Media, Propaganda, and the Othering Process of the Rohingyas

The rhetoric and tactics used to attack and punish the Rohingya minority population in Myanmar are thoroughly examined in this chapter. It discusses the historical denial of these people’s citizenship rights and creation of a foreign identity as a means of “othering” them. To understand how various propaganda channels form biased narratives and how structural organs have been utilized to systematically marginalize and demean the Rohingya people, the conceptual framework of propaganda as well as the propaganda model developed by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky has been employed. It explores the sociopolitical elements that have facilitated their marginalization and the creation of an “other” identity, emphasizing the effects of these developments on their social, cultural, and political rights. The intellectual underpinnings of propaganda are explored in the second section, along with the tactics used to sway public opinion and promote particular narratives. It investigates how false information, deception, and emotive appeals are used as instruments to sway public opinion, mold attitudes, and defend laws that discriminate against the Rohingya population. It looks at how misinformation that feeds into negative stereotypes and keeps the Rohingya population marginalized is spread by state-run media, hate speech, social media, literature, and religious leaders. It comes to the conclusion that for many years, hate and justification for violence against the Rohingya community have been normalized due to a concerted misinformation effort and a lack of representation for the group in the media and in governance.