Papua and the public: News framing of the 2019 Asrama Papua conflict

Abstract

The 2019 Asrama Papua conflict in Surabaya initiated many discourses on racial discrimination and police brutality towards Papuan students in Indonesia. The question arises as to how the public perceive news framing and its effects on public opinion. This question will be answered by examining reports in the newspapers Kompas (published in Jakarta) and Jubi (Jayapura, Papua) which display quite different thematic and rhetorical structures. As secondary research, this article aims to assess the public opinion on the framing of the incident based on Berger and Luckmann’s Social Construction of Reality. Through qualitative focus group discussion, this study examines people’s perceptions of news media framing and its effect on the shaping of public opinion towards an ethnic minority group. The results show that media framing reinforces a certain idea of public opinion towards minority groups through various factors such as Perspective of Reporting and Depth of Reporting, both of which differ in Kompas and Jubi as a result of differences in their audiences. Differences were also found in such factors as the thematic structure between lens of sympathy and lens of antagonism. Ultimately, this research suggests that the public possess an awareness of news framing, thus giving them the capability to construct their own critical viewpoints towards media and the incident.

States vs. Social Movements: Protests and State Repression in Asia

“…The first was Kompas, one of the largest circulating newspapers in Indonesia (Muqsith et al, 2021), collected using MediaCloud (Roberts et al, 2021). Importantly, Kompas coverage of the protests was heavily critical of the protesting activities, particularly desecrating the Indonesian flag (Harsa & Rofil, 2021). The second is West Papua Daily, the largest circulating newspaper in Papua.…”

“…The second is West Papua Daily, the largest circulating newspaper in Papua. Relative to Kompas, West Papua Daily is more likely to provide coverage from the perspective of the protesters (Harsa & Rofil, 2021). To collect West Papua Daily articles, we scraped the collection of articles available on their website.…”

Mapping Media Framing and Politics: A Bibliometric Analysis Across the Globe

“…Studies have shown that media framing has the ability to sway public opinion in situations of conflict, international policy disagreements (Rice & Bartlett, 2006), and in altering how people perceive risks (Rim et al, 2014). The presentation of news items can bolster specific concepts and influence public sentiment towards particular factions or topics (Harsa & Rofil, 2021). Furthermore, the way the media presents political issues can influence how people understand and perceive these topics (Shen & Edwards, 2005).…”