Under the shadow of the state: Media framing of attacks on West Papuan students on Indonesian online media

Abstract

The attack on the West Papua student dormitory in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, on 16 August 2019 by the Islamic Defender Fronts (FPI), Communication Forum for Retired Children of the Indonesian Military/Police (FKPPI) and Pancasila Youth (PP) sharpened Indonesia’s crisis with West Papua. The baldly racist attack then ignited repression, as well as demonstrations from West Papuans in various cities. In such a crisis, Indonesian online media does not provide proportional voices from West Papuan society. That adds to a record of how bad the practice of journalism related to West Papua so far appears to be. This study conducted a quantitative framing analysis, examining the number of reports, use of resource persons and the use of framing of crisis in the news, on six Indonesian online media: okezone.com, detik.com, kompas.com, tribunnews.com, cnnindonesia.com and tirto.id in the period of August 13-31, 2019. From the 2,471 news reports, it can be seen that most of the main news sources used by the media are from the government and the apparatus and police. West Papuan society received only scant coverage compared with the range of news of the attacks on West Papua student dormitories and their effects. The dominant crisis frames that appear in the news are the frame of attribution of responsibility and frame of conflict. The frame of human interest, frame of morality and frame of economic take the bottom three positions.

Keywords

• case studies
• conflict reporting
• crisis journalism
• framing
• Indonesia
• online media