When Intolerance is Hidden Imagined Tolerant Society as Framed in Two Local Newspapers in Indonesia
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study focuses on the discourse of tolerance and intolerance as represented in two local newspapers in Indonesia, Surya and Bali Post. The two media were selected because of their localities and their unique audience. Both were situated in tolerant areas in Indonesia, East Java and Bali. The audience was of two different communities, East Javanese, who are mostly moderate Moslems, and Balinese, who are mostly Hindus. The guiding questions for this research were: (1) how did the media frame the issues of tolerance and intolerance in their news reports in February 2018? (2) What imagined communities were claimed as reflected in the news reports? To answer the questions, eight articles related to the issues of tolerance and intolerance were selected purposefully, with four articles taken from each. The analysis was conducted in two stages: (1) framing analysis (Entman, 1993, 2007) and (2) content analysis by looking at imagined communities (Anderson, 2006). The results indicate that the news reports supported the idea of peace journalism to mitigate potential conflicts. This supports the government’s agenda for Indonesian society to maintain peace and harmony but it might have also hidden the underlying intolerance in the two localities.
Article Details
References
Abdullah I. (2003) Politik Bhinneka Tunggul Ika dalam keragaman Budaya Indonesia. Jurnal Masyarakat dan Budaya 5, 1-13.
Anderson B. (2006) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Revised Edition), London: Verso.
Blommaert J and Verschueren J. (1998) Debating Diversity: Analysing the Discourse of Tolerance, New York: Routledge.
Entman RM. (1989) How the Media Affect What People Think: An Information Processing Approach. The Journal of Politics 51: 347-370.
Entman RM. (1993) Framing toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication 43, 51-58.
Entman RM. (2007) Framing Bias: Media in the Distribution of Power. Journal of Communication 57, 163-173.
Entman RM, Matthes J and Pellicano L. (2009) Nature, Sources, and Effects of News Framing. In: Wahl-Jorgensen K and Hanitzsch T (eds) The Handbook of Journalism Studies. New York: Routledge.
Fawcett L. (2002) Why Peace Journalism Isn't News. Journalism Studies 3, 213-223.
Galtung J. (2016) Peace journalism. Media Asia 30, 177-180.
Habermas J. (2003) Intolerance and discrimination. I-CON 1, 1-12.
Hanitzsch T. (2004) Journalists as peacekeeping force? Peace journalism and mass communication theory. Journalism Studies 5, 483-495.
Herman ES and Chomsky N. (2010) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, New York: Pantheon Book.
Holman J and Arunachalam D. (2015) Representing harmony and diversity: media representations of multiculturalism and ethnicity in Singapore. Asian Ethnicity 16, 498-515.
Lai Fong Y and Ishak MSA. (2015) Framing inter-religious dispute: A comparative analysis of Chinese-, English-, and Malay-language newspapers in Peninsular Malaysia. Chinese Journal of Communication 9, 103-123.
Lee ST. (2010) Peace Journalism: Principles and Structural Limitations in the News Coverage of Three Conflicts. Mass Communication and Society 13, 361-384.
Lestari G. (2015) Bhinneka Tunggul Ika: Khasanah multikultural Indonesian di tengah kehidupan SARA. Jurnal Pendidikan Pancasila dan Kewarganegaraan 28, 31-37.
Lim M. (2012) The league of thirteen: Media concentration in Indonesia. Tempe, AZ: Participatory Media Lab, Arizona State University &Ford Foundation.
Lim M. (2017) Freedom to hate: Social media, algorithmic enclaves, and the rise of tribal nationalism in Indonesia. Critical Asian Studies 49, 411-427.
McGoldrick A and Lynch J. (2014) Audience responses to peace journalism. Journalism Studies 17, 628-646.
Menchik J. (2016) Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Misrawi Z. (2013) Kesadaran multikultural dan deradikalisasi pendidikan Islam: pengalaman Bhinneka Tunggal Ika dan Qabul al-Akhar. Jurnal Pendidikan Islam 2, 197-215.
Stewart E, Edgell P and Delehanty J. (2017) The politics of religious prejudice and tolerance for cultural others. The Sociological Quarterly 59, 17-39.
Sukmayadi V. (2019) The Dynamics of Media Landscape and Media Policy in Indonesia. Asia Pacific Media Educator 29, 58-67.
Suparlan P. (2003) Bhinneka Tunggal Ika: Keanekaragaman sukubangsa atau kebudayaan? Anthropologi Indonesia 72, 24-37.
Wright M, Johnston R, Citrin J, et al. (2016) Multiculturalism and Muslim accommodation. Comparative Political Studies 50, 102-132.