Media representations of foreign domestic helpers in Malaysia / Sheren Khalid Abdul Razzaq

Sheren Khalid , Abdul Razzaq (2022) Media representations of foreign domestic helpers in Malaysia / Sheren Khalid Abdul Razzaq. PhD thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

This study explores the media representation of foreign domestic helpers working in Malaysia. It aims to provide an insight on the strategies employed by the media to portray the foreign domestic helpers as a social group. So, the study compares the representations offered by the most prominent Malaysian online news agencies and the most prominent online news agencies in Indonesia and the Philippines between 2009-2018. These years witnessed frequent changes in policies that involve temporarily withholding the domestic helpers from working in Malaysia. This unstable situation is believed to have influenced media representation. The analysis was carried out using three theoretical frameworks. Firstly, Discourse Historical Approach DHA developed by Wodak (2001) was selected to analyze the discursive strategies employed in the representation and to offer the socio-historical context surrounding it. DHA offers five discursive strategies: Referential, Predication, Argumentation, Intensification/ Mitigation and Perspectivation. Secondly, Semantic Macrostructures developed by Van Dijk (1980) was employed to assist in locating the discursive strategies within discourse topics. Lastly, Van Dijk’s Ideological Square (2004) was employed to highlight the in\out group polarization. The results showed that the representation in the Malaysian media was highly affected by the changes in the state policies resulting in conflicting representations. So, in crime related discourse, the Malaysian media represented FDHs as victims and as criminals. In recruitment discourse, FDH were represented as a need and as replaceable, also as abusers of the law and as victims of human trafficking. On the other hand, the media in Indonesia and the Philippines was less affected by the policy changes as it predominantly represented the domestic helpers as victims, desperate and vulnerable. Their representation was enhanced by justifications for illegality and demands for international laws’ protection.

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