Focusing on understanding rather than critique, this chapter outlines hermeneutic media framing analysis as the book’s distinctive methodological approach to uncovering the influence of colonial legacies in shaping perceptions of the EU’s trade policy in Indonesian and Vietnamese media. It introduces hermeneutics as a relatively new methodology in political science. It highlights media framing analysis as an ideal tool for exploring the research questions on colonialism’s impact on perception. The chapter also presents Viet Nam and Indonesia’s data corpus and media landscapes, providing a detailed account of how the research question was operationalised. This comprehensive framework is designed to be replicable for scholars interested in studying identity formation, especially those outside the critical theoretical spectrum.