A Critical Discourse Analysis of Online Newspaper Articles on 29

SEA Games Flag Incident

Andriana Vita Nurjannah

Department of Linguistics, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia

andrianavita@upi.edu

Keywords: Online newspaper, critical discourse analysis (CDA), ideology, Indonesia, Malaysia.

Abstract: Newspaper is a representation of what happened in a society. It ideally informs the truth without any

intervention and subjectivity from any party. This research is aimed at identifying Indonesia and Malaysia

perspectives on flag incident printed in the booklet of Sea Games 2017. Malaysian government as the host for

the annual event was responsible on what happened, but most Indonesian is still questioning about the

background the fatal incident. The top-rank online newspaper articles from both countries were used as the

instruments in revealing the stand point of the countries from mass media by using the discourse framework

from Fairclough (1989). The online news is believed to have faster publication in today’s digital and

technological era, thus the researcher focuses on the news published short after the issue was acknowledged.

A critical discourse analysis (CDA) was administered by focusing on the vocabulary used in the news and by

considering the cultural background between these two nations. It is expected that the findings of this study

would represent the real intended messages and implied ideology from the parties involved. Thus, it highlights

the relationship between those Southeast Asia Nations.

1 INTRODUCTION

Online newspaper becomes one of the major

information sources in the society, enabling the

reader in this digital and technological era to access

the updated news (Tewari, 2016). This form of mass

media contains discourse which conveys social

structure and power relation both explicitly and

implicitly (Fairclough, 1995; Van Dijk, 1988). It

reflects the attitude, believe, and perspective

according to each socio-cultural background. Thus,

analysing a text may reveal the stand point of a certain

society.

As newspaper holds an important role in revealing

the principles of a certain society, this research

focuses on administering Critical Discourse Analysis

(CDA) which is expected to identify the strategies

adopted by online newspapers articles in presenting

an event.

Analysing one of social event, this research

focused on the ideology implied in the recent

international sport event held by Malaysian

government. The event experienced difficult situation

because of the upside-down flag of Indonesia, one of

countries participated in the event, Southeast Asian

(SEA) Games. This was recognized by the Sport

Minister of Indonesia that later posted the picture of

the wrong flag printed in the booklet in his personal

social media account. Since social media is mostly

used in this era facilitating communication in

seconds, the posting of Indonesian flag being printed

upside down became viral.

The issue therefore ignited a storm of protest from

Indonesian and demanded an official apology from

the host of the event. However, the apology from the

Foreign Minister of Malaysia did not stop some

citizen asking the demise of the diplomatic relation

between the two nations. This flag gaffe thus remarks

as having great effect since it created mass reaction

especially from Indonesian.

Research on news report using CDA on a

particular event has been done (Wang and Liu, 2015)

by using Fairclough (1989) framework in which

Systemic Functional Grammar is employed to find

out the hidden methodology among the news articles.

On the other hand, the author used combination of

Fairclough (1989) and Van Dijk (1988) in obtaining

the aim of the study.

Nurjannah, A.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Online Newspaper Articles on 29th SEA Games Flag Incident.

DOI: 10.5220/0007161300190023

In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference

on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 19-23

ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2

2 THEORY AND

METHODOLOGY

This study represents a newspaper analysis using the

perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It

is a framework to study or examine how an individual

or institution make use of language by not only

identifying the textual features but also interpretation

based on the context and interaction within it. CDA is

seen as the practice of language in society

(Fairclough, 1992; Gee, 1999), the representation of

power in social life (Weiss and Wodak, 2003), as a

means to connect linguistic analysis to social analysis

(Woods and Kroger, 2000). Therefore, it can be

generalized that CDA concerns in scrutinizing the

power and ideologies embedded in both linguistic and

social aspects.

The research employed the CDA framework

proposed by Fairclough (1989) consisting of three

level of discourse: description, interpretation, and

explanation. It describes the feature of presentation,

analyses the relationship between the text and

interaction, and relates the interaction with the social

context.

The online news described here were taken from

two online newspapers articles of The Jakarta Post

(TJP), representing Indonesian Media and The Star

(TS), Malaysian media. The news article was selected

since it is supposed to be objective, whereas editorials

or other news type have the higher degree of

subjectivity. The articles were selected randomly

after the Malaysian government officially gave

respond regarding the event.

3 FINDING AND DISCUSSION

This presents the findings analysis and discussion.

The section begins with description by analysing

seven linguistic features of presentation in description

stage, followed by interpretation and explanation

(Fairclough, 1989).

3.1 Description and Interpretation

3.1.1 Headline

Headline holds a critical role in attracting the readers’

attention (Van Dijk, 1988). It is the keywords

summarizing the whole news story (Dor, 2003),

reflecting the writer’s perspective on the news being

reported. Both the news media use active sentence

reporting the event indicating the role of the subject

participants. TJP states “Sport minister of Indonesia,

Malaysia settle flag incident”, while TS writes “KL

apologises over flag blunder”. There is a different

reference used by both media in representing

Malaysia. TJP clearly denotes Malaysia as a country,

while TS use the word KL, one of the cities in

Malaysia. Thus, it can be inferred that TS

acknowledges only the city, “KL”, which apologise,

not Malaysia as the whole nation.

3.1.2 Lexical Choice

The lexical choice plays a key role in the presentation

of position and attitude of the two newspaper

agencies. It mainly describes the writer’s point of

view towards the news as the he has freedom in

choosing the lexical item explaining a news event. It

also defines particular kinds of identities, values, and

series of event which is not explicitly stated (Machin

and Mayr, 2012).

In these articles, there are several lexical items

referring to the Indonesian flag being printed upside

down, represented in the table below.

Table 1: Lexical choice on the Indonesian flag being printed

upside down.

The Jakarta Post

The Star

 flag incident

 problem

 incident

 problem

 misprinted

Indonesian flag

 mistake

 flag blunder

 upside down

publication of the

republic’s flag

 issue

 matter

 error

 “big mistake”

 Mistake

From the data above, it can be seen that TS and

TJP used similar word choice, however there is one

particular lexical item which is absent in TS and

appear twice in TJP.

Text 1

He has asked his fellow Indonesians to put aside

the problem and move on with the games.

Text 2

“However, we ask that no more problems like this

happen in the future.”

Thus, it informs that the journalist of TS does not

consider the issue is a part of problem, but it indeed

believes that it is a part of error and mistake.

CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology

Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education

3.1.3 Quotation

Quotation and reported speech plays an integral part

in news reporting. Since the reader may not know the

real situation being reported, the journalist has an

authority to shape the readers’ perception by his

writing. Thus, it is crucial whether the verbal action

in the news is presented using direct or indirect

speech act. The absence of verbal action presented in

direct speech act in news may lead to uncertainty

causing the doubt of the readers since the journalist

may use his wording which is not suitable with the

real condition (Fairclough, 1995). Moreover, the use

of quotation is able to show the party holding the

power (Van Dijk, 1988).

By using about 30.77 and 33.33 % direct speech

acts without, the TJP and TS respectively tries to

maintain the reliability of the event. In this case, the

journalist has the choice in deciding what actions

need to be cited verbally. From the data, it shows that

both TJP and TS tend to cite from Indonesia’s point

of view. However, TJP uses more proportion on

citation from Indonesia government comparing to

Malaysia Government. Therefore, it can be said that

the power of Indonesia’s stakeholder holds important

part in this event.

3.1.4 Quoting Verbs

There are various quoting verbs in news being

analysed. The writer has the option in choosing the

quoting verbs best described the situation. The verbs

chosen thus determine the writer’s ideology or

perspective. In TJP, they are said, told, added, asked,

praised, assured; while in TS are said, quoted and

expressed as the reporting verbs in the article being

analysed. According to Coulthard (1994), TS used the

neutral structuring verbs in said and expressed. While

quoted belongs to metalinguistic verbs. The

metalinguistic is a more specified verb than the

neutral category having probability to give ironic

effect. In this case, quoted still tends to be neutral

since it simply reports on what happened. It can be

summarized that the quoting verbs administered in TS

give neutral point of view regarding the event.

TJP used more types of verbs in reporting the

event. Said, told, asked are categorized as neutral

structuring verbs, while added belongs to transcript

verb in relation to other parts of discourse. It is the

verb giving more information on the same point.

Praised and assured mentioned in the news are

classified as assertives in metapropositional verbs,

expressing the writer’s interpretation of the speaker.

The metapropositional verbs indicate a higher level of

interpreting and evaluating by the journalist. Here, we

can say that reporting verbs in TJP contain neutral,

transcript, and metapropositional verbs.

3.1.5 Scare Quote

Scare quote is quite identical to quotation mark, but it

covers only for some words, not the entire sentence.

Thus, it gives stress to particular words and

symbolizes disagreement on that certain lexical item.

It also represents that the term in scare quote belongs

to someone else; it is between the writer’s and

assumed reader’s perception (Fairclough, 1992).

There is not any scare quote written in TJP, however

TS makes use of this scare quote in one of its

sentences.

Khairy, while offering his public apology

expressed his regret over the matter and was quick to

admit that it was a “big mistake”.

The words big mistake shows the uncertainty

from media publishing it. Thus, it can be interpreted

that according to TS, the flag being printed upside

down in the Sea Games booklet is not considered fatal

incident. However, the media still considers that this

event is a mistake as TS uses the mistake as one of

lexical choice representing the flag gaffe.

3.1.6 Theme

According to Van Dijk (1988) refers theme or

setential topic as the main point on the sentence.

Thus, it relates to what the subject is doing in which

the subject plays the key part of the news. In TJP, the

comparison of the Indonesia and Malaysia

government being the theme is 8:5 while in TS is 8:9

respectively. Both media in this case represent the

country government in which media published,

placing each country as the main focus of the news.

3.1.7 Report Proportion

Generally, the two media gave three kinds of

information: Indonesia’s action, Malaysia’s action

and the action from both countries. The simple

calculation of the report proportion is written in the

following table.

Table 2: The proportion of reporting.

Kinds of

information

The Jakarta

Post

The Star

Indonesia’s action

53.84 %

44.5 %

Malaysia’s action

38.46 %

50 %

Both countries

7.70 %

5.5 %

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Online Newspaper Articles on 29th SEA Games Flag Incident

By looking at the table, it can be analysed that TJP

and TS have different ways in reporting the event.

TJP focuses the action done by Indonesian

government, while TS tends to represent Malaysian

government as the main actor. Thus, the report

proportion has a role in detecting the tendencies of the

news media.

3.2 Explanation

After describing and interpreting the articles, the next

stage is explanation which is needed to make the

connection between language, power and ideology

clear.

The news articles represent the 29

SEA Games

hosted by Malaysian government in which tainted

with the issue having Indonesian flag being printed

upside down in the booklet distributed to the

participants. Youth and Sports Minister of Indonesia,

Imam Nahrawi, spotted that and then shared his

disappointment on his social media account, twitter,

which later triggered responses from Indonesian

netizen giving remark #ShameOnYouMalaysia.

Demonstration over Malaysian embassy in Jakarta

and the hacking on Malaysian websites following the

flag incident are the other reactions expressing the

disappointment toward the incident.

Flag of a country symbolises an honour and

dignity. In Indonesia case, it also reflects the struggle

in acquiring independence which contains historical

value. Considering the geographical aspect between

these neighbouring countries which have mutual

traits, including culture, history and religion, it seems

unnatural for organization committee getting the

Indonesian flag mistakenly printed. Thus, that what

makes citizens of a country feel insulted because of

the mistake of the flag.

Historically, Malaysia and Indonesia had a

number of problematic situation related to the right of

several islands lies around the nations. There were

also growing tension regarding the heritage culture,

like Reog and Batik. Batik is later officially

recognized as the Indonesia intangible heritage by

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural

Organization (UNESCO). Having prior conflict

makes the Indonesian are more sensitive towards the

incident demanding further investigation about it.

Officially, Malaysian government expressed

apology through the Foreign Affair Minister and

President of Indonesia accepted it. The president then

invited his citizens to move their attention to support

the Indonesian athlete in the sport event.

4 CONCLUSIONS AND

SUGGESTION

The analysis of two online newspaper articles shows

that even though the news is seen as objective social

practice product, it is inevitably determined by

ideology. From the two online articles, we can see the

difference in representing the same event. Thus, it is

undeniable that media has the ability in shaping the

readers’ perception.

In the first step analysis, describing the headlines,

lexical choice, quotation, quoting verbs, scare quote,

theme, and report proportion was done to observe in

what point of view the journalists from both

newspaper media representing the event.

Secondly, the interpretation was done on those

aspects in getting the implication of the lexical

features chosen. Therefore, the embedded ideology

can be revealed.

Lastly, those point of view and interpretation were

related to the social context geographically, culturally

and historically as the social context is important in

finding out the background of the issue. Therefore, it

is useful to for the readers to be aware and critical

when reading news media.

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Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education

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A Critical Discourse Analysis of Online Newspaper Articles on 29th SEA Games Flag Incident