Critical Discourse Analysis: Representation of Bangladesh Protest 2024 in Western News Media

Abstract

A text is never objective, even in news media. They always give a representation toward the issue based on the journalist interests. This study aims to reveal how Western news media represents Bangladesh protest 2024 and analyze how the media label certain identity on social issue through language. Five news from five western media (Fox News, BBC, The Guardian, VOA, and The New York Times) were selectively collected for data analysis purpose. The collected data were qualitatively analyzed using Fairclough’s Three-dimensional model to find the word choice (noun, verb, and adjective) and positive or negative connotation, the discursive practice, and the social practice. Our study observed that the Western news media represent negatively the police as a pro-government actor in the protest, as evidenced by the use of verb to represent the police action such as excessive force, ruined, and attacked. Meanwhile, the protesters were represented as victims in the chaos rather than the victims of the reigning Prime Minister, as evidenced by the use of adjective related to physical condition such as bloodshed, injured, and wounded. The study concludes that western news media labelled the police as a killer rather than security component of a country and represent Hasina as a dictator in the country.