TITLE:
Reporting on Port City Colombo in Sri Lankan Mainstream Media
AUTHORS:
Mangala Keerthi de Pasqual
KEYWORDS:
The Port City Colombo, Sri Lankan Mainstream Electronic Media, BRI, Sino-Sri Lanka Relations, Government Media, Private Media
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Journalism and Communication,
Vol.12 No.1,
March
12,
2024
ABSTRACT: Launched in 2014, Colombo Port City is Sri Lanka’s most significant foreign investment. China Harbor Engineering Company is developing it with the support of the Sri Lankan government. The Colombo Port City is a significant component of the Belt and Road Initiative, which commenced in 2013. Sri Lanka occupies a more significant role in the Belt and Road Initiative due to its positioning in the middle of the maritime Silk Road connecting the East-West. Sri Lanka has great potential to benefit from this project. However, the project suffered a severe setback for a while due to the suspension of its operations caused by Sri Lankan political issues in March 2015. After that, it recommenced its operations in September 2016. During the last nine years, it has passed many milestones. After beginning the project, local and global media have consistently reported on it. Research has revealed that the local mainstream media is more influential than global media. In this context, the research aims to study how to report on “the Port City Colombo” in the Sri Lankan Mainstream Media. Content analysis is used in this research to organize the sample and create a qualitative description of the patterns and characteristics identified in the sample. Mainly, the research intends to discover the tone (framing) of the news bulletins from Sri Lanka reporting on the port city. In this case, the nature of how to report news related to Colombo Port City was studied on television and radio main news bulletins. The Four TV channels and a radio channel were selected out of those with top-level ratings. From the start of the project on September 17, 2014, to the end of 2022, 25 days of news releases selected under the purposive sampling method were analyzed. The research concluded that the government TV channel, Derana TV Channel, Hiru TV Channel, and Neth FM Channel reported positively about the port city, and the Sirasa TV channel reported about the port city in a negative frame.