Disclosing Australian Newspaper's Ideologies in Reporting Political News through Social Actor Representations Strategy

Ribut Surjowati

doi:10.15642/nobel.2020.11.1.38-54

Ribut Surjowati

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.15642/nobel.2020.11.1.38-54

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Abstract

This research aims at explaining how and why the Sydney Morning Herald communicates its ideologies in such a way through the social actors represented in news reports. Using Fairclough’s and Van Dijk’s model of CDA and Theo Van Leeuwen’s framework of the representation of social actors, the study found that in terms of assimilation, nomination and categorization, functionalization and identification, and Impersonalization, the newspaper viewed the Indonesian government, army, and military officers as the Out group social actors, and Australian, Papuan activists and those who support Papuan conflict as the In group social actors. These categorizations serve different purposes. Those who are related to the Out groups express a purpose to emphasize their brutality, superiority, and dominance towards the indigenous Papuans. On the other hand, In groups social actors were indicated as peacemakers. These findings signaled Australia’s political ideologies and hidden purposes towards Indonesia. Australia views itself as a liberal country which respects individual freedom; therefore, the government must protect and get justice, and, it is also Australia’s responsibility to give aids to Papuans who are seeking better place as stated in the international law which gives a picture of how this country is concerned towards Indonesia

Highlights

Papua Conflict has and always become world interest and had become the highlights in international newspapers such as the Sydney Morning Herald since Papua is popular for its beauty and richness of natural resources
They are represented by other means such as abstract nouns or concrete nouns whose meanings do not include the semantic feature “human” (Van Leeuwen, 2008). He confirmed that different purposes were served in impersonalisation strategy; it can background the identity and/or role of social actors, it can lend impersonal authority or force to an activity or quality of a social actor, and it can add positive or negative connotations to a social actor’s activities. This categorization was used by SMH to describe the Out and In group social actors with slightly different purposes
Out group (Indonesians), and the ones belong to the In group social actors (Australians and proindependence activists)

Summary

Introduction

Papua Conflict has and always become world interest and had become the highlights in international newspapers such as the Sydney Morning Herald ( on SMH) since Papua is popular for its beauty and richness of natural resources. Many countries are interested in Papua conflict because this conflict potentially influences Papuans’ demands to the Indonesian government to holding a referendum to let the Papuans choose between Independence or the remaining part of Indonesia If this becomes a popular issue, many countries such as Australia and America will get significant benefits as they have observed that Papuans will choose the first choice. News producers have important roles in shaping society and setting the boundaries of what is talked about and how it is talked about because, without people’s awareness, these groups of people can consciously influence people’s conception of social and cultural phenomena (Rashidi & Rasti, 2012) This shows that the language of powerful language producers has the power to recast the public impression of events, as when employing pleasant euphemism for ugly realities and to make things happen

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