Malaysian flight MH370 reports : A Critical Discourse Analysis

The disappearance of Malaysia Airline flight MH370 has been a controversial topic in the news media since March 8th 2014. This study aims to investigate how Chinese and Malaysian news reporting of this event differs in the stances and actions that emerge in their reporting of the same issue in their news articles. In my analysis, I analyse aspects of the discourse features that emerged during the investigation of the accident of Malaysian flight MH370. In so doing I illustrate the different types of ideologies that emerge in the media from these two countries. The data are derived from two popular Chinese and Malaysian online newspapers: China Daily and The Star. I examine 18 articles and reports, 9 articles from each newspaper. These articles are collected over the period of a year since its disappearance. This paper uses aspects of Scollon’s (1998, 2001) mediated discourse analysis of news reporting on MH370. As a theory and methodology of discourse analysis, mediated discourse analysis enables us to examine the hidden ideologies and power relations in language, culture and society through an emphasis on the actions that people take