Media framing of the Sri Lankan Civil War

The Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) fought with the Sri Lankan government for more than three decades for a separate state for Tamil speaking people in Sri Lanka. The war had significant social, political and economic impacts on Sri Lanka. This study analyzed the types of media framing strategies used by The Island and the Daily Mirror newspapers in reporting the war. The study employed Gamson and Modigliani’s (1989) media framing devices as the theoretical framework. The findings revealed that the newspapers’ framing of the war supported and promoted the dominant Sinhala Buddhist standpoint on the war.