PORTRAYALS OF RURAL WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN ONLINE NEWS REPORTING

Abstract

The growth of the Internet has provided a new way to support rural women’s empowerment in online news reporting. However, rural women are often seen as falling behind in terms of benefiting from development. Therefore, this study aims to examine the roles of the media, to analyse issues concerning rural women, and to identify themes of rural women’s empowerment in online news reporting. In-depth interviews were conducted with five experts in the women- and media-related field. The study used a content analysis method to examine the themes and paragraphs of articles from two online mainstream newspapers: Berita Harian (BH) and the New Straits Times (NST). The results showed that spreading awareness and motivation, education, decision-making, balanced and fairness, online participation, local organisation, freedom of expression, and newsworthiness are important factors for empowering rural women in online news reporting. Furthermore, the study found that changes in the ruling government have impacted how news portrays the empowerment of rural women, particularly in relation to their representation in politics. As a result, the media tends to emphasize the benefits that rural women receive in social theme news. This study contributes to the understanding of Media Framing Theory and the Women and Development (WAD) approach. It sheds light on how rural women are depicted and issues that hinder the empowerment objectives.