R. Barthes’s Semiotic Approach to Media Reports: Indonesian Сase

Abstract

The study of semiotics is closely related to the reader’s interpretation of the text. Narrative is our fundamental means of comprehension and expression for this time-locked condition. Any semiological system is a system of meanings, but the consumer of myths takes meaning for a system of facts. The purpose of this study is to use R. Barthe’s semiotic analysis to study the process of news consumption that causes negative perceptions of government policies by recipients. The research concept uses critical media theories to view news with negative connotations as leading to panic, making people more marginalized in meeting their daily needs. According to R. Barthes, all cultural phenomena, like types of communication, are encoded in sign systems, which are the product of myth-making activity, where any culturally significant phenomenon is a speech utterance that is the carrier of a mythical message. The subject of the study is an emergent discourse in which there is a “meaning effect” for Indonesian audiences located on dozens of islands, affecting their core interests. Previous studies support this research. The unit of analysis is news regarding the policy of increasing gasoline prices in the largest Muslim country with 300 million population in the both national and local media in 2022-2023. The results of Barthes’ semiotic analysis of the signifier show that people are becoming more marginalized as the results of increasing petrol price policy. Signified without the approval of the people’s representative institutions, petrol prices continued to increase. The denotative sign for policy makers to increase gasoline directly increases the price of gasoline, which makes it more difficult for people to engage in economic activities. The connotative signifier in the title and content of the news has a very detrimental effect on people when purchasing petrol. The connotative sign means that the news can annoy the people because of the increase in petrol prices to run their economy. On the other side the government’s advice is to listen to institutions like media that represent the people and get involved in units that communicate directly with the people.

Keywords

• semiotics roland barthes
• encoding or decoding messages
• semiotic analysis
• connotative signifier
• semic code
• marginalized society