News Narrative of The May 1998 Tragedy: A Comparative Analysis of Editorials in Kompas, Republika, and Suara Karya (1999-2008)

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-368-9_13How to use a DOI?

Keywords

News narrative; May 1998 Tragedy; Editorials; Newspaper

Abstract

This research analyzes the narrative construction of the May 1998 tragedy in the editorials of three Indonesian newspapers: Kompas, Republika, and Suara Karya from 1999 to 2008. Editorials were selected because they reflect the media’s perspective on particular events and influence public opinion, political agendas, and social debates. Using case studies method, this study found that Kompas published the most editorials related to the commemoration of the May 1998 Tragedy compared to Republika and Suara Karya. The narrative built by Kompas emphasized the connection between the May Tragedy and the reform movement, while Republika and Suara Karya were more critical of the achievements of the reform and the uncovering of the events. Additionally, this study reveals that the narrative about sexual violence during the May riots gradually disappeared from Kompas editorials. In terms of group analysis, all three newspapers positioned the “us” group as victims and reform actors, while the “them” group included those involved in the riots or in the failure to transparently uncover the May Tragedy. This study highlights how media frames controversial historical events through their respective ideological and political lenses.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Doddy Salman
AU  - Andrik Purwasito
AU  - Wakit Abdullah Rais
AU  - Sri Hastjarjo
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/03/04
TI  - News Narrative of The May 1998 Tragedy: A Comparative Analysis of Editorials in Kompas, Republika, and Suara Karya (1999-2008)
BT  - Proceedings of The 8th International Conference on Social and Political Sciences (ICoSaPS 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 138
EP  - 146
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-368-9_13
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-368-9_13
ID  - Salman2025
ER  -