The study uses socio-cognitive approach from Van Dijk (2000) to examine main headlines on newspaper front-pages of Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian during the campaigning period of Malaysian’s 14th general election in 2018. For this analysis, 47 news headlines were chosen to highlight the discursive strategies used by the two dailies and how language and power were manipulated within Malaysian population. For many decades, ruling government of Barisan Nasional (BN), controlled the mass media and had justified the act as ensuring the national development and security of the country. These were obvious during general elections when the government expects the Malaysian press to help upholding the state’s influence over the society. The in-depth representational analysis suggests that the headlines were written positively when the news were about 'us' and the headlines were treated in negativity when the reports were about 'them'. Thus, this confirms that the Malay-language newspapers are inclined to serve their political masters’ interests so that they are able to stay in power.
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In-Text Citation: (Ramle et al., 2021)
To Cite this Article: Ramle, N. A., Ghazali, A. H. A., Waheed, M., & Zawawi, J. W. M. (2021). Separating ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in Front Pages’ Headlines of Malay-Language Newspapers during Malaysian 14th General Election. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(19), 434–447.
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