[iframe src=’https://voyant-tools.org/tool/Trends/?query=china*&query=european*&query=asia*&query=asean*%22&query=%22united%20nations*%22&query=%22united%20states*%22&query=russia*&corpus=aa2f21655a64bae4c12f5f0b9070b02b’]
When we look at the coverage of international response from the sites, we can see that the Voice of America much more often mentions international response and presents a more global perspective, mentioning major nations and organizations, and their response to the coup. On the other hand, The Irrawaddy highlights China more than any other country or international organization.
Due to the extensive amount of economic investment and recent debate over said investments that China has in Burma, The Irrawaddy naturally has more Chinese-related coverage, as expected. Other countries have been slowly investing in Burma for the last few years when a semi-democratic government structure was introduced. Russia is also known to have ties to the military, and the United States has a history of speaking up for democracy in Burma. The UN has most recently been involved through the inquiry into the genocide of the Rohingya people.
On China
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If we look at the instances of the word China in each of the full corpora, we can see that the Irrawaddy, on the left, frequently mentions China, but mentions spiked during in the middle of the period, while the Voice of America, on the right, was interested in China in the beginning of the coup, but since has trailed off in interest. The larger spikes in the data point to the news outlets’ priorities. The Voice of America introduces China earlier to provide context, while the Irrawaddy keeps to reporting China’s movements involving Burma. Both outlets also comparatively spike up in mentions of China for their actions at the United Nations meetings.
A closer analysis of the word in the Irrawaddy text show that China was tied to other countries in the UN and ASEAN, as well as comparatively active verbs, as opposed to more general adjectives found in the Voice of America corpora, as pictured below. The Irrawaddy has definitely kept an eye on China’s movements in and out of the country than the Voice of America. A live terms tool from Voyant with both corpora is provided below for the reader’s exploration.
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On Russia
Russia, compared to China, has stayed much more quiet in the news, and curiously, both outlets have different points where Russia was emphasized. In the Irrawaddy, Russia is most associated with China for the failure to condemn the Myanmar coup, and presents reports and analyses on the move. However the Voice of America curiously did not cover the news, and mentions only Russia’s ties to the Burmese military growing stronger.
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On the United States
The United States has been one of the more vocal allies of Burma’s democracy in the past, and remains so this time as well. The US has released multiple statements and enacted sanctions against the military entities. The following graphs show that the US has been in both media outlets’ radars often although the Voice of America mentions US involvement much more than the Irrawaddy. Both outlets report on most of the releases made by the American government, and the Voice of America dives into these releases much more. A closer reading through contexts show that the Voice of America also covered events where Burma was a smaller part of a discussion, while the Irrawaddy focused on covering direct statements issued by the US. Diving into the terms that the US was associated with, we can see that instantly the words most connected are ‘statement’ and ‘sanctions.’ A live terms tool from Voyant with both corpora is provided below for the reader’s exploration.
(keyword used in this study was “united states” as opposed to “America”)
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On the UN, EU, and ASEAN
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When it comes to international organizations, we can see that the Voice of America covers the UN and the EU more than the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and the reverse is true for the Irrawaddy. The Voice of America covers the statements, sentiments and outcomes of the meetings held by the EU and the UN, while the Irrawaddy covers the events leading up to the ASEAN meeting as well as the aftermath (controversy due to recognizing the military as an entity in charge, and reluctance to take real action by all participant members) and dives into its analyses of ASEAN policies and similar situations in other ASEAN countries. The Irrawaddy collaborates with other outlets in Southeast Asia, which make up much of the prolific analyses. The Voice of America’s reporting on the United Nations primarily aims to provide historical context to their readers. Meanwhile, their reporting of the European Union in relation to Burma has been minimal, which is as expected, considering that the European Union is in agreement to condemn the coup, while the other two organizations have not had a unanimous statement. A live terms tool from Voyant with both corpora is provided below for the reader’s exploration.
[iframe src=’https://voyant-tools.org/tool/CollocatesGraph/?query=asean*&query=%22european%20union*%22&query=%22united%20nations*%22&mode=corpus&corpus=aa2f21655a64bae4c12f5f0b9070b02b’]