Detention attention: Framing a Manus Island riot

Abstract

This article reports on a research project that investigated the framing of asylum seekers in the Australian news publicationsThe Australian and The Guardian Australia Edition, during their coverage of a riot that occurred in an asylum seeker processing centre on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, in February 2014. Analysis found themes of asylum seekers represented as threats to national identity, State sovereignty, and as victims. The research discusses the potential impacts framing may have on the way asylum seekers are perceived by readers of these publications. Its findings showed that the process of framing in news reports can both privilege and exclude aspects of an event being reported.

Keywords

• asylum seekers
• critical discourse analysis
• framing
• national identity
• Papua New Guinea
• protest