Framing the Belt and Road Initiative in News Coverage: The Case of Malaysian’s New Straits Times

Abstract

The Belt and Road Initiative is one of the most influential transnational development strategies of the 21st century, and Malaysia serves as a key partner country. This study applies framing theory to examine 38 news articles on the Belt and Road Initiative published in The New Straits Times between January 1, 2023, and June 30, 2025. The analysis identifies five major frames: development cooperation/economic opportunity, geostrategic/competition, debt trap/risk, national strategy/policy alignment, and symbolic/narrative frames. The findings reveal that the development cooperation/economic opportunity frame dominates the coverage, emphasizing the benefits of trade, investment, and infrastructure brought by the Belt and Road Initiative to Malaysia, while also acknowledging concerns over debt trap/risk and geostrategic/competition. Notably, the identification of the “national strategy/policy alignment” and “symbolic/narrative” frames expands the analytical dimensions of previous Belt and Road Initiative media studies, illustrating how the media incorporate the Belt and Road Initiative into Malaysia’s national development narrative and endow it with symbolic significance. This study offers a new perspective for understanding media framing of the Belt and Road Initiative. Future research may extend this study by incorporating comparative analyses of Chinese-and Malay-language newspapers or exploring audience interpretations of Belt and Road Initiative-related media discourse.