Framing the issues

Abstract

This issue titled “Framing” contains six refereed articles, two commentaries, and four reviews. As regards the refereed articles, they critically analyze various aspects of media framing focusing on the alternative media, disaster response, digital spaces, sexual harassment in the newsroom, misrepresentation of women in cinema, and feminine beauty on Instagram. Pamyo Chamroy (People’s Archive of Rural India as alternative media) stresses that the alternative media should build bridges within and beyond media, maintain reflexivity and adaptability in navigating its identity, and respond to the dominant conceptions of journalism. Hermin Indah Wahyuni, Muhammad Rum, Theresia Octastefani, and Andi Awaluddin Fitrah (Between science, religion, and politics: multi-layered communication responses to maritime disaster in Indonesia) observe the local media’s inability to play a vital role in disaster communication. John Mervin Embate (Triggered together: the circulation of emotions in the digital virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic) studies the emotionality of the COVID-19 pandemic discourse on social media where emotions are both psychological responses to stimuli and relational, ethical, and political bodies produced in its circulation. Sadia Jamil (The growing norm of sexual harassment in Pakistan’s mainstream and ethnic news media) uses the postcolonial feminist theory and intersectionality framework to analyze how Pakistani female journalists experience sexual harassment. Avishek Suman and D. S. Poornananda (Matrilineality and the portrayal of women in Meghalaya cinema) conclude that women experience symbolic annihilation in cinema through representational absence, condemnation, and trivialization. Doris Trevi~ nos-Rodr ıguez and Paloma D ıaz-Soloaga (Ideal feminine beauty according to Korean cosmetic brand’s Instagram profiles) notice a recurring aesthetic ideal in the form of a young, slim woman with a flawless white complexion, a small V-shaped face, a small nose, and almond-shaped eyes with double eyelids. On the other hand, the two commentaries by Tom Sykes, Aniruddha Jena, Chinmoyee Deka, Jyoti Prakash Mohapatra, Anurag Sahu, and Rajeev Kumar Panda discuss media framing in the context of liberal orientalist journalism in the Philippines and media coverage of natural disasters in selected areas of India. The four reviews by Melwyn S. Pinto, Indumathi Somashekar, Manoj Kumar, Amit Sharma, and Shantharaju Siddegowda critically analyze a book on environmental journalism in India, a popular series in Korea, and two critically acclaimed films in India. We hope that these refereed articles and non-refereed commentaries and reviews would help raise the level of discourse on media framing.