The research conducted in this thesis focused on different frames found in the news reporting of international and national media on the Australian asylum-seeker policy of ‘offshore processing’....Show moreThe research conducted in this thesis focused on different frames found in the news reporting of international and national media on the Australian asylum-seeker policy of ‘offshore processing’. Firstly, a content analysis into the news reporting on this subject was undertaken, and it was found that international newspapers such as The Guardian, The New York Times and The Daily Mail assumed a watchdog position, pushing them to use a humanitarian frame. This is in contrast to national newspapers such as The Australian, which assumed more of a lapdog position, pushing them to use a national-interest frame. Subsequently, an experiment was conducted to assess whether these different frames influence public opinion. Respondents with no previous knowledge on the subject were asked to participate in a survey experiment. They were assigned to two different groups – one being exposed to humanitarian framed articles, the other being exposed to national-interest framed articles. The results showed a preliminary direction that public opinion takes, as the group exposed to the humanitarian frame was more negative towards the Australian asylum-seeker policy, and the group exposed to the national-interest frame was more positive towards the Australian asylum-seeker policy. Essentially, more agency must be accredited to the media and the public, in the hope of encouraging a more humanitarian tone towards highly politicised issues.Show less
