Underrepresenting “Their” Side of the Story: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Online English Headlines and Leads of News on the Karen Minority

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the representational strategies used to portray Karen people and the roles ascribed to them in English-language news. It was conducted primarily to provide an update on the representation of the Karen in online English news reports in the year 2021. This study, which differs from other previous studies in both the fields of language studies and social sciences, employed Fairclough’s (1995) critical discourse analysis, van Leeuwen’s (2008) representation of social actors, Halliday’s (1994) transitivity analysis, Harcup and O’Neill’s (2016) newsworthiness, and the notion of othering to analyze linguistic and discursive features of headlines and leads of news articles categorized as hard news, published online throughout January 2021 – December 2021 by Bangkok Post, which is one of the leading English newspapers in Thailand. The results revealed that Karen people were rarely given a voice in the headlines and leads while information from the government or state sources largely dominated the headlines and leads. Thus, the status quo in which negative stereotypes related to the Karen minority which have persisted for over 20 years has been maintained. These stereotypes exclude the Karen by placing them as the out-group, which perpetuates social order and inequality. The findings provide insights that could benefit Thai society since the government has been aiming at embracing ethnic diversity as well as implications for language instructors.