This paper explores the representation of the Rohingya minority group in Rakhine State, Myanmar, through the methods of corpus-assisted discourse studies. The research is based on the NOW Corpus, curated and designed by Mark Davies at Brigham Young University. On the basis of concordance and collocation analysis, this paper draws several important conclusions, arguing that online media have in general depicted the Rohingya people as a homogenous, passive group of victims, while minimizing agency of the Myanmar Security Forces and Government of Myanmar, their persecutors. In addition, the data reveals that the representation of the Rohingya people focuses heavily on depicting them as Muslims and creating a sharp dichotomy between Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar. This in turn neglects opportunities for Buddhist and non-minority supporters of the Rohingya people to be heard. This suggests that more should be done to counteract the homogenous representation of the Rohingya people, and provide more well-balanced online journalism which accepts the divisiveness of creating such religious dichotomies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-322531 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Roe, Jasper |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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