Global and local representations of Cambodia

This chapter is concerned with an intercultural perspective on the reporting of a single entity (i.e. Cambodia) by two publications having different cultural imprints. The Economist magazine, based in London, is a global publication with a mission to spread its ideology of democracy, rule of law and free markets (Moore 2005a). Phnom Penh Post, based in the Cambodian capital, is a local English-language publication that claims to be “Cambodia’s newspaper of record”. How Cambodia is represented in these two publications is described and contrasted using a systemic functional linguistic approach which theorises the relationships between culture, text and lexicogrammar. The two publications’ different cultural contexts of creation and reception are shown to directly influence the text types and wordings of their articles.