Poverty Issues on the “Hike”

Media putting the poverty issues under magnifying glass together with the increase in Covid-19 new cases.

 

As seen in the data, the news exposure of the Poverty topic increased significantly in June which coincides with the beginning of the sky-high Covid-19 cases.

 

 

Looking at the media framing, the media has highlighted the White Flag Campaign and issues on balancing between saving lives and livelihoods.

 

This proves that the media has been highly focusing on the White Flag Campaign since it is now associated with issues on poverty.

 

 

As such, issues about balancing lives and livelihoods can also be seen in the top issue of the Household Income topic.

 

In the past month, the media has predominantly focused on how factory workers are struggling even more with the stricter measures.

 

Recently, the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) claimed that the manufacturing sectors is not the cause for most of the Covid-19 cases in Malaysia as the virus outbreak are sporadic, despite data from the Ministry of Health (MOH) showing that the sectors contributed 48% of the clusters.

 

 

Nonetheless, the top issues on Twitter regarding the household income shows that Malaysians are primarily focusing on the loss of jobs or income reduction during the prolonged lockdown.

 

 

Meanwhile, the trending phrases in the media associated with the Household Income topic shows that the media is focusing on not only the B40 income group but also those from the M40 group.