Who, What, Where, When, and Why
Data Set and Sources
My data set comes from various news sites across the ideological spectrum. These stories are published in English, and while there are stories of the Rohingya in Burmese and other languages, access to these sources has proved to be difficult. The majority of the news sites I have chosen range from large news agencies that have material syndicated to other sources and are circulated widely. Reuters is a more centrist source, and BBC leans left. I have also opted to include a few sites from the international reporting community, such as Zee News, which is based in India and has been categorized as a right-wing news agency. Depending on the how much original news coverage rather than reprints of other sources found on these sites, the project may have to expand the number of sources.The dates from which the stories come were published around two main sparking points: the eruption of violence between the Rohingya and Myanmar’s army in October 2016 and August 2017. The articles on the interactive map span the entire month of October 2016 and August 25, 2017 to September 30, 2017. In both instances, border posts set up by the Burmese state were attacked by the Rohingya. These are key events as well because of the aftermath that affected numerous villages in Rakhine province. Myanmar’s government burned down numerous Rohingya villages, and as a result, there was a mass exodus of refugees into border regions who then would attempt dangerous sea journeys to escape persecution in Myanmar. I chose these two dates because of the congruence of these two events as well as the way in which a process of forced migration was depicted. Aside from the violence between the state and other actors, the migration pattern that ensued because of the violence is strikingly similar. In a way the 2017 migration is a continuation of the 2016 movement of refugees that never completely stopped, but they are also two points where violence explicitly erupted. The purpose of this data set is to mark out two key dates for the Rohingya and the region, and these articles give a broad survey of the crisis’ coverage.
The final set of data will be the news reports from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018. While October 2016 and August 2017 news reports exemplifies the long duration of the crisis and contextualizes what types of events have been occurring, the 2018 data set will provide a contemporary look at what kinds of reporting are currently happening. Furthermore, this contemporaneous data may show a shift in attitudes towards the crisis as more information about the Rohingya unfolds. More importantly, in April 2018, Myanmar’s government has also claimed that Rohingya repatriation has begun, but some sources say that news about the repatriated family was false. With these developments surrounding the Rohingya, it is essential to track the reportage and rhetoric around the crisis.