FRAMING THE RISE AND FALL OF PUBLIC COMPANIES IN A STATE-MEDIATED PRESS SYSTEM: EVALUATING THE BUSINESS NEWS COVERAGE OF SINGAPORE WATER TREATMENT COMPANY HYFLUX

Abstract

The framing of news is an important phenomenon in journalism studies, because framing can account for the way communities view issues, and points to how news is produced. This thesis investigates the effect of state mediation on Singapore business and financial journalism by applying framing theory to the case of news coverage on publicly-listed Singapore water treatment company Hyflux Ltd. Hyflux was considered an icon of Singapore Inc. until the company’s collapse, when it filed for bankruptcy protection on 22 May 2018. Analysis was conducted on 1,076 articles about Hyflux, which were published by Singapore mainstream news outlets The Straits Times and Channel NewsAsia over a 20 year period (from 2001 to 2020). Five frames were identified in the news coverage of Hyflux: Two frames prior to its collapse, namely “rising star” and “warning signs”, and three frames after its collapse, namely “fallen star”, “drama” and “uncertainty”. An examination of these five frames suggested four potential characteristics of business and financial journalism in state-mediated press systems: (1) That it does not play a watchdog role for corporate governance, (2) the tendency to engage in infotainment, (3) a preference for toeing the line, and (4) an avoidance of accountability. This paper thus ventures that state-mediated press systems have influenced business and financial journalism in similar ways to social and political journalism, such that business and financial journalism in state-mediated press systems lean towards passivity and self censoring, to the potential detriment of news standards.