Exploring Framing Strategy of Christchurch Attack in Oceanic Press

Abstract

This paper evaluates the new framing of Christchurch Attack in Oceanic press, The
Dominion Post (New Zealand) and The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) by
employing a quantitative content analysis strategy. The study tends to probe the
dominant frames used and to investigate how the event has been framed by both the
newspapers. The researchers took news stories published regarding the Christchurch
attack on front and back pages of these newspapers as population. The results of the
study show that The Dominion Post covered this incident more compared to The
Sydney Morning Herald in terms of news stories. The Dominion Post placed more
stories on front/back pages compared to The Sydney Morning Herald. The Dominion
Post used mostly mass shootings, white supremacists, terrorist attacks, bloodshed to
describe the Christchurch attacks and commonly used these words contrast to The
Sydney Morning Herald. Moreover, The Dominion Post produced 13 stories on conflict
frame, 15 stories on responsibility frame, and 08 stories on consequences frame while
The Sydney Morning Herald produced 13 stories on crime frame, 09 stories on conflict
frame, and 06 stories on consequences frame. Furthermore, data reveals that The
Dominion Post has published more stories on Diagnostic, Prognostic and Motivational
frames compared to The Sydney Morning Herald. The researcher also found that press
in both the countries framed the Christchurch attacks via a western perspective of the
issue.