Article

the International

Framing social conflicts in Communication Gazette

2019, Vol. 81(4) 346–371
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media: A multicountry DOI: 10.1177/1748048518775000
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comparative study
Saifuddin Ahmed and Jaeho Cho
University of California, Davis, USA

Kokil Jaidka
University of Pennsylvania, USA; Adobe Research, India

Abstract
This study attempts to understand how geopolitical proximity influences framing of
social conflicts in news coverage and social media discussions. Within the context of
2013 Little India riot in Singapore, a manual content and automated linguistic analyses
are conducted on 227 news articles and 4,495 tweets. A multinational comparison
suggests that news media follow the traditional hypothesis of geopolitical proximity
and international news coverage. However, Twitter seems less constrained by geopol-
itical boundaries of news making allowing citizens to bypass press censorship in an
alternate information system. The reasons for framing differences across mediums
and between countries are explored. Implications of these findings and limitations of
the study are discussed.

Keywords
Framing, geopolitical proximity, international news, riot, Singapore, Twitter

Mass media have long been considered to provide the primary framework through
which individuals experience and make sense of the society (Entman, 2004).
Research has posited that news accounts construct a mediated reality which in
turn shapes people’s understanding of the society. Under this conception of
media effects, research has focused on how issues and events are covered in news
(e.g., Dimitrova and Strömbäck, 2005; Semetko and Valkenburg, 2000) and how
news messages are consumed and processed by the audience (e.g., Iyengar, 1994;

Corresponding author:
Saifuddin Ahmed, Department of Communication, University of California, Davis, 354 Kerr Hall, One
Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Email: [email protected]
Ahmed et al. 347

McLeod and Shah, 2015). Underlying this research is the assumption that the
media have a quasi-monopolistic power in accessing information about issues/
events and in getting messages across to massive audiences, while ordinary citizens
lack such power (Livingston and Bennett, 2003).
Recent years, however, have seen profound changes in media ecology largely
driven by the developments in digital technology and the online social sphere (Shah
et al., 2017). For example, citizens using social networking sites or other online
information/communication platforms can produce messages and distribute them
widely. Under some circumstances, the citizen-generated content makes known an
important event faster than the media (Shirky, 2011). These changes in the political
information environment undermine the boundaries of existing media institutions
and challenge the power of traditional news organizations in news making and
delivery. In this context, recent research has extended the long-standing approach
in media effects research by looking at how messages are produced and circulated
on social media (Kwak et al., 2010; Vis, 2013) and how these messages influence
news coverage (Hermida, 2013; Tong, 2017).
Recognizing the changing media ecology where social media emerges as an
alternative information source, the present study is set out to examine how a con-
troversial political event is framed in traditional news media and social media.
Specifically, drawing on the literature of media framing on social conflicts
(Benford and Snow, 2000; Hamdy and Gomaa, 2012; Snow et al., 2007), we inves-
tigate whether a 2013 riot in Singapore, as the focal event, was discussed similarly
or differently in newspapers and citizen-generated tweets. Further, we add another
layer to the comparison of two domains of issue discussion by considering geopol-
itical proximity to the event as a contextual factor. Given that geopolitical proximity
has been known as one of the determinants of news coverage (Chang et al., 1987;
Mueller, 1997; Snyder and Kelly, 1977), examining whether social media con-
tent—particularly the way the riot is framed in citizens’ tweets—is also bounded
by geopolitical proximity provides a useful perspective in understanding the role of
social media in political communication as compared to that of the traditional news
media. For this cross-national comparison based on geopolitical proximity, we con-
sidered newspaper reports and tweets on the riot collected from 13 countries.
The comparison of news coverage and citizens’ tweets will shed light on whether
political discourse on social media is merely a reflection of media discourse or is a
source of alternative perspectives. If the latter is true, social media can feed the
public different information or opinions than news coverage, competing with trad-
itional media for public attention and issue interpretation. This is of importance
when political parallelism—the degree of the media–politics link (Mancini,
2012)—is high or when political autonomy of the press is limited. Indeed,
Singapore has a highly regulated mainstream media system, which is known for
its pro-government coverage (George, 2007; Goh, 2015). The newsmakers are
‘expected to conform to government-approved values’ (Tandoc and Duffy, 2016:
3345) and unlike the Western watchdog model, favor harmony over debate
(Duffy, 2010). Thus, if social media function as an alternate information source,
348 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

it can allow citizens in Singapore to bypass press censorship and access a more
diverse range of information. Furthermore, understanding the relationship between
geopolitical context and issue framing will shed light on a macro-level mechanism
underlying how issues are portrayed in news accounts and in citizen discourse.

The context—The Little India riot in Singapore

Little India is an ethnic district in Singapore, where migrant workers often gather
on weekends. At 9:23 pm on 8 December 2013, a migrant worker from India was
killed in a car accident at a crowded dining spot. While the police and emergency
personnel were attempting to extricate the body, the crowd of onlookers, compris-
ing mostly other migrant workers, turned aggressive, hurling abuses and physical
objects at the personnel. The story about Singapore’s ‘Little India Riot’ broke on
Twitter at 9:57 pm (Pang and Ng, 2016).
The riot incident, which has received attention widely from regional as well as
international communities, triggered criticism of immigrant workers and debates
about the country’s heavy reliance on foreign labor (Shen and Armstrong, 2013).
Pang and Ng (2016), the only other study on the incident thus far, has looked at
Twitter’s role in crisis communication during and after the Little India riot. No
study has yet investigated how the incident was discussed in news media and social
networking sites. We utilize the riot as a context to study the mediated discourse
about social conflict in traditional news media and social media.

Framing as a way to construct reality

The concept, framing, has been used in two distinct, albeit connected, contexts.
First, frames are a cognitive device for ordinary citizens to make sense of their
everyday experiences as well as to organize and express their thoughts (Goffman,
1974). Framing is thus viewed as essential to the construction of meaning and the
process of human communication (Gamson, 1992). On the other hand, shifting the
focus to elite discourse from individuals’ mind, the notion of framing has also been
discussed in the context of news making (Pan and Kosicki, 1993). Gamson and
Modigliani (1987: 143), for example, described a news frame as ‘a central organiz-
ing idea or story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events.’ Indeed,
the media construct reality by selecting certain aspects of an issue/event over others
and emphasizing those through a lens which is often influenced or obscured by the
ideologies or cultural values of the authoring establishment (Edelman, 1993;
Shoemaker and Reese, 1996).
The citizen-elite frame distinction has been recognized and discussed in some
studies on framing (Druckman, 2001; Entman and Rojecki, 1993; Matthes, 2012;
Scheufele, 1999). For instance, Druckman (2001: 228) notes that

frames in communication and frames in thought are similar in that they both are
concerned with variations in emphasis or salience. However, they differ in that the
Ahmed et al. 349

former usage focuses on what a speaker says (e.g., the aspects of an issue emphasized
in elite discourse), while the latter usage focuses on what an individual is thinking
(e.g., the aspects of an issue a citizen thinks are most important).

Similarly, Scheufele (1999: 106) also decomposes framing into media frames and
individual frames, claiming that ‘a concept explication of framing must take into
account both kinds of frames and link them consistently.’ To summarize, common
to media frames and citizen frames is the idea that framing concerns a central
interpretive mechanism to make sense of a situation under consideration and
organize ideas. The conceptual distinction between the two frames, however, is
useful in understanding how frames are negotiated and constructed in an
integrative and societal process of frame building which involves the triad of
media, politics, and the citizen (Matthes, 2012). In line with the literature on
framing, we distinguish between frames used in news accounts and those employed
by social media users and compare the two to explore whether the two domains of
political discussion provide different perspectives.

News and social media dynamics in framing social conflicts

The Web 2.0 applications, which facilitate citizen involvement in public discourse
in various forms including one-way self-expression, interactive debate, and even
citizen journalism (Castells, 2012), have been widely adopted worldwide over the
past decade. The 13 countries included in this study, for example, had a social
media penetration rate of 49.06% (Median ¼ 58.38; SD ¼ 20.91) on average
(Statista.com, n.d.). One of the consequences of the new and increasingly popular
ways of routine communication and interaction via various social media platforms
is that citizens can bypass the routine practice of news making in traditional media,
which involves gatekeeping and framing (Hermida et al., 2012). The changes driven
by ongoing developments in the virtual communities have thus blurred the line
between the media as producers and the audience as a receiver. Recognizing this,
recent work offers a more integrative view in which traditional media function as
the official, prescriptive source and social media as the reactionary and sometimes
preemptive public feedback (Neuman et al., 2014).
The importance of social media as an alternative source for information and
public sentiments appears to be more pronounced especially in times of social
conflicts and political turmoil (Hamdy and Gomaa, 2012; Meraz and
Papacharissi, 2013). Comparing news coverage of Egypt’s 2011 uprising in coun-
try’s state-run media and citizen discussion on social media, Hamdy and Gomaa
(2012) found that news reports and social media discussion framed the event
disparately in that government-controlled newspapers framed the protests as
a conspiracy whereas citizen discussion on social media framed them as a
revolution. Their findings were corroborated in a study which showed that
Twitter enabled the sustenance of otherwise marginalized, alternative narra-
tives of dissension for framing #Egypt protests (Lim, 2012). In a similar vein,
350 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

Meraz and Papacharissi (2013) compared frames used by journalists against those
used by social media users and identified a unique role of social media in the
collaborative selection and curation of dominant frames distinct from media
frames used to depict the uprising.

Proximity as a contextual factor in framing social conflicts

Research in media sociology has long suggested that media’s newsworthiness and
framing decisions are subject to event proximity (Chang et al., 1987). More spe-
cifically, a substantial body of literature has looked at the role of geographic (e.g.,
Balmas and Sheafer, 2013), economic (e.g., Semetko and Valkenburg, 2000), and
political proximity of an issue or an event (e.g., Maslog et al., 2006; Snow et al.,
2007) in news coverage. Although it might be assumed that media in countries
which are geographically proximate will pay more attention to each other, the
findings are mixed (Wu, 1998). In a meta-analysis of international news flow,
Wu (1998) explains this inconsistency by suggesting that although geographic prox-
imity is a significant factor, the contradiction in findings could be related to the
divergent operationalization of the construct or the variance in media samples and
analyzed topics. More recently Balmas and Sheafer (2013) in their analysis of
international political news coverage in six democracies found that geographical
proximity was significantly associated with media attention. The media in proxim-
ate countries not only paid greater attention to each other’s political events but also
provided a richer presentation in their news.
On the other hand, political and economic relations between countries have been
found to be more consistent predictors of increased media coverage in foreign
nations. A six-country study by Snow et al. (2007) found that political and eco-
nomic proximity significantly influences news frames in international coverage.
Media in countries economically and politically distant from an event are more
likely to be critical of state actors as compared to the local media of the local
country or establishment in proximal countries. Drawing on previous findings,
this study adopts a cautious approach in operationalizing issue proximity between
countries by analyzing all three dimensions: geographic, economic, and political
relations between countries.
Does this discussion of issue proximity and news coverage apply to citizen dis-
cussion on social media? Two possibilities appear to arise. First, given that foreign
issues are often less of a concern, citizens in nonlocal countries might simply rely on
news accounts, which thus leads their discussion on social media to be guided by
the way news media discuss the issues. If this is the case, it is likely that there is a
parallel between media coverage and citizen discourse on social media, with both
influenced by issue proximity. The study by Wilkinson and Thelwall (2012) is one
of the few on this topic, and their analysis of trending topics on Twitter shows that
Twitter discussions broadly followed similar patterns to those of news reporting.
They suggest that this is not surprising ‘because news coverage presumably impacts
what people tweet about’ (Wilkinson and Thelwall, 2012: 11).
Ahmed et al. 351

The second possibility, however, paints a quite different picture. Because the
constraint of the physical space is minimal in virtual social networks, messages
produced by social media users easily and instantly transcend geographical and
cultural boundaries. When passed through people in the local country of an event,
such messages might be able to nurture a different course of discussion among
social media users, which is less susceptible to issue proximity. Scholars analyzing
information dissemination capabilities of social media have found support for this
argument (Lotan et al., 2011). In this context, it is worthwhile to examine if fram-
ing employed on social media is influenced by issue proximity in the same pattern
as traditional media.

Research focus—Frames about the Little India riot in Singapore

The notion of news framing has been frequently applied to analyze media discourse
about various forms of social conflict including protests and social movements
(Benford and Snow, 2000; Haigh and Bruce, 2017; Mueller, 1997), riots (Burch
et al., 2015; Snow et al., 2007), wars (Entman and Rojecki, 1993; Maslog et al.,
2006), and acts of terrorism (Papacharissi and De Fatima Oliveira, 2008). Benford
and Snow (2000) in their extensive review of social movement framing literature
argue that framing dynamics and processes does not occur in structural or cultural
vacuum but are shaped by several sociopolitical elements including political struc-
ture, cultural opportunities and constraints, and the needs of the targeted audience.
Snyder and Kelly (1977) emphasized that media sensitivity (in coverage) of social
conflicts, particularly protests, is dependent on political climate (e.g., press free-
dom) and on contextual characteristics of events including proximity to relevant
reporting networks. Similarly, Mueller (1997) in analyzing the international cover-
age of the 1989 East German protest also found that the farther an elite press was
from the proximity to protest events the less likely they were to report the issue.
Snow et al. (2007) also conducted a cross-country analysis of the news coverage
of the 2005 French riots to identify patterns in news frame and the contextual
factors which account for them. A key finding was that the news media typically
adopts a diagnostic frame, which defines a problem or assign blame, when report-
ing on riots.
Despite the established body of literature on media discourse about social con-
flicts, not much is known about how a riot is represented in citizens’ discussion in
comparison with media discourse and how event proximity would be factored into
the discussion in the two domains. For a systematic analysis of frames present in
news and tweets, we should have a measurable definition of frame. Indeed, defining
a frame is an issue that has been debated in the scholarship on framing over the
past decade. Of different approaches and definitions, we follow the idea that a
frame is viewed ‘as a certain pattern in a given text that is composed of several
elements’ (Matthes and Kohring, 2008: 263). In this view, a frame could be better
understood and revealed (coded) through identifying clusters of specific aspects
which are conceptually pertinent and empirically observable. Further, building
352 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

on work by Entman and Rojecki (1993), Matthes and Kohring (2008) specify
generic, not case-specific, elements that constitute a frame on public issues and
events, including problem definition, moral evaluation (valence), and causal inter-
pretation (attribution of failure/success). Each of these elements can be treated as a
variable that might have multiple subcategories for content coding. Guided by
these insights into a frame, the present study looks at how the Little India riot
was discussed on social networking sites and news reports in terms of salience,
valence, responsibility attribution, and problem definition.

Issue salience. Salience on the issue refers to the attention given to the riot in the
news and Tweets. Previous findings have shown that attention to an international
issue is closely related to a country’s issue proximity to the news event as increasing
geographical distance to news event constrains the availability of crews and adds to
the cost of news making (Chang et al., 1987). In the present study, the case in point
occurred in Singapore (local), and it involved South-Asian migrant workers from
India and Bangladesh (involved countries). Accordingly, it is expected that news
media of these local and involved countries and those which are geopolitically
proximal to Singapore would pay greater attention to the incident than news
media of distant countries. However, due to mixed findings in previous research,
we propose a research question instead, as follows:

RQ1: How is geopolitical proximity to Singapore related to the salience of issue in

newspaper coverage of the Little India riot?

On the other hand, it is plausible that the salience of the issue on Twitter would be
driven by the inherent viral characteristics of social media stories, which often
transcend political borders (Lotan et al., 2011). However, others suggest that geo-
graphy still determines user interactions on Twitter (Kulshrestha et al., 2012).
Therefore, with no conclusive hypothesis on geolocation bias on Twitter, a
second research question is posed:

RQ2: How is geopolitical proximity to Singapore related to the salience of issue in

Twitter posts about the Little India riot?

Discourse valence. Valence in news coverage on social conflicts is an important

dimension of news framing because conflict- or violence-related events are often
discussed with a positive and/or negative tone (De Vreese and Boomgaarden,
2003). Previous work has found that local media, being proximal to an event,
tend to be positive in their news reporting. This might be to pacify the populace
and encourage them to be optimistic during crises (Martin and Boynton, 2005). On
the other hand, findings have also shown that local media can differ among them-
selves in both their tone and framing while covering the same event (Ferman, 2013).
Ahmed et al. 353

Similarly, on Twitter, while it is common for users to be overtly negative in their

posts surrounding a negative event (Thelwall et al., 2011), scholars have found
online groups to foster positive discussions during a turbulent time
(Muralidharan et al., 2011). We can only speculate on the valence patterns
which will emerge from each medium or across countries; accordingly, we pose
the next set of research questions:

RQ3: How is geopolitical proximity to Singapore related to the valence of discourse

on the Little India riot in newspaper coverage?
RQ4: How is geopolitical proximity to Singapore related to the valence of discourse
on the Little India riot in Twitter posts?

Attribution of responsibility. When it comes to public discourse over social conflict, a

causal interpretation of who was responsible for the conflict or violence is a
common and important element because it leads to the overall conclusion of the
discourse (Hugh-Jones et al., 2009). Certain actors or groups are often held respon-
sible and blamed for negative outcomes or risks associated with conflicts. After the
Little India riot, many Singaporeans blamed an overabundance of migrant workers
responsible for the riots (Shen and Armstrong, 2013). Indians and Bangladeshis,
the two communities who form a majority of the migrant labor force were among
the prime suspects arrested after the incident (Financial Express, 2013). The
Bangladeshi media refuted the possibility of Bangladeshi migrant workers’ invol-
vement (Financial Express, 2013) while some in the Indian media suggested the
violence to be an act of resistance against the oppressive policies and harsh treat-
ment of migrant workers (Heble, 2013). Given this was first riot in the country in
four decades, the international media also paid significant attention to the issue.
Given that there was no common discourse in terms of attribution of responsibility
for the riots, we pose the following research questions:

RQ5: How is geopolitical proximity to Singapore related to the attribution of respon-

sibility of the Little India riot in newspaper coverage?
RQ6: How is geopolitical proximity to Singapore related to the attribution of respon-
sibility of the Little India riot in Twitter posts?

Problem definition. In their analysis of the 2005 French riots, Snow et al. (2007)
compared the use of the ‘riff-raff,’ ‘ethnic and religious minority groups,’ ‘failure
of authorities,’ ‘failure of migrant incorporation,’ ‘economy/education,’ and
‘housing’ frames in media coverage from a half-dozen countries during the
period in which the riots occurred. The present study is closely modeled on their
approach, and elected to focus on the following problem definitions: ‘riff-raff,’
354 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

‘failure of authorities,’ and ‘failure of migrant incorporation,’ while discarding the

‘religious’ and ‘education,’ which are not pertinent to the current context. These
were substituted with previously identified frames surrounding social conflicts
(Luther and Miller, 2005; Sevenans and Vliegenthart, 2016). A preliminary inves-
tigation of Twitter data identified that ‘racial’ and ‘social conflict’ definitions were
frequently being used to discuss the Singapore riot. To sum up, this study utilizes
problem definitions including ‘riff-raff,’ ‘failure of authorities,’ ‘failure of migrant
incorporation,’ ‘racial conflict,’ and ‘social conflict’, with its final set of research
questions:

RQ7: How does the choice of problem definition in reporting the Little India riot in
newspapers differ with geopolitical proximity to Singapore?
RQ8: How does the choice of problem definition in discussing the Little India riot on
Twitter differ with geopolitical proximity to Singapore?

Method
Country selection and categorization
Conducting a bimodal cross-national comparative research requires data compris-
ing news reports and Twitter posts from the same countries. To collect the data, we
first followed a bottom-to-top approach to select countries for analysis, based on
whether there were sufficient numbers of geotagged Twitter posts. The initial tweets
posted about the riot were from 21 countries. Out of this set, eight countries had a
minimal number of tweets (less than 50 posts each), which were discarded from our
sample set. The remaining 13 countries were categorized per their relationship with
Singapore and the riot. First, Singapore was categorized as ‘local’ and India and
Bangladesh constituted the ‘involved’ countries because of the alleged involvement
and subsequent arrests of Indian and Bangladeshi migrant workers. The remaining
10 countries were qualitatively categorized as either ‘proximal’ or ‘distant’ based on
their economic, political, and geographic ties to Singapore. Specifically, political
proximity was identified by calculating the share of consular, high commissions or
embassies Singapore had in these countries (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Singapore,
2016). Second, economic proximity was measured by the share of total merchan-
dize trade (both import and export) accounted for by Singapore’s partner country
in 2013 (World Integrated Trade Solutions, 2013). Last, geographical proximity
was operationalized by measuring the air distance between each country and
Singapore.
Based on these indicators, we categorized the final 10 countries as either prox-
imal or distant groups (see Table 1). All the countries in the proximal category rank
highly across all measures except for the USA in geographical proximity. However,
USA features at a high-rank for both economic and political proximities. Given
that economic relations through trade or investment are strong predictors of
Ahmed et al. 355

Table 1. Country indicators.

Import partner Export partner Average trade

Ranking Country share (%) share (%) partner share (%)

Economic proximity ranking (2013)

1 Malaysia 10.95 12.17 11.56
2 USA 5.15 9.88 8.13
3 Indonesia .79 12.17 7.52
4 Hong Kong 10.42 5.84 6.48
5 Thailand 4.43 1.37 3.10
6 UAE 2.49 3.70 2.90
7 Australia 1.11 3.84 2.48
8 UK 2.13 .94 1.54
9 Canada .33 .39 0.36
10 Turkey .15 .13 0.14

Ranking Country # Foreign embassy

Political proximity ranking
1 Indonesia 4
1 USA 4
2 Malaysia 2
2 UAE 2
3 Thailand 1
3 Hong Kong 1
3 Australia 1
3 UK 1
3 Turkey 1
4 Canada –

Ranking Country Geo distance (km)

Geographical proximity ranking
1 Malaysia 378
2 Indonesia 1,149
3 Thailand 1,645
4 Hong Kong 2,593
5 Australia 4,381
6 UAE 5,919
7 Turkey 8,083
8 UK 10,973
9 Canada 13,082
10 USA 15,307
356 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

country closeness (Wu, 1998), USA was classified close to Singapore. All the coun-
tries in the distant category were geographically located outside of South East or
East Asia and mostly belong to the lower half of ranking across all political and
economic measures.

Newspaper data
Using LexisNexis, a total of 227 English articles containing both the words ‘Little
India’ or ‘Singapore’ and ‘riot’ or ‘riots’ published between 9 and 15 December
2013 were culled from the two English newspapers from each of the 13 countries
selected at the previous stage. For countries in our set, which were not indexed in
LexisNexis, the authors conducted a manual search of the newspaper’s website to
identify news articles. The study focuses on a 1-week period from the beginning of
the riot until 15 December, the day after the last of the arrests was made. This
enables a measurement of the immediate framing presence in newspapers and on
Twitter.

Twitter data
The tweets in this study were collected using Twitter’s streaming API and filtering
on the hashtags ‘#littleindiariot’ or ‘#sgriot,’ and search terms ‘little India’ and
‘riot’ or ‘sg riot.’ In our data collection, two conditions were applied. First, a
custom-written script was used to filter non-English language tweets and retweets.
Second, since the focus is on a cross-national analysis, we retained only geotagged
tweets. At the coding stage (explained later), any tweets posted by a news organiza-
tion/verified newsmaker were also excluded. The final set included 4,495 tweets
collected from 9 to 15 December 2013.

Measures
Issue salience
The salience of the issue for newspapers is operationalized in line with a formula
adapted from previous work (Snow et al., 2007). Here the visibility score is sub-
linearly dependent on the framing elements present in an article, a number of words
in the article, and the placement of the article in the newspaper, as follows

The salience of riot in newspaper ¼ logð2nf Þ  nw  wp

where nf is the total framing elements in an article, nw is the number of words in the
article, and wp is the place of the article in the newspaper (front page is weighed as
2; other pages as 1).
Given that the text in Twitter posts has a different structure, the same formula is
hardly applicable to tweets. Previous research has adopted the frequency of tweets
Ahmed et al. 357

as a measure of salience but we go beyond and adjust the tweet count by social
media penetration in each country. This step is necessary since absolute number of
tweets in one country (e.g., India) is not comparable to another (e.g., Singapore or
Malaysia) given the difference in population. Therefore, the salience on Twitter is
calculated by the following formula

The salience of riot on Twitter ¼ ðtx =smpx Þ  100

where tx is number of tweets for country x, smpx is the social media penetration rate
in country x, and 100 is a constant.

Discourse valence
Each article and tweet was individually scored per the percentage proportion of
positive or negative valence present. We used Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count
(Pennebaker et al., 2001), a text analytics program that counts words and scores
texts for their sentiment, emotionality, social relationships, thinking styles, and
individual differences.

Coding
Two human coders analyzed each newspaper article and tweet individually for
respective attribution of responsibility and problem definitions (riff-raff, failure
of authorities, failure of migrant incorporation, racial conflict, and social conflict).
Following the framework of Snow et al. (2007), the coders assigned attribution
of responsibility for the riot to authorities (government or police) and rioters. For
brevity the other marginal categories (society, ethnic groups, others) are not dis-
cussed in the article. The coding description for problem definitions are provided in
Table 2.
A coding training session was conducted before the final coding process. The
pilot tests of intercoding reliability involved 20% of newspaper articles (N ¼ 45)
and approximately 10% of tweets (N ¼ 450). Once an acceptable intercoder relia-
bility was reached at the pilot stage, the coders advanced to individually code the
remaining sample. After the final coding process, intercoding reliability was calcu-
lated for attribution of responsibility and problem definitions for both newspaper
and Twitter sample using Scott’s pi. The pi values indicated satisfactory intercoder
reliability with scores of higher than 0.78 on all measures.

Results
Issue salience
The results showed that newspapers in distant countries evidenced less attention to
the riot as compared to other countries. One-way ANOVA followed by post hoc
358 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

Table 2. Problem definition explanation.

Problem definition Problem definition explanation

Riff-raff If the riots are presented as a senseless, criminal act of

violence rather than rooted in structural problem or
politics
Racial conflict If the riots are associated with the conflict between ethnic
groups (Indian, Malay, Chinese) and Singaporeans
Social conflict If the riots are attributed to a conflict arising out of
economic or social opportunities among Singapore
residents (locals and migrants)
Failure of authorities If the riots are associated with the failure of the law and
order (including the police) or government officials
Failure of migrant If the riots are attributed to the failure of incorporation of
incorporation migrants in the Singaporean society

tests demonstrate that newspapers in distant countries (M ¼ 2.34, SD ¼ .55) paid

significantly less attention to the riot as compared to local (M ¼ 2.72, SD ¼ .34,
p < .001), involved (M ¼ 2.69, SD ¼ .46, p < .05), and proximal countries (M ¼ 2.66,
SD ¼ .64, p < .05) [F (3, 223) ¼ 6.58, p < .001]. Post hoc tests reveal no significant
differences between any other pairs.
On Twitter, the pattern of issue salience is somewhat different to newspaper
coverage. When the absolute number of tweets were adjusted for social media
penetration in each country the results reveal that the issue was the most salient
for Twitter users in Singapore (Adj N ¼ 3,069.55; see Table 3) followed by users in
the involved nations (Avg Adj N ¼ 2,280.50). However, among the involved
nations, it is to be noted that India (Adj N ¼ 3,186.01) was at par with Singapore
but the users in Bangladesh (Adj N ¼ 1,375) were comparatively less active. This is
not surprising considering the low preference of Twitter as a social media tool in
Bangladesh (Mahtab et al., 2016).
Furthermore, although not tested statistically, the descriptive difference
(on average) between proximal and distant countries suggests results similar to
newspaper coverage, where distant countries (Avg Adj N ¼ 354.84) paid less atten-
tion to the riot than proximal countries (Avg Adj N ¼ 434.54). However, on a closer
inspection it can be seen that some of the distant countries like Australia
(Adj N ¼ 620.91), UK (Adj N ¼ 3,069.55), and UAE (Adj N ¼ 3,069.55) pay an
equal or higher attention to the riot than some proximal countries. Therefore, it
is difficult to confirm that distant countries paid less attention than proximal
countries. In sum, it can be concluded that cross-national political discussions on
social media are somewhat less bounded by proximity (or distance) to the event
than newspaper coverage.
Ahmed et al. 359

Table 3. Salience details.

N Adjusted N

Local
Singapore 1,889 3,069.55
Involved
India 346 3,186.01
Bangladesh 55 1,375
Average involved 411 2,280.50
Proximal
Malaysia 472 824.89
USA 198 311.71
Hong Kong 176 264.38
Thailand 168 358.59
Indonesia 127 413.14
Average proximal 1,141 434.54
Distant
Australia 389 620.91
UK 223 381.98
UAE 178 263.47
Canada 152 220.29
Turkey 112 287.55
Average distant 1,054 354.84
Grand total 4,495 11,577.47

Discourse valence
The newspaper coverage and Twitter discussion of the riot were both more negative
than positive. Paired-samples t-tests show that the newspaper stories of the riot
were in general more negative (M ¼ 1.92, SD ¼ .34) than positive (M ¼ 1.46,
SD ¼ .38); t (226) ¼ 12.68, p < .001. Similarly, the tone of Twitter posts was also
more negative (M ¼ 2.26, SD ¼ 4.03) than positive (M ¼ 1.84, SD ¼ 4.01);
t (4,494) ¼ 4.91, p < .001. The results are not surprising considering that early
public discourse on social media surrounding negative events are usually inflam-
matory. As for the newspapers, it is assumed that the negative tone could have been
driven by the criticism of the act, the rioters, or the government. The reasons can be
better explored taking into account the attribution findings (RQ5 and RQ6).
Beyond this overall pattern, it was tested whether the tone differed across coun-
try categories. The results of ANOVA suggest that the tone of newspaper articles
was significantly different across countries for both positive (p < .001) and negative
tone (p < .001) (see Table 4). Post hoc tests reveal that Singaporean newspapers
360 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

Table 4. Valence of news coverage and twitter discussion.

Newspaper Twitter

Positive Negative Positive Negative

sentiment sentiment sentiment sentiment
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

Country category
Local 1.57 (.18) 1.80 (.14) 1.86 (4.03) 2.48 (4.55)
Involved 1.29 (.49) 2.25 (.74) 2.04 (4.51) 2.51 (4.09)
Proximal 1.36 (.71) 2.01 (.29) 1.64 (3.67) 1.99 (3.49)
Distant 1.21 (.24) 2.08 (.41) 1.91 (4.10) 2.03 (3.51)
F ¼ 12.15 F ¼ 18.25 F ¼ 1.43 F ¼ 5.37
p < .001 p < .001 p ¼ .23 p < .001
Post hoc test
Local versus involved p < .01 p < .001 p ¼ .84 p ¼ .95
Local versus proximal p < .05 p < .01 p ¼ .44 p < .01
Local versus distant p < .001 p < .001 p ¼ .98 p < .05
Involved versus proximal p ¼ .91 p < .05 p ¼ .29 p ¼ .12
Involved versus distant p ¼ .87 p ¼ .18 p ¼ .93 p ¼ .17
Proximal versus distant p ¼ .32 p ¼ .78 p ¼ .39 p ¼ .89

covered the riot in the most positive and least negative tone as compared to other
newspapers. The restrictive control of the government over the local media could
have played a role in the strategic approach of Singaporean newspapers. Further,
news reporting in involved countries was significantly more negative as compared
to proximal countries (p < .05).
On Twitter, on the other hand, only the negative valence of the tweets was
significantly different across countries (p < .001). Users in Singapore and involved
countries were more negative in their tweets than the users in proximal and distant
countries.
To summarize, the data suggest that there are differences between newspaper
coverage and Twitter discourse of the same event. Singaporean newspapers covered
the riot in more positive and less negative tone than other foreign newspapers
reporting on the same event whereas the tweets from Singaporean users were
more negative as compared to users in proximal and distant countries. It is also
noticeable that newspapers and Twitter in the involved countries, India and
Bangladesh, were the most negative.
Although the patterns of difference are observable, it is hard to infer the
meaning of the patterns without having an understanding about the target
of either positive or negative messages. To better understand the findings of
Ahmed et al. 361

message valence, we consider the results for the attribution of responsibility for
the riot.

Attribution of responsibility
For newspapers, the results of ANOVA for the target of attribution indicate that
Singaporean newspapers (M ¼ .04, SD ¼ .18) were the lowest in blaming authorities
for the riot while newspapers in involved countries (M ¼ .21, SD ¼ .42) were the
highest (Table 5). It is also found that Singaporean newspapers (M ¼ .50, SD ¼ .50)
placed more blame on rioters than any other foreign newspapers (involved,
M ¼ .37, SD ¼ .49; proximal, M ¼ .34, SD ¼ .48; distant, M ¼ .28, SD ¼ .45).
On Twitter, as observed in newspaper coverage, posts from Singaporean users
(M ¼ .04, SD ¼ .19) were the lowest in blaming authorities for the riot and posts
from users in involved countries (M ¼ .21, SD ¼ .40) were the highest. When it
comes to blaming rioters, tweets from Singaporean users (M ¼ .15, SD ¼ .35)
were the highest and posts from users in involved countries (M ¼ .08, SD ¼ .26)
were the lowest.
If we combine the results of message valence and attribution of responsibility, it
appears that the negative sentiments in involved countries’ news reporting and

Table 5. Problem attribution in news coverage and twitter discussion.

Newspaper Twitter

Attribution Attribution Attribution Attribution

to authorities to rioters to authorities to rioters
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

Country category
Local .04 (.18) .50 (.50) .04 (.19) .15 (.35)
Involved .21 (.42) .37 (.49) .21 (.40) .08 (.26)
Proximal .09 (.28) .34 (.48) .09 (.29) .09 (.28)
Distant .14 (.35) .28 (.45) .06 (.24) .13 (.34)
F ¼ 3.48 F ¼ 2.45 F ¼ 55.46 F ¼ 10.77
p < .05 p ¼ .06 p < .001 p < .001
Post hoc test
Local versus involved p < .05 p ¼ .71 p < .001 p < .001
Local versus proximal p ¼ .74 p ¼ .35 p < .001 p < .001
Local versus distant p ¼ .15 p ¼ .08 p ¼ .08 p ¼ .82
Involved versus proximal p ¼ .33 p ¼ .96 p < .001 p ¼ .92
Involved versus distant p ¼ .76 p ¼ .81 p < .001 p < .05
Proximal versus distant p ¼ .82 p ¼ .94 p < .05 p < .05
362 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

Table 6. Problem definition in news coverage and twitter discussion.

Racial Social Failure of Failure of

Riff-raff conflict conflict authority migrant
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

Newspaper
Country category
Local (n¼137) .30 (.46) .07 (.25) .04 (.21) .04 (.20) .05 (.17)
Involved (n¼19) .05 (.22) .26 (.45) .27 (.34) .37 (.51) .16 (.37)
Proximal (n¼35) .23 (.43) .11 (.32) .06 (.23) .11 (.32) .14 (.35)
Distant (n¼36) .22 (.44) .19 (.40) .22 (.42) .28 (.46) .11 (.27)
F ¼ 1.96 F ¼ 3.40 F ¼ 6.48 F ¼ 14.19 F ¼ 2.16
p ¼ .12 p < .05 p < .001 p < .001 p ¼ .09
Post hoc test
Local versus involved p ¼ .09 p < .05 p < .001 p < .001 p ¼ .30
Local versus proximal p ¼ .82 p ¼ .84 p ¼ .94 p ¼ .62 p ¼ .21
Local versus distant p ¼ .78 p ¼ .12 p < .001 p < .001 p ¼ .54
Involved versus proximal p ¼ .49 p ¼ .33 p < .05 p < .001 p ¼ .95
Involved versus distant p ¼ .52 p ¼ .86 p ¼ .95 p ¼ .11 p ¼ .92
Proximal versus distant p ¼ .91 p ¼ .69 p ¼ .07 p ¼ .12 p ¼ .86
Twitter
Country category
Local (n¼1,889) .23 (.42) .28 (.45) .04 (.21) .05 (.19) .07 (.24)
Involved (n¼411) .17 (.38) .19 (.39) .18 (.38) .22 (.42) .12 (.33)
Proximal (n¼1,141) .22 (.41) .17 (.40) .13 (.33) .17 (.38) .10 (.31)
Distant (n¼1,054) .20 (.39) .24 (.43) .20 (.40) .26 (.44) .16 (.37)
F ¼ 3.23 F ¼ 16.53 F ¼ 68.72 F ¼ 109.02 F ¼ 19.27
p < .05 p < .001 p < .001 p < .001 p < .001
Post hoc test
Local versus involved p < .05 p < .001 p < .001 p < .001 p < .01
Local versus proximal p ¼ .85 p < .001 p < .001 p < .001 p < .01
Local versus distant p ¼ .14 p ¼ .65 p < .001 p < .001 p < .001
Involved versus proximal p ¼ .18 p ¼ .92 p < .001 p < .05 p ¼ .78
Involved versus distant p ¼ .67 p < .05 p ¼ .49 p ¼ .32 p ¼ .19
Proximal versus distant p ¼ .63 p < .001 p < .001 p < .001 p < .001

Twitter posts would be more directed toward Singaporean government. In con-

trast, it seems that the negative sentiments in tweets of users in Singapore were
more frequently directed at the rioters and migrants. Yet, as for newspaper cover-
age, we speculate that given the sensitivity of the issue and the normative
Ahmed et al. 363

responsibility of reporters in state-controlled Singaporean media, they were less

frequent in constructing their stories using negative sentiments.

Problem definition
Riff-raff. With regards to newspapers’ presenting the riot as riff-raff, there were no
significant differences between newspapers across countries (p ¼ .12, Table 6). On
the other hand, significant differences were found in Twitter posts (p < .05). Posts
from involved countries (M ¼ .17, SD ¼ .38) were the lowest in the use of the riff-
raff definition, as compared to local (M ¼ .23, SD ¼ .42), proximal (M ¼ .22,
SD ¼ .41), and distant countries (M ¼ .20, SD ¼ .39). Post hoc analyses revealed
that Twitter users in India and Bangladesh were using the riff-raff frame signifi-
cantly less frequently than users in Singapore (p < .05).
The findings suggest that all newspapers equally considered the riots as senseless
act but perhaps due to the much-criticized labor conditions of migrant workers,
Twitter users from India and Bangladesh evaluated the riots as a reaction by
migrant workers toward the structural problems.

Racial conflict. The newspapers across four country categories differed in presenting
the riot through a racial conflict definition (p < .05). The newspapers in involved
countries (M ¼ .26, SD ¼ .45) were more likely to define the riot as a racial conflict
than local (M ¼ .07, SD ¼ .25), proximal (M ¼ .11, SD ¼ .32), and distant countries
(M ¼ .19, SD ¼ .40). Post hoc analyses revealed that significant statistical differ-
ences were found only between newspapers in involved countries and newspapers
in Singapore (p < .05).
Likewise, significant differences were also found on Twitter (p < .001). However,
the post hoc tests revealed a different pattern to newspaper coverage as Twitter
users in Singapore (M ¼ .28, SD ¼ .45) were significantly more likely to define the
riot as a racial conflict than involved (M ¼ .19, SD ¼ .39, p < .001) and proximal
(M ¼ .17, SD ¼ .40, p < .001) but not distant countries (M ¼ .24, SD ¼ .43, p ¼ .65).
To summarize, the findings reveal that the newspapers in Singapore were less
likely to discuss the riot as a conflict between ethnic groups and locals than
involved countries. However, a contrary trend is visible on Twitter where users
in Singapore were more likely to discuss the riot as a racial conflict than involved
and/or proximal countries. These findings again point to how the affordances
offered by social media can challenge authority control. Velayutham (2016) sug-
gests that while it is public knowledge in Singapore that institutional racism exists
yet it is not publicly discussed or highlighted in the Singapore media because the
discussion would undermine the credibility and achievement of the government’s
successful multiracial policy and race relations. However, the advent of social
media has ‘made it possible for Singaporeans oftentimes unwittingly to express
racially derogatory remarks’ (Velayutham, 2016: 1) and this might be more salient
during the Little India riot.
364 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

Social conflict. With regards to newspapers’ coverage of the riot as a social conflict,
significant differences were found across four country categories (p < .001). The
newspapers in involved countries (M ¼ .27, SD ¼ .34) were more likely to define
the riot as a racial conflict than newspapers in Singapore (M ¼ .04, SD ¼ .21,
p < .001) and proximal countries (M ¼ .06, SD ¼ .23, p < .05). The newspapers in
distant countries (M ¼ .22, SD ¼ .42) were also more likely to use the social conflict
definition than Singapore newspapers (p < .001). No significant differences were
found between local and proximal countries.
On Twitter, significant differences were found between four country categories
(p < .001). Twitter users in Singapore (M ¼ .04, SD ¼ .21) were least likely to dis-
cuss the riot as a social conflict as compared to users in proximal (M ¼ .13,
SD ¼ .33, p < .001), involved (M ¼ .18, SD ¼ .38, p < .001), and distant countries
(M ¼ .20, SD ¼ .40, p < .001). Similarly, users in proximal countries were also less
frequent in using the social conflict than users in involved (p < .001) and distant
countries (p < .001).
These results imply that newspapers in Singapore were less likely to frame the
riot as a social conflict as compared to involved and distant countries. Newspapers
in proximal countries followed the same pattern as Singapore newspapers. These
findings follow a similar pattern to racial conflict results suggesting that newspa-
pers in Singapore were cautious to discuss underlying social conflicts. This can
again be attributed to a combination of factors, including the state control over
the press, media bias toward sensationalism, and the usual lack of in-depth ana-
lyses of conflicts. While the local media was hesitant to discuss the worker condi-
tions, foreign media has previously highlighted systematic problems with migrant
living conditions (The New York Times, 2013). On Twitter, users in Singapore were
least likely to frame the riot as a social conflict when compared to all other coun-
tries. On one hand, this can be a result of Twitter users in Singapore not consider-
ing any social conflict issues to be responsible for riot but it can also be driven by
the minimal local media coverage of social issues involving migrants, which would
be unobtrusive for the online population usually consisting of individuals with high
education and income.

Failure of authorities. The newspapers across different countries significantly differed

in using the failure of authorities’ definition (p < .001). Similar to the social conflict
results, newspapers in involved countries (M ¼ .37, SD ¼ .51) were more likely to
use this definition than newspapers in Singapore (M ¼ .04, SD ¼ .20, p < .001) and
proximal countries (M ¼ .11, SD ¼ .32, p < .001). The newspapers in distant coun-
tries (M ¼ .28, SD ¼ .46) also used the problem definition more commonly than
Singapore newspapers (p < .001).
On Twitter, statistically significant differences were found between the four
country categories (p < .001). Users in Singapore (M ¼ .05, SD ¼ .20) were least
likely to indicate the riot as a failure of authorities as compared to all the other
categories, namely distant (M ¼ .26, SD ¼ .44, p < .001), involved (M ¼ .22,
Ahmed et al. 365

SD ¼ .42, p < .001), and proximal countries (M ¼ .17, SD ¼ .38, p < .001). Proximal
countries also used the failure of authorities’ definition significantly less than
involved countries (p < .05).
These findings reveal that both newspapers and Twitter users from
Singapore were least likely to discuss the riot as a failure of authorities. This is not
surprising since critics have observed that criticism of authorities is uncommon in the
media and the public sphere in Singapore (Kenyon, 2010). On the other hand,
proximal countries frequent use of the failure of authorities’ definition
(as compared to users in Singapore) is dissimilar to the findings of press relations
between close-knit neighboring countries thereby highlighting the potential of social
media tools as an alternative platform for political expression and discussion.

Failure of migrant incorporation. There were no significant differences found among

newspapers in covering the riot as a failure of incorporating migrants into society
(p ¼ .09). On Twitter, however, the use of failure of migrant incorporation defini-
tion was statistically different across countries (p < .001). Users in Singapore
(M ¼ .07, SD ¼ .24) were least likely to use the definition as compared to involved
(M ¼ .12, SD ¼ .33, p < .01), proximal (M ¼ .10, SD ¼ .31, p < .01), and distant
countries (M ¼ .16, SD ¼ .37, p < .001).
These findings can be understood in conjunction with previously discussed
results, especially social conflict findings. It seems there was a lack of focus in
the media on the possible causes of the riot. Malay (2014) argues that above and
beyond the critical factor of alcohol and anger, the marginalization of migrant
workers in Singaporean society led to the Little India riot. Yet, as we observe,
there was minimal use of failure of migrant incorporation frame in newspapers
when discussing the riot. On Twitter, the discussion of migrant incorporation was
least on among users in Singapore perhaps because such discussions would mean
direct criticism of the government and the system.

Discussion
By focusing on the framing of a civil unrest across both traditional and social
media, this study had two broad research goals: (a) how geopolitical proximity
to an event influences the way the issue is discussed and (b) whether and how the
issue is differently framed across traditional and social media. The results, in gen-
eral, suggest that newsmakers in traditional media and users in social media
applied different frames in their discussion of the Little India riot while geopolitical
proximity played varying roles across mediums.
Event proximity is an important indicator of how attentive international news
media is toward an issue. Accordingly, it was not unexpected that the newspapers
in Singapore paid the most attention to the riot. On Twitter, too, users from
Singapore, along with India, were the most active in discussing the riot, but the
salience of the issue was almost equivalent in both proximal and distant countries,
366 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

unlike news media reporting. This suggests the potential of social media to act as an
unfettered news network, somewhat less constrained by geographical borders or
strategic political ties, which facilitates mass discussion and information
dissemination.
The second set of findings reveals that the valence of coverage for both positive
and negative sentiments significantly differed across newspapers in Singapore and
other countries. While it was expected of Singaporean newspapers to be most
positive and the involved nations to be most negative, these variations in tone of
coverage, especially for proximal and distant countries, point to the eternal debate
of how should media report violent incidents. Normative arguments suggest that it
is the social responsibility of the media to show utmost caution and objectivity
while reporting violence to prevent aggravating the situation, it is impossible to
ignore the business interests of news making processes where increased competition
and commercial interests drive journalists and editors to sensationalize events. This
is implicit in how proximal countries were significantly more negative in their
reporting than newspapers in Singapore. This is interesting given the fact that
they hold close geopolitical ties with Singapore and even closely followed the
same frames adopted by Singaporean newspapers. The additional analyses of the
attribution of responsibility for the riot reveal that the newspapers in Singapore
and proximal countries were equally likely to blame the rioters for the unrest than
criticizing the government.
The observations from Twitter discourse suggest a different paradigm at work.
Twitter has been described as a platform for ambient journalism where a mix of
alternate news, information, and opinions converge and traditional journalistic
approaches are not necessarily followed (Hermida, 2013). Twitter users from
Singapore were equally negative in their posts as users from the involved country.
This corroborates Twitter’s potential to present itself as an alternative avenue of
political discussions, which is further strengthened by the insights from problem
definition findings.
The national media in Singapore have previously been criticized for not provid-
ing in-depth analyses of local social issues (Velayutham, 2016), thus it was not
unexpected to observe that the newspapers in Singapore presented the riot as
just a social nuisance, and avoided discussions of the underlying reasons or con-
flicts. These editorial choices can be understood in the context of the stringent press
regulation in Singapore. Its press is always subject to direct or implied control by
the state and mainstream news to promote government’s elite perspectives (Goh,
2015). News articles that criticize or challenge the ruling party are liable to be
prosecuted through a slew of acts.
On Twitter, Singaporean users were more likely to use the racial conflict defini-
tion, which contradicted the Singapore government’s official version of the event.
They were also significantly more frequent in criticizing the authorities than news-
papers. These findings point to the online channels as an alternative platform for
political discussions which bypasses the official gatekeeping of traditional media.
Ahmed et al. 367

Up until recently, the ruling party maintained a stringent control of online dis-
course in Singapore and individuals or groups were not able to engage in political
discussions without registering with the authorities. However, with the liberaliza-
tion of the Internet in Singapore in 2010, which eliminated the individual registra-
tion requirement, citizens are freer to express their political opinions online and are
not as closely monitored as before (Goh, 2015). This could explain the diverging
perspectives of the riot on Twitter as compared to Singaporean newspapers. The
results indicate that Twitter users in Singapore were rather strategic in their opi-
nion expression—although they were found to use the conflict problem definition,
they tended to avoid open attribution of responsibility to the government, as
compared to other countries. This may signal their mindfulness of social media
monitoring by the Singaporean government. In several recent incidents, the
Singaporean government has cracked down on online dissenters as political blog-
gers have been charged with a defamation suit and jailed for posts criticizing the
government (Tan, 2015). Nevertheless, the Internet is still an important space for
Singaporeans to voice their opinion.
Among the proximal countries, Twitter enables the free trade of information
unregulated by press censorship or geopolitical ties—this was visible in
the observed frame usage by Twitter users in proximal countries, where both the
failure of authorities and failure of migrant incorporation definitions were
more commonly used than their press. Again, this discourse diverged from
the official rhetoric of their mainstream press which mainly criticized and
condemned only the rioters. The problem attribution findings also support
this argument as Twitter users in proximal and distant countries were more likely
to hold the authorities responsible as compared to users in Singapore. In summary,
the findings highlight that the same event is framed in different ways in traditional
media, yet in the same way in the social media, of proximal versus distant countries.
A major contribution of this study is that it not only evaluates the trend of news
framing by media in four different regions, each influenced by their geopolitical
ties, but it also compares these findings to the discourse offered by social media.
The findings raise important questions about the authority of traditional media in
influencing audience behavior and attitudes in the current environment. The results
indicating that the way social media present and discuss the Little India riot is not
in correspondence with traditional media’s coverage should interest future scholars
to take alternative avenues of political discussions into account while analyzing
media effects.
There are a few limitations of the present study. First, it focused only on news-
papers but framing in television news could be different. Second, inclusion of non-
English language tweets and articles could have added further value to the claims.
Third, China, a close strategic partner of Singapore, was excluded due to the
unavailability of Twitter data. Finally, it might be that the discussion of a riot
has a greater potential to go viral as compared to mundane political issues. Future
scholars should replicate this study across different topics and contexts.
368 the International Communication Gazette 81(4)

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.

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