugam, Alice Shanthi,
spellingShingle	Puspalata C Suppiah, Surinderpal Kaur, Nalini Arumugam, Alice Shanthi, News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis
author_facet	Puspalata C Suppiah, Surinderpal Kaur, Nalini Arumugam, Alice Shanthi,
author_sort	Puspalata C Suppiah,
title	News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis
title_short	News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis
title_full	News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis
title_fullStr	News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis
title_full_unstemmed	News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis
title_sort	news coverage of foreign sex workers in malaysia: a critical analysis
publisher	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate	2019
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14050/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14050/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14050/1/27931-96300-2-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T20:06:13Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T20:06:13Z
_version_	1777407176243937280

News coverage of foreign sex workers in Malaysia: a critical analysis

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