Abstract:

This study draws on framing theory and agenda-setting theory to examine how the Bloody January event in 2022 (Qandy Qantar in the Kazakh language and from hereinafter referred to simply as “Bloody January”) was presented by state media outlets. In particular, the study seeks to answer the following question: "How did Kazakhstan’s state-owned media disseminate the event’s main flashpoints throughout the country?" For this purpose, the paper conducted a discourse analysis of two leading media outlets, both of which are fully funded by the government. The first media outlet is Kaztelradio Corporation's TV channel Qazaqstan; and the second is Egemen Qazaqstan, a government-owned Kazakh language newspaper. In order to paint a holistic picture of the events, the content subject to analysis was selected from when the event started and ended, namely from 3 January 2022 to 7 January 2022. A total of n=65 newspaper articles and n=160 breaking news articles were analyzed, the results from which show that state media contributed significantly to the government's attempt at agenda setting. Specifically, the state media was found to have framed Bloody January in four main ways: marginalizing and ignoring ordinary voices; blaming the protesters; justifying the government's decisions; and providing false explanations.

Keywords: Agenda setting, frame-building, Qandy Qantar, Egemen Qazaqstan, Qazaqstan TV channel, CDA