The Mass-media Role in Conflict Resolution (A Case Study of Kompas Daily Coverage on Aceh Conflict 2003 – 2005)

Abstract

This research discusses on the media coverage of separatist conflict in Aceh, involving Independent Aceh Movement and Indonesian Government/Army. The conflict in the western of Indonesia had occurred for 29 years (1979-2005) and killed a lot of victims and destroyed many properties. The main questions in this research are How did the mass media give coverage on this conflict and construct the image of both conflicting parties?, How do mass media deliver the information leading to the peace process or increasing the violence along the conflict? This research set the coverage of Kompas Daily Newspaper as the data source.Content analysis method was applied in this research; i.e. by comprehensively reading every single word, phrase, sentence and paragraph in the news item covering the update of Aceh conflict. Article reading would be focused on the covering and news source statement of violence and anti-violence, peace negotiation (dialog) and anti-dialog, as well as reconciliation and anti- reconciliation.The data showed that the events and facts in the field mostly affected the conflict coverage, such as the violence and peace dialog coverage. When a lot of violence happened in the field, the coverage was generally about violence. In the contrary, when both conflicting parties decided to have peace dialog, the mass media coverage was dominated with this issue. In other words, the role of mass-media in conflict resolution was mostly affected by the situations and facts happened in the field. The higher the violence happened, the lesser the mass media played the role in the conflict resolution processes. In the contrary, the more peace dialogs conducted, the bigger the mass media played the role in the conflict resolution processes.