PEMBERITAAN MEDIA TENTANG AGAMA DAN KEKERASAN (Studi terbadap Harian SUARA MERDEKA Semarang)

(Media Coverage On Religion and Violence (Analysis on SUARA MERDEKA Daily Newspaper)

Abstract

This study  attempts to explore  the tendency of the regional newspaper SU ARA MERDEKA in reporting  the issue  of religion  and violence   during 1998.  Religion and violence  became the topical  issue in the first year of the era of 'reformasi' since several riots,  killing,  and social unrest  occurred and religion often becomes a triggered  factor. Changing  of power from the authoritarianism   to the reformation era has a significant  contribution to the religious  tension in Indonesia.   People are able to express  their opinion   without  any prior restrains   in one hand. on the other  hand the upholding   the law in Indonesia is still  questionable.  The aim  of this study   is  to provide data the extent  that the  regional  newspaper  SUARA MERDEKA   pub• lished  and reported the issue   of religion  and violence  in  1998. This  research  employs  two contemporary methodological   approaches on media studies,  content analysis  and discourse analysis.   Content analysis  is utilized   for calculating   the news appearance   on religion   and violence, while discourse   analysis emphasizes   on the social  and political   context  where and when the text was made.  The basic framework guiding  the inquiry  in this study is by using  six categories that is divided into  two topics:  violence   and news  reporting. Violence topic consists  of three categories:  type of violence, genre of violence  and causes of violence.  While the news reporting topic consists   of three categories as well: news site,  news  resources and news tones /method of reporting. The research finds that the total numbers of reporting on religion  and violence  topic were 128 issues.  In terms of violence   topic,  physical violence dominated  the type of violence  in 1998, while  non-physical   violence  only had small portion  of appearance.  Then,  most religion   conflicts that  happened   in the  first year of reformasi   were caused by conflict among religion adherent. Uncertainty   of upholding   law  was the main cause of the  tension  of religion.    Although  in  1998 the press had got its freedom and greater  transparency   in reporting,  this  study found that the majority  of SU ARA MERDEKA reporting  tended to take official speeches  as the resource  of news report.  ln respect to news tones, the informative method was considered . as the best option  in presenting violence  issues.