Abstract: In this paper, news framing and news agendas are used to identify whether harmonious as illustrated in the Malaysian media contributes to a symbiotic relationship between Malaysia and its neighbouring country -Singapore. The case study provides an important example of the way the media helps define regional relationships for both countries and is essential to regional stability. A textual analysis is used to analyze 497 online news of BERNAMA (Malaysia news agency) from 1996 to 2008. Most of the news articles show direct involvement of higher-ranking government officers. The agenda of the news was derived from the government’s perspective, not that of the public. This concludes that the Malaysian media groups are tied to leadership styles and news reporting styles in their regional reporting. The paper also concludes with a summary of what has been discovered about development journalism practices in Malaysia and a note of its possible changing will be in the future.

Keywords: Malaysia, Singapore, news framing, media.