Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Angela Powers / The country of Myanmar started political reforms in 2010. Along with the process of becoming more democratic, peace and reconciliation have become very important due to the decades-long civil wars that continue to rage between ethnic minority groups and Myanmar Army. The Myanmar media have the potential to play a huge role in national reconciliation. One conflict between the Muslim and the Buddhist of Rakhine State of Myanmar has gained international attention. Research shows that media play a destructive or constructive role in conflict resolution depending on which news frames they adopt in reporting. This uses the theoretic peace journalism perspective, in which media take a careful, consistent and conscientious approach to report stories that create opportunities for society at large and emphasizes non-violent responses to conflict (Lynch, 2008). Using mass media framing theory and existing peace journalism literature, this study investigates the prominence of war and peace journalism framing in the media coverage of an ongoing conflict in the Northern Rakhine State of Myanmar between a group of Muslims and Buddhists who inhabit the region. This study employed a comparative analysis to examine war and peace journalism frames from stories published in four newspapers; two from Myanmar, one from Bangladesh, and one from the U.S. The analysis was guided by Galtung’s (1986) classifications of peace and war journalism and operational definitions derived by Lee and Maslog (2005). Findings suggest that war journalism frames are dominant in the coverage of the Rakhine conflict regardless of media origin. Even though not statistically significant, the government-run newspaper from Myanmar was revealed to produce more peace journalism stories than the other three newspapers. There was a slight difference in coverage of the conflict between English-language and Burmese-language newspapers in terms of peace/war journalism framing. English news stories were more likely to be framed as war journalism than peace journalism. In addition, news stories produced by U.S. journalists and foreign news wire services such as the Associated Press and Reuters were more war-dominant than stories produced by local/regional journalists of Myanmar and Bangladesh. This study calls for international and local journalists to reevaluate their current conflict reporting practices to promote their positive roles in peace processes.

This study offers the framing analysis of local and foreign-based media on the coverage of "Rohingya: Gambia files case against Myanmar at ICJ" for over nine months period and examines the bias in their new contents and attention to the case. Evaluation of the number of coverage published by each media shows that local media do not pay as much attention as foreign-based media, and undermines the seriousness of the issue. Moreover, the finding highlights that the news representation of local media is evidently in favor of the Myanmar government in support of iconic national leader - Aung San Suu Kyi while abetting in covering up the violent action of the Myanmar military. Findings also suggest that foreign- based media covered the case most with genocide frame whereas self-defense frame was the most popular one in the coverage of local media. This study employed comparative content analysis to detect the bias and observe the different framings of media. Keywords: Bias, Frames, media frames, Framing theory, Myanmar, Rakhine, Bangladesh.

The purpose of this minor field study, and BA-thesis, is to visualize the situation for Rakhine Buddhists and Rakhine Muslims; both through their stories and through analysing Enemy Imaging within the two researched groups. The research questions posed are “What do the informants emphasise regarding their situation pertaining to the conflict and their everyday life” and “To what extent could the image of The Other be called an Enemy Image”. Methods of Thematic Content Analysis and Framing are used to analyse the material and theories of Enemy Imaging and Othering constitute the theoretical base of the study. The analysed material, ten interviews, five with Buddhists and five with Muslims, all identifying as being Rakhine, show that the informants experience feeling threatened and scared as well as to a large extent feeling misunderstood and unfairly treated. There were very few signs of Enemy Imaging among the Muslim group, but far more in the Buddhist group. This thesis calls for further research both within these two groups and extended to other actors identified in the context.

This thesis aims to reveal the underlying reason behind the recent Rohingya conflict. This paper argues that, instead of only focusing on the ethnic and religious view of the Rohingya conflict, the geopolitical economic view of the conflict also needs to be addressed sincerely as the conflict has a long history and occurred in different political and economic conditions. From that purpose, this research analyses the recent Rohingya conflict from the perspective of the geopolitical economy of resources. It examines the role and activities of the Government of Myanmar and military force concerning the recent conflict. Besides that, this paper also examines the geopolitical economic interests of China and India in Rakhine state regards to their unwillingness to stop the conflict. In this study, secondary sources such as books, academic articles, reports of government and non-government organisations and the UCDP database have mainly been used for data collection, which is based on textual analysis. This thesis applies the concept of Resource, Resource curse, Resource war and Intrastate conflict along with the analytical framework ‘Vulnerability, risk and opportunity’ by Philippe Le Billon as a tool to explain and analyse the conflict. The research shows that the recent violent conflicts which forcedly displaced hundreds of thousands of the Rohingyas from their houses and destroyed many Rohingya villages in Rakhine state have a possible connection with the resources and economic opportunities that are present in the Rakhine state. There is a strong possibility that the resource and economic opportunities influence the GoM and military force to become involved in this conflict. Also, the resource and economic opportunities might prevent China and India from playing an active role to stop the conflict. The Rohingya crisis has been going on for decades now, yet it has not been solved. Also, there is no sign of solving the crisis soon. The geopolitical economic perspective of the conflict might be the answer to why the Rohingya crisis has not yet been solved.

The Rohingya, an ethnic minority group that traditionally have lived in Rakhine State, Myanmar, are facing severe structural discrimination from the Myanmar state. Rohingya women and girls have experienced horrific acts of gender-based violence from the Myanmar army in Rakhine State before they fled to Bangladesh and the refugee camps in Cox Bazar area. In these refugee camps gender-based violence continues to be widespread, much like other refugee camps in other parts of the world. Rohingya women and girls are vulnerable because of their gender, refugee status and ethnic affiliation. In addition they become even more vulnerable because family and community structures have broken down. These intersecting vulnerabilities make them exposed to gender-based violence from a number of different perpetrators. In addition these intersecting vulnerabilities lead to a lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services. Overall the humanitarian organisations operating in Cox Bazar did not manage to deliver these sexual and reproductive health services to the amount of Rohingya women and girls that needed them. Although gender-based violence was identified to be widespread in the refugee camps preventive measures were few. The unequal power relationships are identified as an underpinning reason for gender-based violence. In addition, the underlying causes of gender-based violence are connected with beliefs, norms, attitudes and structures that promote and/or tolerate gender-based discrimination and unequal power relationships.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to find out the European Union's position on the discrimination of Rohingya in Burma since 2011. Over the years the country has initiated a number of reforms, transformed its political system and held first democratic elections. Since Burma has undergone considerable changes, the European Union first eased and then lifted almost all sanctions in 2013. The most pressing issue still facing Burma is the violations of human rights, especially in the case of Rohingya minority. Methodologically, the study is anchored by content textual analysis which was applied to a wide range of documents from which data was obtained for the analytical part of the study. The theoretical basis of the thesis is agenda-setting and salience. These theories were used to identify two hypotheses that examine the EU's position on the Rohingya crisis on the Unions agenda and its salience. Research has shown that the Parliament and the EEAS are paying the greatest attention. On the contrary, the Council and DEVCO spend less time on the issue. Despite all of the Union's efforts and the financial, human and material assistance provided, the situation has not improved and the Rohingya still face human rights abuses and are not full citizens of Burma.