Where Journalism Silenced Voices: Exploring Discrimination in the Representation of Indigenous Communities in Bangladesh

TL;DR

This study investigates how media representation in Bangladesh perpetuates discrimination against indigenous communities, revealing biased coverage, negative sentiment, and systemic marginalization through mixed-methods analysis.

Contribution

It combines quantitative media analysis with qualitative focus groups to uncover biases and discrimination in the portrayal of indigenous communities in Bangladeshi newspapers.

Findings

Indigenous news articles focus more on culture, entertainment, and conflict.

57% of indigenous-related articles have a negative tone.

Participants in focus groups felt under-represented and marginalized.

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the intersections of indigeneity and media representation in shaping perceptions of indigenous communities in Bangladesh. Using a mixed-methods approach, we combine quantitative analysis of media data with qualitative insights from focus group discussions (FGD). First, we identify a total of 4,893 indigenous-related articles from our initial dataset of 2.2 million newspaper articles, using a combination of keyword-based filtering and LLM, achieving 77% accuracy and an F1-score of 81.9\%. From manually inspecting 3 prominent Bangla newspapers, we identify 15 genres that we use as our topics for semi-supervised topic modeling using CorEx. Results show indigenous news articles have higher representation of culture and entertainment (19%, 10% higher than general news articles), and a disproportionate focus on conflict and protest (9%, 7% higher than general news). On the other hand, sentiment analysis reveals that 57% of articles on indigenous topics carry a negative tone, compared to 27% for non-indigenous related news. Drawing from communication studies, we further analyze framing, priming, and agenda-setting (frequency of themes) to support the case for discrimination in representation of indigenous news coverage. For the qualitative part of our analysis, we facilitated FGD, where participants further validated these findings. Participants unanimously expressed their feeling of being under-represented, and that critical issues affecting their communities (such as education, healthcare, and land rights) are systematically marginalized in news media coverage. By highlighting 8 cases of discrimination and media misrepresentation that were frequently mentioned by participants in the FGD, this study emphasizes the urgent need for more equitable media practices that accurately reflect the experiences and struggles of marginalized communities.